The captain held up his hand and shouted for silence. "One at a time, there," he ordered, and when order had a little been restored, added grumblingly, "Like a pack of dogs on a bone. You talk, boatswain."
"I hit one of them," said the boy. Somebody cuffed him over the head, and he relapsed into silence.
When the boatswain's story had rambled through labyrinths of digression, over countless obstacles of interruptions and emendations, to its conclusion, the Spaniard went back to join his companion under the awning. He had assumed again his habitual indifference.
"Nearly butchered," he said languidly, in response to her eager questions. "They"--he jerked a hand in the direction of the town--"they were pelting an old fellow who had come there preaching the Faith. Left him dead on the beach. Our men had to run for it."
She could get no more out of him; he turned over and pretended to go to sleep.
Towards evening they received a visit from the captain. He was a large, handsome man, with gold ear-rings glinting from among a bush of black hair.
"Divine Providence," he remarked sententiously, after the usual courtesies had passed, "has called upon us to perform a very notable work."
"No less a work," continued the captain, "than to save from the clutches of the infidels and heathen the precious remains of a holy martyr."
The captain let fall his pompous manner. It was evident that he had carefully prepared these pious sentences, they rolled so roundly off his tongue. But he was eager now to get on with his story, and it was in a homelier style that he went on: "If you knew these seas as well as I--and it's near twenty years now that I've been sailing them--you'd have some knowledge of this same holy man that--God rot their souls for it!--these cursed Arabs have done to death here. I've heard of him more than once in my time, and not always well spoken of; for, to tell the honest truth, he does more harm with his preachments to good Christian traders than ever he did good to black-hearted heathen dogs. Leave the bees alone, I say, and if you can get a little honey out of them quietly, so much the better; but he goes about among the beehives with a pole, stirring up trouble for himself and others too. Leave them alone to their damnation, is what I say, and get what you can from them this side of hell. But, still, he has died a holy martyr's death. God rest his soul! A martyr is a wonderful thing, you know, and it's not for the likes of us to understand what they mean by it all.