“Am I not Kirby, you dog?” I cried, and ran him through the shoulder.

He dropped, and his fellows surged forward with a yell.  “Yet a little patience, my masters!” said Paradise in a raised voice and with genuine amusement in his eyes.  “It is true that that Kirby with whom I and our friend there on the ground sailed was somewhat short and as swart as a raven, besides having a cut across his face that had taken away part of his lip and the top of his ear, and that this gentleman who announces himself as Kirby hath none of Kirby’s marks.  But we are fair and generous and open to conviction”—­

“He’ll have to convince my cutlass!” roared Red Gil.

I turned upon him.  “If I do convince it, what then?” I demanded.  “If I convince your sword, you of Spain, and yours, Sir Black and Silver?”

The Spaniard stared.  “I was the best sword in Lima,” he said stiffly.  “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.  So with these.  They spread themselves into a circle, squatting or kneeling or standing upon the white sand in the bright sunshine, their sinewy hands that should have been ingrained red clasped over their knees, or, arms akimbo, resting upon their hips, on their scoundrel faces a broad smile, and in their eyes that had looked on nameless horrors a pleasurable expectation as of spectators in a playhouse awaiting the entrance of the players.