discharged him. It was there the villain shipped with me, in lieu of one
of the Rosario gang who had been kindly taken in charge by the guard at
Ilha Grande and brought to Rio to be tried before the American Consul
for insubordination. Said he, one day when I urged him to make haste and
help save the topsails in a squall, "Oh, I'm no soft-horn to be
hurried!" It was the time the bark lost her topgallant-mast and was cast
on her beam-ends on the voyage to Antonina, already told; it was, in
fact, no time for loafing, and this braggart at a decisive word hurried
aloft with the rest to do his duty. What I said to him was meant for
earnest, and it cowed him. It is only natural to think that he held a
grudge against me forever after, and waited only for his opportunity;
knowing, too, that I was the owner of the bark, and supposed to have
money. He was heard to say in a rum-mill a day or two before the attack
that he would find the ---- money and his life, too. His chum and bosom
friend had come pretty straight from Palermo penitentiary at Buenos
Aires when he shipped with me at Rosario.

It was no secret on board the bark that he had served two years for
robbing, and cutting a ranchman's throat from ear to ear. These records,
which each seemed to glory in, were verified in both cases.

I met the captain afterwards who had been "busted in the jaw"--Captain
Roberts, of Baltimore, a quiet gentleman, with no evil in his heart for
any one, and a man, like myself, well along in years.

Two of the gang, old Rosario hands, had served for the lesser offence of
robbery alone--they brought up in the rear! The other two of my foremast
hands--one a very respectable Hollander, the other a little Japanese
sailor, a bright, young chap--had been robbed and beaten by the four
ruffians, and then threatened so that they deserted to the forest