Then he put about and the play began.
"Now, you fool, where are you paddling to ?" said Leonard in a loud voice to Otter, speaking in the bastard Arabic which passes current for a language on this coast.

"You will have us into the bank, I tell you.
Curse this wind and the darkness! Steady now, you ugly black dog; those must be the gates the letter told of--are they not, woman?
Hold on with the boat-hook, can't you ?" A wicket at the gate above rattled and the voice of the sentry challenged them.
"A friend--a friend!" answered Leonard in Portuguese; "one who is a stranger and would pay his respects to your leader, Dom Antonio Pereira, with a view to business." "What is your name ?" asked the guard suspiciously.
"Pierre is my name.

Dog is the name of the dwarf my servant, and as for the old woman, you can call her anything you like." "The password," said the sentry; "none come in here without the word." "The word--Ah! what did the Dom Xavier say it was in his letter?
'Fiend!' No, I have it, 'Devil' is the word." "Where do you hail from ?" "From Madagascar, where the goods you have to supply are in some demand just now.

Come, let us in; we don't want to sit here all night and miss the fun." The man began to unbar the door, and stopped, struck by a fresh doubt.
"You are not of our people," he said; "you speak Portuguese like a cursed Englishman." "No, I should hope not; I am a 'cursed Englishman,' that is half--son of an English lord and a French creole, born in the Mauritius at your service, and let me ask you to be a little more civil, for cross-bred dogs are fierce." Now at length the sentry opened one side of the gate, grumbling, and Leonard swaggered up the steps followed by the other two.

Already they were through it, when suddenly he turned and struck Otter in the face.
"Why, Dog," he said angrily, "you have forgotten to bring up the keg of brandy, my little present for the Dom.