CHAPTER X 

MARSTON USES HIS POWER 

Soon after Don Felix was buried two strangers visited the schooner. One was white but so burned by the sun and worn by the climate that he looked like a native. Peters was agent for a Hamburg merchant house with a factory on a neighboring lagoon, and told Wyndham he had come because he seldom met a white man. The other was a government officer and stated, apologetically, that his business was to make a few inquiries about Don Felix's death. His skin was nearly white, but his coarse lips and short, curling hair indicated a strain of negro blood. 

Marston knew something about the officials who held small posts on the Caribbean coast. For the most part, they were mulattos, paid low wages and willing to augment the latter by presents and bribes. As a rule, he had found them good-humored and indolent, and he imagined Don Ramon Larrinaga would be satisfied with a few particulars and a little money. There was, he thought, no use in trying to put him on the track of the unknown poisoner. He let Wyndham take the man to the cabin and sat under the awning on deck with Peters, for whom he opened a bottle of vermouth. 

Peters knew much about the country and told him some rather curious stories. He looked shriveled and desiccated, but his glance was keen and Marston imagined he was very shrewd. Marston, however, did not study him much; it was enough that he was an amusing companion while Wyndham was occupied. By-and-by the latter opened the cabin scuttle and beckoned. 
Had he been buried yet?
Soon after Don Felix was buried t