Frascuelo, delighted to have secured a sympathetic listener, poured

forth his sorrows volubly. He bore no ill-will against the captain he

said. He knew it was wrong to draw a knife on the chief officer, as

his tale was an unlikely one, and he ought to have trusted to a more

orderly recital of the facts to obtain credence.

"But I was that mad, señorita, I just saw red, and the drink was yet

surging up in me. I felt I must fight somebody, whatever the

consequences."

"Can you tell me why any one had such a grievance against you that you

should be thrown into the hold and nearly killed? That was a strange

thing to do, especially as you came aboard too late for your work."

"Ah, that is the point, señorita. You see, we trimmers work in gangs,

and the man who flung me through the hatch was the man who had taken my

place. I see no reason to doubt that it was he who made me drunk the

previous evening, and I know who did that."

"What was his name?"

"José Anacleto--'José the Wine-bag' we call him on the Plaza. I ought

to have smelt mischief when José paid. Never before had I seen him do

such a thing. And a good liquor, too. Dios, it must have cost him

dollars."

"What object had he in coming on board instead of you?"

"Ah, there you beat me, señorita. I have twisted my poor brain with

thinking of that. We only earned a dollar a head, and bunkering a ship

from a flat is hard work while it lasts, whereas one would expect José

to ride twenty miles the other way to escape such a task. But he was

in the plot, and he shall tell me why, or--"

By force of habit, Frascuelo put his right hand to his belt, but his

sheath knife had been taken from him. He smiled sheepishly; yet his

black eyes twinkled.

"Plot! Why do you speak of a plot?" asked the girl, hoping that the

word betokened some more promising clue than she could discern thus far.

"Why did the furnaces blow up? Tell me that, and I can answer you.

Good, honest coal isn't made of gunpowder. José, or some one behind

him, meant to sink the ship, and, as I might have proved awkward, they

were willing that I should go down with her. Maybe I shall meet José

if we get out of this rat-trap; then we shall have a little talk."

Again his hand wandered towards his waist, but he bethought himself,

and bent in pretense that the bandage on his leg needed readjusting.

Despite the man's shrewd guess as to the cause of the accident in the

stoke-hold, Elsie was at a loss to connect the freak of some Valparaiso

loafer with the deep-laid scheme which contemplated the destruction of

the Kansas. She had followed the discussion in the chart-room with

full appreciation of its significance. Valuable as the ship and cargo

were, there was far more at stake in the effect of the loss on the

copper markets of the world. The most important copper-exporting firm

in Chile would practically be ruined, while the Paris "ring," of which

she had read in the newspapers, would have matters its own way.

Financial interests of such magnitude would hardly be bound up with the

carousals and quarrels of Frascuelo and José the Wine-bag. Yet-"Have you ever heard of a Señor Pedro Ventana?" she asked suddenly.




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