CHAPTER II.

COUNT D'ARTIGAS.


Just who was this Count d'Artigas? A Spaniard? So his name would
appear to indicate. Yet on the stern of his schooner, in letters of
gold, was the name _Ebba_, which is of pure Norwegian origin. And had
you asked him the name of the captain of the _Ebba_, he would have
replied, Spade, and would doubtless have added that that of the
boatswain was Effrondat, and that of the ship's cook, Helim--all
singularly dissimilar and indicating very different nationalities.

Could any plausible hypothesis be deducted from the type presented by
Count d'Artigas? Not easily. If the color of his skin, his black hair,
and the easy grace of his attitude denoted a Spanish origin, the
_ensemble_ of his person showed none of the racial characteristics
peculiar to the natives of the Iberian peninsula.

He was a man of about forty-five years of age, about the average
height, and robustly constituted. With his calm and haughty demeanor
he resembled an Hindoo lord in whose blood might mingle that of some
superb type of Malay. If he was not naturally of a cold temperament,
he at least, with his imperious gestures and brevity of speech,
endeavored to make it appear that he was. As to the language usually
spoken by him and his crew, it was one of those idioms current in
the islands of the Indian Ocean and the adjacent seas. Yet when his