o breakfast?"

"By all means," said I; and we were in the very act of ascending the
companion-ladder when Francisco made his appearance at its head, coming
down stern-foremost, with a coffee-pot in one hand and a smoking dish of
broiled fish in the other, so we had to give way for him or run an
imminent risk of being scalded.

"El capitano kisses your hands, excellencies," said the lad, as he laid
his double burden on the table, "and he hopes you have both slept well."

"Admirably," I answered, adding, as I looked at the appetising dish
which sent up its grateful odours from the table, "Put out another
plate, knife and fork, and so on; and tell `el capitano' that we shall
be very pleased if he will join us at breakfast."

The lad stared at us in mute astonishment for a moment, flushing like a
bashful girl meanwhile. Then, recovering himself, he muttered: "I will
tell him, gentlemen; he will feel himself highly honoured."

"That is all right," laughed Courtenay, as the lad slid up the
companion; "a very right and proper feeling, though I scarcely know why
he should experience it."

A minute later a heavy tramp was audible coming along the deck. The
sunlight streaming down through the open companion suffered a temporary
eclipse; a pair of legs, encased in enormous sea-boots, presented
themselves to our admiring gaze, and finally a huge fellow of fully six
feet in height, and broad in proportion, came towards us, bowing and
stooping in the most awkward manner, partly by way of salutation and
partly to avoid striking his head against the low deck-beams. He was
dark-complexioned, bushy whiskered, with keen restless black eyes, and a
shock of ebon hair very imperfectly concealed by a black-and-red-striped
fisherman's cap of knitted worsted, which he removed deferentially the
moment his eye fell upon us. He wore large gold ear-rings in his ears,
and was attired in a thick dreadnought jacket over a black-and-red-
striped shirt, which was confined about his waist by a broad leather
belt, to which was attached a sheath-knife of most formidable
dimensions. The skirts of the shirt were worn _outside_ his trousers,
so that his _tout ensemble_ was exactly that of a dashing pirate or
smuggler bold, as that interesting individual is presented on the boards
of a third-rate transpontine theatre of the present day. He was a
picturesque-looking person enough, _but he certainly was not Juan
Gonzalez_, to whom he bore no more res