s English,"
answered Don Hermoso, "but I beg to assure you, Senor, that your Spanish
is excellent; far better, indeed, than that spoken by many of my own
countrymen. If it be not too tedious to you, Senor, I would beg you to
do me the favour of speaking Spanish for the remainder of the evening,
as I find it exceedingly difficult to make myself quite clearly
understood in English."

Jack having expressed his perfect readiness to fall in with this
suggestion, Don Hermoso continued:

"Carlos has been telling me what passed between you and him to-day,
Senor Singleton, and although I was naturally somewhat disinclined to
give an unqualified assent to his suggestion before I had seen you,
permit me to say that now, having seen, watched, and conversed with you,
nothing will give me greater pleasure than to endorse his proposal,
unless it be to hear that you agree to it."

"To be perfectly candid, Don Hermoso, I feel very strongly inclined to
do so," answered Jack. "But before I can possibly give my assent to
Carlos's proposal you must permit me to clearly indicate the risks to
you involved in it. You know absolutely nothing of me, Senor, beyond
what you have learned from your son; and it is in the highest degree
essential that you should clearly understand that what Carlos suggested
to me this afternoon involves you in the risk of losing your yacht, for
the carrying into effect of that proposal would make the vessel
positively my own, to do as I pleased with; and if I should choose to
retain possession of her, neither you nor anybody else could prevent
me."

"I very clearly understand all that, my dear young friend," answered Don
Hermoso, "and I am perfectly willing to take the risks, for several
reasons. In the first place, if you were the kind of individual to do
what you have just suggested, I do not for an instant believe that you
would have warned me that the proposal involved me in the risk of losing
my yacht. In the next place, although, as you say, I know little or
nothing about you, my son Carlos knows you pretty intimately, and I can
rely upon his judgment of you. And, finally, I do not believe that any
Englishman in your position would or could be guilty of such infamous
conduct as you have suggested. The fact is that we shall certainly be
obliged to trust somebody--for if it were once known that the yacht
belonged to me she would be so strictly watched that we could do little
or nothing with her; and I