"Get away from here, you drunken, quarrelling brutes! Has it come to this, that a respectable priest of Holy Church may not hold private converse with the condemned without a brawl at the very door?
Mother of God! what meaneth the fracas?
Where is the guard?
Why don't some of them jab their steel in the blasphemous ragamuffins who thus make mock of the holy offices of religion?
Take that, you black, sprawling beast!" He aimed a vicious stroke at my head, which I ducked in the nick of time to permit of its landing with full force in my companion's ribs.
I heard him grunt in acknowledgment of its receipt.
"Where is the guard, I say! If they come not I will strangle the dogs with my own consecrated hands to the glory of God.

By the sainted Benedine! was ever one of our Order so basely treated before?
Get away, I tell you! 'Tis a disgrace to the true faith, and just as I was about to bring the Chevalier to his knees in confession of his sins!" Gonzales was fairly doubled up with laughter at the ludicrous incident, choking so that speech had become an utter impossibility.

By this time the aroused guards began hurrying forward on a run down the passageway to rescue their imperilled comrade, yet, before the foremost succeeded in laying hands upon me, a newcomer, resplendent in glittering uniform, with an inflamed, almost purple face, leaped madly forth from the opposite side of the mast and began laying about him vigorously with an iron pin, making use meanwhile of a vocabulary of choice Spanish epithets such as I never heard equalled.
"By the shrine of Saint Gracia!" shouted this new arrival hoarsely, glaring about in the dim light as if half awakened from a bad dream.
"What meaneth this aboard my ship?
_Caramba_! is this a travelling show--a place for mountebanks and gypsies?
Shut the door, you shrieking gray-back of a monk, or I 'll have you cat-o'-nine-tailed by the guard, in spite of your robe.

Get up, you drunken brute!" The crestfallen soldier to whom these last affectionate words were addressed limped painfully away, and then the justly irate commander of His Christian Majesty's flag-ship "Santa Maria" glowered down on me with an astonishment that for the moment held him dumb.
"Where did this dirty nigger come from ?" he roared at last, applying one of his heavy sea-boots to me with vehemence.

"Who is the villain who dared bring such cattle on board my ship ?" Gonzales, now thoroughly sobered by the seriousness of the situation, attempted to account for my presence, but before he had fairly begun his story, the Captain, who by this time was beyond all reason, burst roaring forth again: "Oh, so you brought him! You did, hey?
Well, did n't I tell you to let no lazy, loafing bumboat-man set foot on board?
Do you laugh at my orders, you good-for-nothing scum of the sea?
And above all things why did you ever drag such a creature as this down between decks to disgrace the whole of His Majesty's navy?
Get up, you bundle of rags!" I scrambled to my feet, seeking to shuffle to one side out of his immediate sight, but a heavy hand closed instantly on my ragged collar and held me fronting him.