nd his hands clawed the air,
as though he saw the Spaniards before him, and was reaching for their
throats! I thought it my duty to check so maniacal an intensity of
hatred, and I said to him:

"Come, come, Hoard, this will never do! I understood you to say, just
now, that you had been converted from the error of your ways, and had
become a Christian. Do you call it Christian-like to hate with such
intensity as you exhibit? The Bible says that we should love our
enemies, bless those who curse us, and do good to those who despitefully
use us. How do you reconcile your present feelings with such an
injunction as that?"

"Ah!" he groaned, sinking back upon the locker from which he had risen
in his excitement; "you have me there, sir; I can't reconcile it; that's
just where it is. I can't forgive my enemies, nor I can't love 'em; and
I can't bring myself to do good to 'em. No; I've tried, I've kept my
lips closed, I've prayed, I've done all that a man can do, and it's no
good; I shall never be able to rest until I've seen them cruel, haughty,
overbearin' wretches brought low. They're the enemies of God and man,
because they drive poor, weak souls to curse their Maker for permittin'
such cruelty. I've done it myself, over and over again! the good Lord
forgive me! No, sir, it ain't in man's power to forgive a Spaniard
who's got you into his power, and I can't believe that such an
impossibility is expected of us. I don't believe that the passage you
quoted just now was ever meant to apply to Spaniards at all!"

"Well," said I, "I am afraid that such a question is altogether too
difficult a one for me to argue with you; you had better see a
clergyman, and discuss the whole matter with him. But we have wandered
somewhat from our original subject, which was the galleon. What more
can you tell me about her? When is she to sail?"

"It was said," answered Hoard, "that she was to sail exactly a fortnight
after the _Magdalena_. That's why I've made so bold as to come down and
tell you about it now. If you start to overhaul your rigging, I'm
afraid that you'll not be ready in time to catch her. She is a big
ship, sir; close upon sixteen hundred tons, I should call her, and I
ought to know; for the _Magdalena_ laid within a cable's length of her
for more than a week. She is heavily armed, too; mounts twenty-eight
eighteen-pound carronades; and carries on her books a complement of
close upon two hundred men. Her na