"I touched once at the Lucayas, and found the spring de Leon sought," I said. "Sure the waters have a marvelous effect, and if they give not eternal youth at least renew that which we have lost."
"Truly a potent aqua vitae," he remarked, still with thoughtful melancholy. "I see that it hath changed your eyes from black to gray."
"It hath that peculiar virtue," I said, "that it can make black seem white."
The man with the woman's mantle drawn about him now thrust himself from the rear to the front rank. "That's not Kirby!" he bawled. "He's no more Kirby than I am Kirby! Did n't I sail with Kirby from the Summer Isles to Cartagena and back again? He's a cheat, and I am agoing to cut his heart out!" He was making at me with a long knife, when I whipped out my rapier.
"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 a 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 gravedigger 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."