"I
and my Toledo will not change our minds."
"Let him try to convince Paradise; he's got no reputation as a
swordsman!" cried out the grave-digger with the broken head.
A roar of laughter followed this suggestion, and I gathered from it and
from the oaths and allusions to this or that time and place that
Paradise was not without reputation.
I turned to him. "If I fight you three, one by one, and win, am I
Kirby?"
He regarded the shell with which he was toying with a thoughtful smile,
held it up that the light might strike through its rose and pearl, then
crushed it to dust between his fingers.
"Ay," he said with an oath. "If you win against the cutlass of Red Gil,
the best blade of Lima, and the sword of Paradise, you may call yourself
the devil an you please, and we will all subscribe to it."
I lifted my hand. "I am to have fair play?"
As one man that crew of desperate villains swore that the odds should be
only three to one. By this the whole matter had presented itself to them
as an entertainment more diverting than bullfight or bear-baiting. They
that follow the sea, whether honest men or black-hearted knaves, have in
their composition a certain childlikeness that makes them easily turned,
easily led, and easily pleased. The wind of their passion shifts quickly
from point to point, one moment blowing a hurricane, the next sinking to
a happy-go-lucky summer breeze. I have seen a little thing convert a
crew on the point of mutiny into a set of rollicking, good-natured souls
who--until the wind veered again--would not hurt a fly.
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