Here we waited nearly half-an-hour, at the conclusion of which a door at
the upper end of the chamber opened, and a tall, rather good-looking
man, dressed entirely in white, entered. At his appearance Carlos
sprang to his feet and, saluting, handed over the note which Mateo had
scrawled. The stranger, who was none other than "Don" Victor Fernandez,
Captain Manuel Garcia's second-in-command, took the note, read it,
glanced at me curiously, and then nodded curtly to Carlos and his
companions.
"Good!" he ejaculated. "The Captain will highly appreciate the
thoughtfulness of your new chief, Mateo, in sending him this Englishman.
In his name I desire to tender his warmest thanks to Mateo, and request
you to convey them, with every expression of his highest consideration.
Do you leave us to-night, or will you remain until the morning? If the
latter--"
"_Mille gracias, senor_!" answered Carlos; "we should greatly like to
stay here for the night, and rest, for this day has been an
exceptionally trying and fatiguing one for us; but Mateo's instructions
that we should rejoin him at the earliest possible moment were
imperative and must not be neglected. But if we may be permitted to
stay long enough to share your people's supper, we will gladly do so."
"So be it," answered Fernandez. "Find Pacheco, and tell him that you
will sup in the great hall with the rest of the hands, and then request
him to come to me." Whereupon Carlos and his two fellow-cut-throats
saluted and retired.
For a minute or two after the departure of the trio, Fernandez sat
meditatively regarding me in silence, twisting and turning Mateo's note
in his fingers meanwhile. At length, with just the ghost of a smile
flickering over his features, he said, tapping the note in his hand:
"The worthy Mateo tells me that you were the officer in command of the
little schooner that gave the _Tiburon_ such a severe dressing down a
little while ago. Is that really the fact?"
"Yes," I answered, "I am proud to say that it is."
"Well," he returned, "I can scarcely credit it. Why, you are only a
boy!"
"So people are constantly reminding me," I retorted. "But in the
British Navy boys soon learn to do men's work."
"So it would appear," assented my interlocutor, apparently in nowise
offended at my brusque method of answering him. "And you are an
Englishman, of course. What is your name?"