_Bastante_! but he must have acquired a thirst by this time to make his temper red-hot." The other laughed sourly.
"Poh! I know even a better reason for his going dry than that, Juan.
He does n't have chance for a drink alongside of that gray-bellied French priest below.

_Caramba_! it takes him to polish off the red liquor." "How know you that ?" "Saint Christopher! how know I?
Did I not just meet him at the main hatch so drunk he fell over the coamings.

The sojer on guard set him up against the butt of the foremast to sober off in the night air." I experienced difficulty in repressing a laugh at the words, but the two fellows were going down by this time, grumbling in their beards because they had discovered nothing wrong as reward for their trip aloft, so I contented myself by silently pressing my companion's arm, although doubtless he had comprehended no word of the conversation.
We rested there motionless, with no attempt at speech, for fully twenty minutes before I ventured to haul in the line which dangled downward from my hand.

Everything remained quiet below, and, coiling it carefully over my arm, I noiselessly arose to my feet once more, poising myself to essay a second cast.

As straight this time as an arrow from the taut string of a bow the noose sped silently away into the darkness.