should have laid to, but did not. I gave her the double-reefed
mainsail and whole jib instead, and set her on her course. Then I went
below, and threw myself upon the cabin floor in great pain. How long I
lay there I could not tell, for I became delirious. When I came to, as
I thought, from my swoon, I realized that the sloop was plunging into
a heavy sea, and looking out of the companionway, to my amazement I
saw a tall man at the helm. His rigid hand, grasping the spokes of the
wheel, held them as in a vise. One may imagine my astonishment. His
rig was that of a foreign sailor, and the large red cap he wore was
cockbilled over his left ear, and all was set off with shaggy black
whiskers. He would have been taken for a pirate in any part of the
world. While I gazed upon his threatening aspect I forgot the storm,
and wondered if he had come to cut my throat. This he seemed to
divine. "Senor," said he, doffing his cap, "I have come to do you no
harm." And a smile, the faintest in the world, but still a smile,
played on his face, which seemed not unkind when he spoke. "I have
come to do you no harm. I have sailed free," he said, "but was never
worse than a _contrabandista_. I am one of Columbus's crew," he
continued. "I am the pilot of the Pinta come to aid you. Lie quiet,
senor captain," he added, "and I will guide your ship to-night. You
have a _calentura_, but you will be all right tomorrow." I thought
what a very devil he was to carry sail. Again, as if he read my mind,
he exclaimed: "Yonder is the _Pinta_ ahead; we must overtake her. Give
her sail; give her sail! _Vale, vale, muy vale!_" Biting off a large
quid of black twist, he said: "You did wrong, captain, to mix cheese
with plums. White cheese is never safe unless you know whence it
comes. _Quien sabe_, it may have been from _leche de Capra_ and
becoming capricious--"

[Illustration: The apparition at the wheel.]