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.