With the instinct of an old soldier, the Commander, after one glance at the intruder, turned quickly toward the wall, where his trusty Toledo hung, or should have been hanging.

But it was not there, and as he recalled that the last time he had seen that weapon it was being ridden up and down the gallery by Pepito, the infant son of Bautista, the tortilla-maker, he blushed and then contented himself with frowning upon the intruder.
But the stranger's air, though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful.

He was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea boots of a mariner.

Except a villainous smell of codfish, there was little about him that was peculiar.
His name, as he informed the Commander, in Spanish that was more fluent than elegant or precise--his name was Peleg Scudder.

He was master of the schooner GENERAL COURT, of the port of Salem in Massachusetts, on a trading voyage to the South Seas, but now driven by stress of weather into the bay of San Carlos.