hristians, and it behoves us to act in
despite of your Government, who are heretics and not to be tolerated
upon God's Christian earth. But, Senor, if they incommoded your
Government as they do us, I do not wonder that there was a desire to
remove them. Senor, the life of that man is not worth the price of eight
mules, which is the price I have paid for my release. I might walk free
at this moment, but it is not fitting that I should slink away under
cover of darkness. I shall go out in the daylight with my carriage. And
I will have an offering to show my friends who, like me, are incommoded
by this...." The man was a monomaniac; but it struck me that, if I had
been O'Brien, I should have felt uncomfortable.

In the dark of the corridor a long shape appeared, lounging. The Cuban
beside me started hospitably forward.

"_Vamos_," he said briskly; "to the banquet...." He waved his hand
towards the shining door and stood aside. We entered.

The other man was undoubtedly the Nova Scotian mate of the _Thames_, the
man who had dissuaded me from following Carlos on the day we sailed into
Kingston Harbour. He was chewing a toothpick, and at the ruminant motion
of his knife-jaws I seemed to see him, sitting naked to the waist in
his bunk, instead of upright there in red trousers and a blue shirt--an
immense lank-length of each. I pieced his history together in a sort of
flash. He was the true Nikola el Escoces; his name was Nichols, and he
came from Nova Scotia. He had been the chief of O'Brien's _Lugarenos_.
He surveyed me now with a twinkle in his eyes, his yellow jaws as
shiny-shaven as of old; his arms as much like a semaphore. He said
mockingly:

"So you went there, after all?"

But the Cuban was pressing us towards his banquet; there was _gaspacho_
in silver plates, and a man in livery holding something in a napkin. It
worried me. We surveyed each other in silence. I wondered what Nichols
knew; what it would be safe to tell him; how much he could help me? One
or other of these men undoubtedly might. The Cuban was an imbecile; but
he might have some influence--and if he really were going out on the
morrow, and really did go to the Captain-General, he certainly could
further his own revenge on O'Brien by helping me.... But as for
Nichols....

Salazar began to tell a long, exaggerated story about his cook, whom he
had imported from Paris.

"Think," he said; "I bring the fool two thousand miles--and then--not
even able