my own words.

Tomas Castro sprang up, and placed his rough, hot hand over my lips.

"Be quiet, John Kemp, you fool!" he hissed with sudden energy.

He had spruced himself, but I seemed to see the rags still nutter about
him. He had combed out his beard, but I could not forget the knots that
had been in it.

"I told your worship how foolish and wrong-headed these English are," he
said sardonically to Carlos. And then to me, "If the senor speaks loudly
again, I shall kill him."

He was evidently very frightened of something.

Carlos, silent as an apparition at the foot of the ladder, put a finger
to his lips and glanced upwards.

Castro writhed his whole body, and I stepped backwards. "I know what Rio
Medio is," I said, not very loudly. "It is a nest of pirates."

Castro crept towards me again on the points of his toes. "Señor Don Juan
Kemp, child of the devil," he hissed, looking very much frightened, "you
must die!"

I smiled. He was trembling all over. I could hear the talking and
laughing that went on under the break of the poop. Two women were
kissing, with little cries, near the hatchway. I could hear them
distinctly.