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 Lugareños. 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 to begin on a land-crab. A fool!”
The Nova Scotian cast an uninterested side glance at him, and said in English, which Salazar did not understand:
“So you went there, after all? And now he’s got you.” I did not answer him. “I know all about you,” he added.
“It’s more than I do about you,” I said.
He rose and suddenly jerked the door open, peered on each side of the corridor, and then sat down again.
“I’m not afraid to tell,” he said defiantly. “I’m not afraid of anything. I’m safe.”
The Cuban said to me in Spanish: “This señor is my friend. Everyone who hates that devil is my friend.”
“I’m safe,” Nichols repeated. “I know too much about our friend the raparee.” He lowered his voice. “They say you’re to be given up for piracy, eh?” His eyes had an extraordinarily anxious leer. “You are now, eh? For how much? Can’t you tell a man? We’re in the same boat! I kin help you!”
Salazar accidentally knocked a silver goblet off the table and, at the sound, Nichols sprang half off his chair. He glared in a wild stare around him then grasped at a flagon of aguardiente and drank.
“I’m not afraid of any damn thing,” he said. “I’ve got a hold on that man. He dursen’t give me up. I kin see! He’s going to give you up and say you’re responsible for it all.”
“I don’t know what he’s going to do,” I answered.
“Will you not, Señor,” Salazar said suddenly, “relate, if you can without distress, the heroic death of that venerated man?”
I glanced involuntarily at Nichols. “The distress,” I said, “would be very great. I was Don Balthasar’s kinsman. The Señor O’Brien had a great fear of my influence in the Casa. It was in trying to take me away that Don Balthasar, who defended me, was slain by the Lugareños of O’Brien.”
Salazar said, “Aha! Aha! We are kindred spirits. Hated and loved by the same souls. This fiend, Señor. And then. …”
“I escaped by sea—in an open boat, in the confusion. When I reached Havana, the Juez had me arrested.”
Salazar raised both hands; his gestures, made for large, grave men, were comic in him. They reduced Spanish manners to absurdity. He said:
“That man dies. That man dies. Tomorrow I go to the Captain-General. He shall hear this story of yours, Señor. He shall know of these machinations which bring honest men to this place. We are a band of brothers. …”
“That’s what I say.” Nichols leered at me. “We’re all in the same boat.”
I expect he noticed that I wasn’t moved by his declaration. He said, still in English:
“Let us be open. Let’s have a council of war. This O’Brien hates me because I wouldn’t fire on my own countrymen.” He glanced furtively at me. “I wouldn’t,” he asserted; “he wanted me to fire into their boats; but I wouldn’t. Don’t you believe the tales they tell about me! They tell worse about you. Who says I would fire on my countrymen? Where’s the man who says it?” He had been drinking more brandy and glared ferociously at me. “None of your tricks, my hearty,” he said. “None of your getting out and spreading tales. O’Brien’s my friend; he’ll never give me up. He dursen’t. I know too much. You’re a pirate! No doubt it was you who fired into them boats. By God I’ll be witness against you if they give me up. I’ll show you up.”
All the while the little
