many hundreds of
dollars."

Ramon was, indeed, one of the most frequented merchants in Jamaica; he
had stores in both Kingston and Spanish Town; his cargoes came from all
the seas. All the planters and all the official class in the island had
dealings with him.

"It was most natural that the hidalgo, your respected cousin, should
consult me if he wished to go to any town in Cuba. Whom else should
he go to? You yourself, senor, or the excellent Mr. Topnambo, if you
desired to know what ships in a month's time are likely to be sailing
for Havana, for New Orleans, or any Gulf port, you would ask me. What
more natural? It is my business, my trade, to know these things. In that
way I make my bread. But as for Rio Medio, I do not know the place." He
had a touch of irony in his composed voice. "But it is very certain,"
he went on, "that if your Government had not recognized the belligerent
rights of the rebellious colony of Mexico, there would be now no letters
of marque, no accursed Mexican privateers, and I and everyone else in
the island should not now be losing thousands of dollars every year."

That was the eternal grievance of every Spaniard in the island--and of
not a few of the English and Scotch planters. Spain was still in
the throes of losing the Mexican colonies when Great Britain had
acknowledged the existence of a state of war and a Mexican Government.
Mexican letters of marque had immediately filled the Gulf. No kind of
shipping was safe from them, and Spain was quite honestly powerless to
prevent their swarming on the coast of Cuba--the Ever Faithful Island,
itself.

"What can Spain do," said Ramon bitterly, "when even your Admiral
Rowley, with his great ships, cannot rid the sea of them?" He lowered
his voice. "I tell you, young senor, that England will lose this Island
of Jamaica over this business. You yourself are a Separationist, are
you not?... No? You live with Separationists. How could I tell? Many
people say you are."

His words gave me a distinctly disagreeable sensation. I hadn't any idea
of being a Separationist; I was loyal enough. But I understood suddenly,
and for the first time, how very much like one I might look.

"I myself am nothing," Ramon went on impassively; "I am content that the
island should remain English. It will never again be Spanish, nor do I
wish that it should. But our little, waspish friend there"--he lifted
one thin, brown hand to the sign of the _Buckatoro Journal_--"