THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 99 



the guard with the yarn that the black was a desperado, 

 and had been the death of "Iiidianos muchos." As the 

 frightened fellow unintentionally slanted toward a pile of 

 spears, the soldiers thought his bad fit was coming on 

 strong. The scene came to a head in our black boy's 

 gradually backing against an arms -rack, and watching 

 the soldiers as closely as they watched him. At last his 

 drunken, frightened brain thought that he was surrounded 

 and entrapped, and he plucked down a lance, with a wild 

 yell charging for one of the frightened Indians. We inter- 

 fered now, and quieted the excited fellow by promising to 

 see him safe on board the Chelsea. 



Late in the night, or early morning, as tolled by the bell 

 of the cathedral, we heard our mother English in plaintive, 

 maudlin tones in the street, and made it out as old " Chips," 

 the carpenter. -In a boosy sing-song he was pleading his 

 cause. The door was thrown open, and his venerable head 

 nodded to us as he leaned against the door. There he stared 

 at the poor fellows in the stocks. He had us very much 

 mixed up evidently, and he staggered helplessly, hopelessly 

 forward, and threw himself on the low platform where the 

 sergeant of the guard was trying to sleep. The worthy 

 officer took umbrage, and then ensued a wonderfully con- 

 fused intermingling of English and Spanish maledictions, 

 as the mad Spaniard and the tipsy Yankee squirmed for 

 possession of the narrow shelf. We interfered to keep off 

 the soldiers from molesting our old shipmates. "Blood 

 will tell, the world over," and Don Emanuel was tumbled 

 out of bed much as the callow sparrow is by the unfledged 

 cuckoo. We sprang in and seized the arm of the furious 

 don, to prevent him from carving the figure-head of Chips 

 with his sword, the carpenter himself meantime sitting on 

 his conquest, and crowing like a game-cock. After this in- 

 cident, until morning, on some pretext or other, we managed 



