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 Jose
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. Jose, 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 Jose
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_.
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