“Juan downed his coffee in a gulp.  ’And you shall come with us to see Luis,’ he goes on.  ’Come in your shipwreck clothes, it shall not matter to Luis.  I recollect now, sir, you are the American sailor he saw one time in Colon.  He has conversed many times of you.  The senora will not like it, you understand, you a sailor, but with the senorita, it is but to charm the more.  She loves me, her hard dog of an uncle, because I, who have adventured, can tell her a thousand tales.  You have adventured also and she is yet her father’s child.  Do not mind that I speak frankly, but come.  If I speak thus to you, it is because I know that you, senor, are one to understand and to trust.  We shall be glad to see you.  You go with Ferrero now?  Ver-ry good.’  Juan stood up and with his cane he saluted profoundly.  ‘Good-by, sir.  Ferrero, a Dios.’  He went as he came, with a rush.

“Stirred up by Juan, Cogan thought of calling that very night on Luis Roca and his family.  But he did not go, nor next day, nor that week.  He saw Juan regularly in the bull-ring, and always Juan urged him afresh, but Cogan did not go to see the Rocas.  ‘Later,’ perhaps, he said to Juan, who stared wonderingly at him but did not ask why.

“And so things went for several weeks, until that morning when the American battle fleet came steaming into Callao harbor.  Cogan was one of twenty or thirty thousand who crowded to the stone pier that day, and when the beautiful white ships came rounding in, he felt very proud.  And the yellow tongues of flame flashing and the white sides of the great war-ships gleaming through the smoke—­it made a tremendous impression on everybody; but to Cogan’s eyes the tears came.  People near him said, ‘Americano?’ inquiringly, to which Cogan’s bull-fighting friends replied—­’Si, si, Americano,’ and added a ‘Heep, heep, hoo-raw!’ to make Cogan feel more at home.

“That was the morning that Torellas told Cogan that if he wished he could go into the ring on the occasion of the festival which Peru was to hold in honor of the American fleet.  And such an occasion it was to be!  A welcome from a younger to the older republic.  There was to be a great bull-fight, at which Torellas was to make his last appearance before going to Spain.

“Spain!  Madrid!  The highest of honors!  Cogan looked at Torellas, but the matador didn’t seem to be so very glad.”

The pump-man seemed to be listening to something.  “Hear ’em?” he asked.

The passenger cocked up his ears, and heard them—­several voices from the depths of one of the tanks.

“It’s No. 11,” explained the pump-man, and hurried away.  The passenger saw him disappear into a hatchway.  Almost immediately the voices ceased and shortly four deck-hands hurriedly emerged.  Kieran followed.  “Beat it!” he ordered, and they somewhat sheepishly went forward.

Kieran came aft.  “What was the trouble?” asked the passenger.