held his breath and looked askance at his present Captain, who, however,
could never have heard him up there on the poop-deck! Natheless that
night the man was ordered forward, and finding Sir Mortimer Ferne
sitting alone, save for the boy, in the great cabin, was bidden to talk
of Robert Baldry. "Speak freely, Carpenter,--freely! Why, thou art one
of his friends, and I another, and we go, somewhat at our peril, to
hale him from perdition! Why, thou thyself saw him beckoning to us to
hasten and do our friendly part! So praise thy old Captain to me with
all thy might. We'll fill an empty hour with stories of his valor!" He
put forth his hand and turned the hour-glass, and the carpenter began to
stammer and make excuses, which no whit availed him.

At last, one afternoon, they came to Margarita, and, the ship needing
water, they entered a placid bight, where a strip of dazzling sand lay
between the rippling surf and a heavy wood, but found beforehand with
them a small bark from the mainland, her crew ashore filling barrels
from a limpid spring, and her master and a Franciscan friar eating fruit
upon her tiny poop. The dozen on land showed their heels; the worthless
bark was taken, a party with calivers landed to complete the filling of
the abandoned casks, and the master and the friar brought before the
Captain of the _Sea Wraith_ where he sat beneath a great tree, tasting
the air of the land. An insatiable gatherer of Spanish news, it was his
custom to search for what crumbs of knowledge his captives might
possess, but hitherto the yield, pressed together, had not made even a
small cake of enlightenment. He was prepared to have shortly done with
the two who now stood before him. The seaman cringed, expecting torture,
furtively watching for some indication of what the Englishman wished him
to say. A fellow new to these parts and ignorant, he would have sworn a
highway to El Dorado itself if that was the point towards which his
inquisitor's quiet, unemphatic questions tended; but he knew not, and