"What's all this got to do with paying of us?" growled Butler.
"You are quite at liberty," I continued, "to remain on board your own schooner; but in that case you return with us to England, where certainly my immediate duty will be to inform against you."
"What about our money? Ask him that," cried Scott to Mariana.
"I will send you and the lady," said Don Lazarillo, "to the first passing ship that is proceeding to England, and these sailors will continue the voyage with me to Cuba."
"Who's going to navigate the vessel?" said Tubb.
"A passing ship will help us to a lieutenant," answered Don Lazarillo.
"Where's the passing ship to come from?" sneered Butler. "Who's a-going to wait for her? And d'ye think us men 'ud be content to mess about in this blooming schooner, may be for weeks, not knowing where we are and not knowing how to head? Ask the gent who's a-going to pay us, cook? That's what we're assembled for to hear."
"Besides," said I, "I should not dream of transferring Miss Noble to another vessel in her present condition."
I spied Don Lazarillo and Mariana exchanging a look. Indeed, I already more than suspected that these proposals of the Spaniards so far were no more than a "try on," to use a cant term; that he held another card in his hand ready to play should he be forced to do so, but that, meanwhile, his business was to make the best terms he could for himself. This conjecture was confirmed by the next speech of his that Mariana translated:
"Then what remains but for me to be transshipped to a passing vessel--Mariana and me?"
"That is reasonable. That shall be done," said I. "It is what I myself should have proposed."
"_Contento!_" said Don Lazarillo, and was silent.
The Spaniard looked round him on Mariana rendering this, then said, "I will give drafts upon my bank at Madrid."
Butler, who was clearly the sea lawyer of this little community, fastening his eyes upon the rings on Don Lazarillo's fingers, shook his head with a contemptuous snort of laughter. "No, no," cried he, "I know what drafts be. A draft's a check, and a check's a bit of paper as may be made not worth the ink it's wrote upon with by the party withdrawing of his money from the bank. No, no," he continued, shaking his head somewhat savagely at Don Lazarillo, "we want money, not paper, and if ye can't pay us in money, then ye've got to settle with us in what is next best to it." And here he looked significantly at the Don's rings again.