Prisoners of Chance

"I got de only olibs on dis ribber."

"Bastenade!" yelled the infuriated fellow. "I 'll give you a shot to pay for your insolence."

Even as he spoke, fumbling the lock of his gun, that same head observed before suddenly popped over the high rail like Punch at a pantomime.

"Vat zat you say, nigger?" its owner cried doubtingly. "Vas it ze olif you haf zare in ze leetle boat?"

I eagerly held up into view a choice handful of green fruit, my eyes hopeful.

"Oui, Señor Oppercer--fresh olibs; same as ob your lan'."

The Spaniard was standing upright on the rail by this time, clinging fast to a rope dangling from above, leaning far over, no slight interest depicted upon his pinched, sallow countenance.

"It's all right, sentry," he said sharply to the soldier, who lowered his gun with a scowl indicating his real desire. My newly found friend lifted his squeaking voice again in unfamiliar speech.

"Bring ze leetle boat along ze side of ze sheep, you black fellar, an' come up here wiz ze olif fer ze Capitaine."

"Scull in close against those steps, Alphonse," I muttered, overjoyed at this rare stroke of good fortune. "Then pull out a few strokes; but stay alongside until I come back. Don't let any one get aboard, and keep a quiet tongue yourself."

The whites of his eyes alone answered me, he being too badly frightened for speech. The situation was one to grate upon any nerves unaccustomed to danger, yet, trusting the long training of the slave would hold him obedient, I turned away, and, in another moment, had scrambled up the rope ladder, plunging awkwardly over the high rail on to the hitherto concealed deck. My pulses throbbed with excitement over the desperate game fronting me, yet, with a coolness surprising to myself, I lost at that instant every sensation of personal fear, in determination to act thoroughly my assumed character. More lives than one hung in the balance, and, with tightly clenched teeth, I swore to prove equal to the venture. The very touch of those deck planks to my bare feet put new recklessness into my blood, causing me to marvel at the perfection of my own fool play.

The gaunt Spaniard commanding my presence stood waiting, hardly more than five paces from where I landed, yet so intense became my immediate interest in the strange scene--an interest partly real, but largely simulated for the occasion--that he contented himself watching my confused antics with much apparent amusement, and without addressing me. Even to this hour that scene lies distinct before my eyes. Possessed I skill with pencil I could sketch each small detail from the retina of memory--the solitary sentinel beside the rail, his well-worn uniform of blue and white dingy in the sun; another farther forward, where a great opening yawned; with yet a third, standing rigid before a closed door of the after cabin. An officer, his coat richly decorated with gold braid, wearing epaulets, and having a short sword dangling at his side, paced back and forth across the top of a little house near the stern. I heard him utter some command to a sailor near the wheel, but he never so much as glanced toward me. Perhaps thirty or more seamen, bronzed of face, and oddly bedecked as to hair, lounged idly amid the shadows opposite, while, more closely at hand, that gaunt, cadaverous Spaniard, at whose invitation I was present, leaned against a big gun, puffing nonchalantly at a cigarette, held between lean, saffron-colored fingers. The deck was white as the snows of a northern Winter, while the brass work along the railings and about the cannon glittered brilliantly in the sunshine. There was a gaudy yellow-and-white striped canopy stretched above a portion of the deck aft; the huge masts seemed to pierce into the blue of the skies; while on every side were ranged grim guns of brass and iron.