San Benavides was trying to tell her that Hozier and the rest had been overwhelmed by fate at the very instant escape seemed to be within reach.

The Brazilian, probably because of difficulties that beset him in using a foreign language, did not make it clear that he had flung himself flat in the dust when he heard the order to fire given by someone on board the launch.

He said nothing of a tragic incident wherein Marcel, shot through the lungs, fell over him, and he, San Benavides, mistaking the convict for an assailant, wrestled furiously with a dying man.

He even forgot to state that had he charged home with the others, he would either have met a bullet or gained the deck of the launch, and that his failure to reach the vessel was due to his own careful self-respect.

For San Benavides was not a coward.