More lives than one hung in the balance, and, with tightly clenched teeth, I swore to prove equal to the venture.

The very touch of those deck planks to my bare feet put new recklessness into my blood, causing me to marvel at the perfection of my own fool play.
The gaunt Spaniard commanding my presence stood waiting, hardly more than five paces from where I landed, yet so intense became my immediate interest in the strange scene--an interest partly real, but largely simulated for the occasion--that he contented himself watching my confused antics with much apparent amusement, and without addressing me.

Even to this hour that scene lies distinct before my eyes.
Possessed I skill with pencil I could sketch each small detail from the retina of memory--the solitary sentinel beside the rail, his well-worn uniform of blue and white dingy in the sun; another farther forward, where a great opening yawned; with yet a third, standing rigid before a closed door of the after cabin.

An officer, his coat richly decorated with gold braid, wearing epaulets, and having a short sword dangling at his side, paced back and forth across the top of a little house near the stern.

I heard him utter some command to a sailor near the wheel, but he never so much as glanced toward me.