Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/58

 chance. If not, then I'll manage to return to my own."

"It is very well, I have no objection," Don Abrahan said, but coldly, with a distant withdrawing. "If you are prepared to make settlement with me in full, you are free to go your way."

"Settlement? in full?" Henderson repeated the words in uncomprehending amazement.

"Surely. There was fifty dollars that you owed me from the beginning," Don Abrahan calmly claimed.

"Fifty dollars that I owed you? Is that the way you make a joke in this country, Don Abrahan?"

"There was fifty dollars offered for your return to the ship. When I protected you I lost that sum. I had only to deliver you—is it not so?"

"It is a strange stand for a man of your consequence to take, Don Abrahan," Henderson said, profoundly disappointed, saddened not a little by this revelation of the patron's crafty narrowness. "But let that go; grant that I did owe you fifty dollars on that account. I have paid it, and more."

Henderson's anger was slow to rise. That fact alone had saved him many a blow under Captain Welliver's calloused mate, spared him the responsibility for Captain Welliver's life that day he laid him low with the broken oar. He had not struck so much in anger as in defense. If he had allowed his just wrath to expend itself on the captain that day, he would have been branded this