He did not remember what Miss Gascoyne said, and perhaps it was not of any particular consequence, but when she left them it happened that he and Jacinta did not look at one another. There was, in fact, an almost embarrassing silence, and through it they heard the rhythmic swing of a soft Spanish waltz, and the deep-toned murmur of the sea. Then Jacinta laughed.
"I wonder what you are thinking?" she said.
Austin smiled, somewhat drily. "I was endeavouring to remember that there are a good many things theEstremedura's sobrecargo must dispense with. It is exceedingly unlikely that anybody will ever leave me eight thousand pounds."
"I fancy there are a good many of us who would like to have a good deal more than we will probably ever get," said Jacinta. "It can only be a very few who ever hear the celestial music at all, and to them it comes but once in their life."
Austin looked at her quietly. "A little while ago I should not have considered Miss Gascoyne capable of hearing it; but now, and because I know the man she has promised to marry, I almost think she will, at least occasionally, be able to catch an echo of it. It must be difficult to hear that orchestra once and forget it."
Jacinta turned to him with a curious little smile in her eyes. "You and I are, of course, sensible people, and fancies of that kind have nothing to do with us. In the meanwhile, it is really necessary that I should appear in one or two of the dances."
Austin made a little gesture that might have expressed anything, and she rose and left him standing on the veranda.
It was the day after the dance at the Catalina, and Austin was running into Las Palmas harbour in a powerful steam launch which had been lent him to convey certain documents to a Spanish steamer. The trade-breeze had veered a little further east that day, as it sometimes did, and the full drift of the long Atlantic sea came rolling inshore. The launch was wet with spray, which flew up in clouds as she lurched over the white-topped combers that burst in a chaotic spouting on a black volcanic reef not far away from her. It also happened that the coaling company's new tug had broken down a few minutes earlier, and when the launch drove past the long mole the first thing Austin saw was a forty-ton coal lighter, loaded to the water's edge, drifting towards the reef. There was a boat astern of her, out of which a couple of Spanish peons seemed to be flinging the water, preparatory to abandoning the lighter to her fate, but Austin could see very little of the latter. The sea washed clean across her, and she showed no more than a strip of sluicing side amidst the spray.
What became of her was no business of his, but when the whistle of a big grain tramp rolling across the mouth of the harbour, and apparently waiting for her coal, roared out a warning, it occurred to Austin that the Spaniards in the boat might have considerable difficulty in pullingher clear of the reef against the sea. Accordingly, he unloosed the launch's whistle, and while it screeched dolefully, put his helm over and ran down upon the lighter. She was wallowing sideways towards the reef when he rounded up close alongside and saw, somewhat to his astonishment, that there was a man still on board. He was very black, though the spray was dripping from his face, and the seas that swept over the lighter's deck wet him to the knees. Austin shouted to him:
"I'll run round to leeward, Jefferson, so you can jump!" he said.
The wet man swung an arm up. "Stand by to take our rope. I'm not going to jump."
Austin considered. He was by no means sure that the launch had power enough to tow the lighter clear, and the long white seething on the jagged lava astern of her suggested what would happen if she failed to do it.
"Come on board. I haven't steam to pull her off," he said.
Jefferson made an impatient gesture. "If you want me, you have got to try."
Austin wasted no more time. It was evidently valuable then, and he knew his man. He signed to the Spanish fireman to back the launch astern, and clutched the rope Jefferson flung him as she drove across the lighter's bows.
"I can tow her just as well with you on board here," he roared.
"I guess you can," and a sea wet Jefferson to the waist as he floundered aft towards the lighter's stern. "Still, you're going to find it awkward to steer her, too."
This was plain enough, and Austin decided that if Jefferson meant to stay on board it was his affair, while he was far from sure that he would gain anything by attempting to dissuade him, even had there been time available.As it was, he realised that the lighter would probably go ashore while they discussed the question, and he signed to the Spanish fireman, who started the little engine full speed ahead, and then opened the furnace door. There was a gush of flame from the funnel, and the tow-rope tightened with a bang that jerked the launch's stern under. Then, while she was held down by the wallowing lighter a big, white-topped sea burst across her forward, and for a few seconds Austin, drenched and battered by the flying spray, could see nothing at all. When it blew astern he made out Jefferson standing knee deep in water at the lighter's helm, though there was very little else visible through the rush of white-streaked brine. Austin shouted to the fireman, who once more opened the furnace door, for that cold douche had suddenly made a different man of him.
He did, for the most part, very little on board theEstremedura, and took life as easily as he could, but there was another side of his nature which, though it had been little stirred as yet, came uppermost then, as it did occasionally when he brought his despatches off at night in an open roadstead through the trade-wind surf. It was also known to theEstremedura's skipper that he had once swum off to the steamer from the roaring beach at Orotava when no fishermen in the little port would launch a barquillo out. Thus he felt himself in entire sympathy with Jefferson as every big comber hove the launch up and the spray lashed his tingling skin, while for five anxious minutes the issue hung in the balance. Launch and lighter went astern with the heavier seas, and barely recovered the lost ground in the smooths when a roller failed to break quite so fiercely as its predecessors.
Then the Spanish fireman either raised more steam, or the heavy weight of coal astern at last acquired momentum, for they commenced to forge ahead, the launch plunging and rolling, with red flame at her funnel, and the smoke and spray and sparks blowing aft on Austin, who stood, dripping to the skin, at the tiller. Ahead, the long seas that hove themselves up steeply in shoal water came foaming down on him, but there was a little grim smile in his eyes, and he felt his blood tingle as he watched them. When he glanced over his shoulder, which it was not advisable to do unguardedly, he could see Jefferson swung up above him on the lighter's lifted stern, and the long white smoother that ran seething up the reef.
It, however, fell further behind them, until he could put the helm over and run the lighter into smoother water behind the mole, when Jefferson flung up his arm again.
"Swing her alongside the grain boat, and then hold on a minute. I'll come ashore with you," he said.
Austin stopped the launch and cast the tow-rope off, and the lighter, driving forward, slid in under the big grain tramp's side. A few minutes later Jefferson appeared at her gangway, and when Austin ran in jumped on board. He was a tall man, and was just then very wet, and as black as any coal heaver. This, however, rather added to the suggestion of forcefulness that usually characterised him.
"That fellow has been waiting several hours for his coal, and as I couldn't get a man worth anything on to the crane, I ran the thing myself," he said. "The way the wind was it blew the grit all over me, and I'm coming across for a wash with you. I'm 'most afraid to walk through the port as I am just now."
He laughed happily, and Austin fancied that he understood him, since he felt that if he had held Miss Gascoyne's promise he would not have liked to run any risk of meeting her in the state in which Jefferson was justthen. As it happened, it did not occur to either of them that they had done anything unusual, which had, perhaps, its significance.
Austin took him on board theEstremedura, and when he had removed most of the coal-dust from his person they sat down with a bottle of thin wine before them in the sobrecargo's room. Jefferson was lean in face and person, though he was largely made, and had dark eyes that could smile and yet retain a certain intentness and gravity. His voice had a little ring in it, and, big as he was, he was seldom altogether still. When he filled his glass his long fingers tightened on it curiously.
"I owe you a little for pulling us off just now, but that's by no means all," he said. "Miss Gascoyne told me how you stopped the boat that night three weeks ago. Now——"
Austin laughed. "We'll take it item by item. When you get started you're just a little overwhelming. In the first place, what are you coaling grain tramps for when somebody has left you a fortune?"
"It's not quite that," said Jefferson. "Forty thousand dollars. They're busy at the coal wharf, and wanted me to stay on until the month was up, any way."
"I don't think you owe them very much," said Austin. "In fact, I'm not sure that if I'd been you I'd have saved that coal for them; but we'll get on. I want to congratulate you on another thing, and I really think you are a lucky man."
The smile sank out of Jefferson's eyes. "I'm quite sure of it," he said gravely. "I get wondering sometimes how she ever came to listen to such a man as I am, who isn't fit to look at her."
Austin made a little gesture of sympathy. This was not what he would have said himself, but he was an insularEnglishman, and the reticence which usually characterises the species is less highly thought of across the Atlantic. The average American is more or less addicted to saying just what he means, which is, after all, usually a convenience to everybody. Before he could speak Jefferson went on:
"I've been wanting to thank you for stopping that steamer," he said. "It's the best turn anybody ever did me, and I'm not going to forget it. Now——"
"If you're pleased, I am," said Austin, who did not care for protestations of gratitude, a trifle hastily. "Any way, you have got her, and though it's not my business, the question is what you're going to do. Eight thousand pounds isn't very much, after all, and English girls are apt to want a good deal, you know."
Jefferson laughed. "Forty thousand dollars is quite a nice little sum to start with; but I've got to double it before I'm married."
"There are people who would spend most of their life doing it," said Austin, reflectively. "How long do you propose to allow yourself?"
"Six months," and there was a snap in Jefferson's voice and eyes. "If I haven't got eighty thousand dollars in that time I'm going to have no use for them."
"When you come to think of it, that isn't very long to make forty thousand dollars in," said Austin.
He said nothing further, for he had met other Americans in his time, and knew the cheerful optimism that not infrequently characterises them.
Jefferson looked at him steadily with the little glow still in his eyes. "You stopped theEstremedura, and, in one respect, you're not quite the same as most Englishmen. They're hide-bound. It takes a month to find out what they're thinking, and then, quite often, it isn't worth while.Any way, I'm going to talk. I feel I've got to. Wouldn't you consider Miss Gascoyne was worth taking a big risk for?"
"Yes," said Austin, remembering what he had seen in the girl's face. "I should almost think she was."
"You would almost think!" and Jefferson gazed at him a moment in astonishment. "Well, I guess you were made that way, and you can't help it. Now, I'm open to tell anybody who cares to listen that that girl was a revelation to me. She's good all through, there's not a thought in her that isn't clean and wholesome. After all, that's what a man wants to fall back upon. Then she's dainty, clever, and refined, with sweetness and graciousness just oozing out of her. It's all round her like an atmosphere."
Austin was slightly amused, though he would not for his life have shown it. It occurred to him that an excess of the qualities his companion admired in Miss Gascoyne might prove monotonous, especially if they were, as in her case, a little too obtrusive. He also fancied that this was the first time anybody had called her clever. Still, Jefferson's supreme belief in the woman he loved appealed to him in spite of its somewhat too vehement expression, and he reflected that there was probably some truth in Jacinta's observation that the woman whose lover credited her with all the graces might, at least, acquire some of them. It seemed that a simple and somewhat narrow-minded English girl, without imagination, such as Miss Gascoyne was in reality, might still hear what Jacinta called the celestial music, and, listening, become transformed. After all, it was not mere passion which vibrated in Jefferson's voice and had shone in Muriel Gascoyne's eyes, and Austin vaguely realised that the faith that can believe in the apparently impossible and the charity that sees no shortcomings are not altogether of this earth. Thenhe brushed these thoughts aside and turned to his companion with a little smile.
"How did you ever come to be here, Jefferson?" he asked, irrelevantly. "It's rather a long way from the land of progress and liberty."
Jefferson laughed in a somewhat curious fashion. "Well," he said, "others have asked me, but I'll tell you, and I've told Miss Gascoyne. I had a good education, and I'm thankful for it now. There is money in the family, but it was born in most of us to go to sea. I went because I had to, and it made trouble. The man who had the money had plotted out quite a different course for me. Still, I did well enough until the night theSachem—there are several of them, but I guess you know the one I mean—went down. I was mate, but it wasn't in my watch the Dutchman struck her."
"Ah!" said Austin softly, "that explains a good deal! It wasn't exactly a pleasant story."
He eat looking at his companion with grave sympathy as the details of a certain grim tragedy in which the brutally handled crew had turned upon their persecutors when the ship was sinking under them came back to him. Knowing tolerably well what usually happens when official enquiry follows upon a disaster at sea, he had a suspicion that the truth had never become altogether apparent, though the affair had made a sensation two or three years earlier. Still, while Jefferson had not mentioned his part in it, he had already exonerated him.
"It was so unpleasant that I couldn't find a shipping company on our side who had any use for theSachem's mate," he said, and his voice sank a little. "Of course, it never all came out, but there were more than two of the men who went down that night who weren't drowned. Well, what could you expect of a man with a pistol whenthe one friend he had in that floating hell dropped at his feet with his head adzed open. That left me and Nolan aft. He was a brute—a murdering, pitiless devil; but there were he and I with our backs to the jigger-mast, and a few of the rest left who meant that we should never get into the quarter-boat."
Austin was a trifle startled. "You told Miss Gascoyne that?" he said. "How did she take it?"
Jefferson made a curious little gesture. "Of course," he said simply. "I had to. She believed in me; but do you think I'm going to tell—you—how it hurt her?"
It was borne in upon Austin that, after all, he understood very little about women. A few days earlier it would have seemed impossible to him that a girl with Muriel Gascoyne's straitened views should ever have linked her life with one who had played a leading part in that revolting tragedy. Now, however, it was evident that there was very little she would not do for the man who loved her.
"I'm sorry! You'll excuse it," he said. "Still, that scarcely explains how you came to Las Palmas."
"I came as deck-hand on board a barque bringing tomato boxes over. They were busy at the coaling wharf just then, and I got put on. You know the rest of it. I was left forty thousand dollars."
"You haven't told me yet how you're going to turn them into eighty thousand."
"I'm coming to it. You know we coaled theCumbriabefore she went out to West Africa. A nearly new 1,500-ton tramp she was, light draught at that, or she'd never have gone where she did. You could put her down at £15,000 sterling. She went up into the half-charted creeks behind the shoals and islands south of Senegal, and was lost there. Among other things, it was a new gum shewent for. It appears the niggers find gums worth up to £5 the hundredweight in the bush behind that country. A Frenchman chartered her, but he's dead now, as is almost everybody connected with theCumbria. They've fevers that will wipe you out in a week or two yonder—more fever, in fact, than anywhere else in Africa. Well, as everybody knows, they got oil and sundries and a little gum, and went down with fever while they crawled about those creeks loading her. She got hard in the mud up one of them, and half of the boys were buried before they pulled her out at all, and then she hit something that started a plate or two in her. They couldn't keep the water down, and they rammed her into a mangrove forest to save her. More of them died there, and the salvage expedition lost three or four men before they turned up their contract."
"That," said Austin, "is what might be termed the official version."
Jefferson nodded. "What everybody doesn't know is that the skipper played the Frenchman a crooked game," he said. "There was more gum put into her than was ever shown in her papers; while they had got at the trade gin before she went ashore. In fact, I have a notion that it wasn't very unlike theSachemaffair. I can't quite figure how they came to start those plates in the soft mud of a mangrove creek. Any way, the carpenter, who died there, was a countryman of mine. You may remember I did a few things for him, and the man was grateful. Well, the result is I know there's a good deal more than £20,000 sterling in theCumbria."
Austin surmised that this was possible. It was not, he knew, seafarers of unexceptional character who usually ventured into the still little known creeks of Western Africa, which the coast mailboats' skippers left alone. Hewas also aware that more or less responsible white men are apt to go a trifle off their balance and give their passions free rein when under the influence of cheap spirits in that land of pestilence.
"Well?" he said.
"I've bought her, as she lies, for £6,000."
Austin gasped. "You will probably die off in two or three weeks after you put your foot in her."
"I'm not quite sure. I was at Panama, and never had a touch of fever. Any way, I'm going, and if you'll stand in with me, I'll put you down a quarter-share for a dollar."
It was in one respect a generous offer, but Austin shook his head. "No," he said decisively. "Have you forgotten that Miss Gascoyne expects you to marry her?"
Jefferson's eyes glowed. "I'm remembering it all the time. That's why I'm going. Would you take a refined and cultured girl and drag her through all the hard places men of my kind make money in up and down the world? Has she to give up everything and come down to me? No, sir! It seems to me, the man who wants to marry a girl of that kind has got to do something to show he knows her value before he gets her, and it would be way better for both of us that she should be sorry for me dead than that I should live to drag her down."
It seemed to Austin that there was a good deal to be said for this point of view, and it also occurred to him that there was in this latter-day American, who had still the grime of the coaling wharf upon him, something of the spirit which had sent the knight-errant out in the days of chivalry. Still, he naturally did not say so, for he was, after all, what Jefferson called a hide-bound Englishman.
"Well," he said, "you're taking a big risk, but perhaps you are right."
Jefferson rose with the abruptness which usually characterised his movements.
"You're not coming?"
"No. I haven't your inducement, and I'm afraid the contract's too big for me."
"You have a week to consider it in," said Jefferson, who opened the door. "In the meanwhile there's another fellow ready for his coal, and I'm going along."
Three weeks had passed since his interview with Austin before Jefferson was ready to sail, and he spent most of the time in strenuous activity. He had cabled to England for a big centrifugal pump and a second-hand locomotive-type boiler, while, when they arrived, Macallister said that five hundred pounds would not tempt him to raise full steam on the latter. He also purchased a broken-down launch, and, though she was cheap, the cost of her and the pump, with other necessaries, made a considerable hole in his remaining £2,000. It was for this reason he undertook to make the needful repairs himself, with the help of a steamer's donkey-man who had somehow got left behind, while Austin and Macallister spent most of the week during which theEstremeduralay at Las Palmas in the workshop he had extemporised. He appeared to know a little about machinery, and could, at least, handle hack-saw and file in a fashion which moved Macallister to approbation, while Austin noticed that the latter's sardonic smile became less frequent as he and the American worked together.
Jefferson was grimly in earnest, and it was evident that his thoroughness, which overlooked nothing, compelled the engineer's admiration. It also occurred to Austin that, while there are many ways in which a lover may prove his devotion, few other men would probably have cared for the one Jefferson had undertaken. He was not avery knightly figure when he emerged, smeared with rust and scale, from the second-hand boiler, or crawled about the launch's engines with blackened face and hands; but Austin, who remembered it was for Muriel Gascoyne he had staked all his little capital in that desperate venture, forebore to smile. He knew rather better than Jefferson did that it was a very forlorn hope indeed the latter was venturing on. One cannot heave a stranded steamer off without strenuous physical exertion, and the white man who attempts the latter in a good many parts of Western Africa incontinently dies.
At last all was ready, and one night Jefferson steamed off to the African liner from Las Palmas mole, taking with him the steamboat donkey-man and another English seafarer, who were at the time disgracefully drunk, as well as six Spaniards from the coasting schooners. He said that when he reached theCumbriahe would hire niggers, who would be quite as reliable, and considerably cheaper. As it happened, theEstremedurawas going to sea that night, bound for the eastern islands, and Mrs. Hatherly, who was never seasick, and had heard that the climate of one of them where it scarcely ever rained was good for rheumatic affections, had determined to visit it in her. Jacinta, for no very apparent reason, decided to go with her, and it accordingly came about that most of her few acquaintances were with Muriel Gascoyne when she said good-bye to Jefferson at the head of the mole. She kissed him unblushingly, and then, when the launch panted away across the harbour, turned, a little pale in face, but with a firm step, towards theEstremedura, and an hour later stood with Jacinta on the saloon deck, watching the liner's black hull slide down the harbour. Then as the steamer lurched out past the mole, with a blast of her whistle throbbing across the dusky heave, Muriel shivered a little.
"I don't know whether we shall ever meet here again, but I think I could bear that now, and it really couldn't be so very hard, after all," she said. "It would have been horrible if he had gone and had not told me."
Jacinta looked thoughtful, as in fact she was. She was of a more complex, and, in some respects, more refined nature than her companion, while her knowledge of the world was almost startlingly extensive; but wisdom carries one no further than simplicity when one approaches the barriers that divide man's little life from the hereafter. Indeed, there is warrant for believing that when at last they are rolled away, it is not the wise who will see with clearest vision.
"I am not—quite—sure I understand," she said.
There was a trace of moisture on Muriel Gascoyne's cheek, but she held herself erect, and she was tall and large of frame, as well as a reposeful young woman. Though she probably did not know it, there was a suggestion of steadfast unchangeableness in her unconscious pose.
"Now," she said, very simply, "he belongs to me and I to him. If he dies out there—and I know that is possible—it can only be a question of waiting."
Jacinta was a little astonished. She felt that there had been a great and almost incomprehensible change in Muriel Gascoyne since she fell very simply and naturally in love with Jefferson. It was also very evident that she was not consoling herself with empty phrases, or repeating commendable sentiments just because they appealed to her fancy, as some women will. She seemed to be stating what she felt and knew.
"Ah!" said Jacinta, "you knew he might die there, and you could let him go?"
Muriel smiled. "My dear, I could not have stoppedhim, and now he is gone I think I am in one way glad that it was so. I do not want money—I have always had very little—but, feeling as he did, it was best that he should go. He would not have blamed me afterwards—of that I am certain—but I think I know what he would have felt if hardship came, and I wanted to spare it him." Then, with a faint smile, which seemed to show that she recognised the anti-climax, she became prosaic again. "One has to think of such things. Eight thousand pounds will not go so very far, you know."
Jacinta left her presently, and, as it happened, came upon Austin soon after theEstremedurasteamed out to sea. He was leaning on the forward rails while the little, yacht-like vessel—she was only some 600 tons or so—swung over the long, smooth-backed undulations with slanted spars and funnel. There was an azure vault above them, strewn with the lights of heaven, and a sea of deeper blue which heaved oilily below, for, that night, at least, the trade breeze was almost still.
"The liner will be clear of the land by now," she said. "I suppose you are glad you did not go with Jefferson? You never told me that he had asked you to!"
Austin, who ignored the last remark, laughed in a somewhat curious fashion.
"Well," he said, reflectively, "in one respect Jefferson is, perhaps, to be envied. He is, at least, attempting a big thing, and if he gets wiped out over it, which I think is quite likely, he will be beyond further trouble, and Miss Gascoyne will be proud of him. In fact, it is she I should be sorry for. She seems really fond of him."
"Is that, under the circumstances, very astonishing?"
"Jefferson is really a very good fellow," said Austin, with a smile. "In fact, whatever it may be worth, he has my sincere approbation."
Jacinta made a little gesture of impatience. "Pshaw!" she said. "You know exactly what I mean. I wonder if there is one among all the men I have ever met who would—under any circumstances—do as much for me?"
She glanced at him for a moment in a fashion which sent a thrill through him; but Austin seldom forgot that he was theEstremedura's purser. He had also a horror of cheap protestations, and he avoided the question.
"You could scarcely expect—me—to know," he said. "Suppose there was such a man, what would you do for him?"
There was just a trace of heightened colour in Jacinta's face. "I think, if it was necessary, and he could make me believe in him as Muriel believes in Jefferson, I would die for him."
Austin said nothing for a space, and looked eastwards towards Africa, across the long, smooth heave of sea, while he listened to the throbbing of the screw and the swash of the water beneath the steamer's side. He was quite aware that while Jacinta, on rare occasions, favoured her more intimate masculine friends with a glimpse of her inner nature, she never permitted them to presume upon the fact. He had, he felt, made some little progress in her confidence and favour, but it was quite clear that it would be inadvisable to venture further without a sign from her. Jacinta was able to make her servants and admirers understand exactly what line of conduct it was convenient they should assume. If they failed to do so, she got rid of them.
"Whatever is Mrs. Hatherly going to Fuerteventura for?" he asked.
"Dry weather," said Jacinta, with a little smile.
Austin laughed. "One would fancy that Las Palmas was dry and dusty enough for most people. I supposeyou told her there is nowhere she can stay? They haven't a hotel of any kind in the island."
"That," said Jacinta, sweetly, "will be your business. You are a friend of Don Fernando, and he has really a comfortable house. Still, I expect three days of it will be quite enough for Mrs. Hatherly. You can pick us up, you know, when you come back from Lanzarote."
Austin made a little whimsical gesture of resignation. "There is, presumably, no use in my saying anything. After all, she will be company for Confidencia."
"Who is, by the way, a friend of yours, too."
"I have artistic tastes, as you know. Confidencia is—barring one or two—the prettiest girl in these islands."
He moved away, but he turned at the top of the ladder, and Jacinta smiled.
"It is almost a pity a taste of that kind does not invariably accompany an artistic talent," she said.
Austin went down to his little room, which was almost as hot as an oven, and strove to occupy himself with his papers. The attempt, however, was not a success, for his thoughts would follow Jefferson, who was on his way to Africa with a big centrifugal pump, a ricketty steam launch, and a second-hand boiler of the locomotive type. In view of his ulterior purpose, there was, it seemed to Austin, something ludicrously incongruous about this equipment, though he realised that the gaunt American possessed in full degree the useful practical point of view in which he himself fell short. Jefferson was, in some respects, primitive, but that was, after all, probably fortunate for him. He knew what he desired, and set about the obtaining of it by the first means available. Then he dismissed the subject, and climbing into his bunk went to sleep.
Next morning he took Jacinta, Mrs. Hatherly, andMuriel Gascoyne ashore, and afterwards went on with theEstremedurato the adjoining island. It was three days later, and the steamer had come back again, when he and her captain rode with the three ladies towards the coast, after a visit to the black volcanic hills. Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel sat in a crate-like affair upon the back of a camel, with distress in their faces, for there is probably no more unpleasant form of locomotion to anyone not used to it than camel-riding. The beast possesses a gait peculiarly its own, and at every lurch of its shoulders the two women jolted violently in the crate. The camel, however, proceeded unconcerned, with long neck moving backwards and forwards like a piston-rod. The rest rode horses, and a gun and several ensanguined rabbits lay across the Captain's saddle. He rode like a Castilian, and not a sailor, and Jacinta had noticed already that Austin was equally at home in the saddle. The fact had, naturally, its significance for her.
It was then about two o'clock in the afternoon, and very hot, though the fresh trade breeze blew long wisps of dust away from under the horses' feet. Nobody could have called that part of Fuerteventura a beautiful country, but it had its interest to two of the party, who had never seen anything quite like it before. Behind them rose low hills, black with streams of lava, red with calcined rock, and every stone on them was outlined in harsh colouring in that crystalline atmosphere. In front lay a desolation of ashes and scoriæ, with tracts of yellow sand, blown there presumably from Africa, which swirled in little spirals before the breeze. It was chequered with clumps of euphorbia and thorn, but they, too, matched the prevailing tones of grey and brown and chrome, and there was not in all the waste a speck of green. Further still infront of them the sea flamed like a mirror, and a vault of dazzling blue hung over all.
They wound down into a hollow, through which, as one could see by the tortuous belt of stones, a little water now and then flowed, and dismounted in the scanty shadow of a ruined wall. It had been built high and solid of blocks of lava centuries ago, perhaps by the first of the Spanish, or by dusky invaders from Morocco. As it was not quite so hot there, Austin and the Captain made preparations for a meal when a bare-legged peon led the beasts away. Then the Captain frowned darkly at the prospect.
"Ah, mala gente. Que el infierno los come!" he said, with blazing eyes, and swung a brown hand up, as though appealing to stones and sky before he indulged in another burst of eloquence.
"What is he saying?" asked Muriel Gascoyne. "He seems very angry."
Austin smiled. "I scarcely think it would be altogether advisable to enquire, but it is not very astonishing if he is angry," he said. "Don Erminio is not, as a rule, a success as a business man, and this is a farm he once invested all his savings in. I am particularly sorry to say that I did much the same."
Miss Gascoyne appeared astonished, which was, perhaps, not altogether unnatural, as she gazed at the wilderness in front of her. There were, she could now see, signs that somebody had made a desultory attempt at building a wall which was nearly buried again. A few odd heaps of lava blocks had also been piled up here and there, but the hollow was strewn with dust and ashes, and looked as though nothing had ever grown there since that island was hurled, incandescent, out of the sea. It was very difficult to discover the least evidence of fertility.
"Ah!" said Jacinta, "so this is the famous Finca de La Empreza Financial?"
Oliviera overheard her, and once more made a gesture with arms flung wide.
"Mira!" he said. "The cemetery where I bury the hopes of me. O much tomate, mucho profit. I buy more finca and the cow for me. Aha! There is also other time I make the commercial venture. I buy two mulo. Very good mulo. I charge mucho dollar for the steamboat cargo cart. Comes the locomotura weet the concrete block down Las Palmas mole. The mole is narrow, the block is big, the man drives the locomotura behind it, he not can look. Vaya, my two mulo, and the cart, she is in the sea. That is also ruin me. I say, 'Vaya. In fifty year she is oll the same,' but when I see the Finca de tomate I have the temper. Alors, weet permission, me vais chasser the conejo."
"The unfortunate man!" said Jacinta, when he strode away in search of a rabbit. "Still, the last of it wasn't quite unexceptional Castilian."
Austin laughed. "Don Erminio speaks French almost as well as he does English. In fact, he's a linguist in his way. Still, I'm not sorry he didn't insist upon me going shooting with him. It's risky, and I would sooner he'd borrowed somebody else's gun."
They made a tolerable lunch, for theEstremedura's cook knew his business, and, though it very seldom rains there, some of the finest grapes to be found anywhere grow in the neighbouring island of Lanzarote. Then Mrs. Hatherly apparently went to sleep with her back against the wall, while Muriel sat silent in the shadow, close beside her. Perhaps the camel ride had shaken her, and perhaps she was thinking of Jefferson, for she was gazing east towards Africa, across the flaming sea. Jacinta, as usual, appeareddelightfully fresh and cool, as she sat with her long white dress tucked about her on a block of lava, while Austin lay, contented, not far from her feet.
"You never told me you had a share in the Finca," she said.
"Well," said Austin, "I certainly had. I also made a speech at the inaugural dinner, and Don Erminio almost wept with pride while I did it. I had, though he did not mention it, a share in his mule cart, too, and once or twice bought a schooner load of onions to ship to Havana at his suggestion. You see, I had then a notion that it was my duty to make a little money. Somehow, the onions never got to Cuba, and our other ventures ended—like the Finca."
"Then you have given up all idea of making money now?"
"It really didn't seem much use continuing, and, after all, a little money wouldn't be very much good to me. A chance of making twenty thousand pounds might, perhaps, rouse me to temporary activity."
"Ah," said Jacinta, looking at him with thoughtful eyes, "you want too much, my friend. You are not likely to make it by painting little pictures on board theEstremedura."
A faint trace of darker colour showed through the bronze in Austin's cheek. "Yes," he said, "that is exactly what is the matter with me. Still, as I shall never get it, I am tolerably content with what I have. Fortunately, I am fond of it—I mean the sea."
"Of course," said Jacinta, with a curious little sparkle in her eyes, "contentment is commendable, though there is something that appeals to one's fancy in the thought of a man struggling against everything to acquire the unattainable."
"So long as it is unattainable, what would be the good? Besides, I am almost afraid I am not that kind of man."
Jacinta said nothing further, and half an hour slipped by, until a trail of smoke with a smear of something beneath it, crept up out of the glittering sea.
"TheAndalusia," said Austin. "She takes up our western run here under the new time-table. I hope she's bringing no English folks from Las Palmas to worry us."
As it happened, there was a man on board theAndalusiawho was to bring one of the party increased anxiety and distress of mind, but they did not know that then, and in the meanwhile the peon with the horses and Don Erminio came back again. He brought no rabbits, but he had succeeded in badly scratching one of the Damascene barrels of Austin's gun.
"The conejo he no can eat the stone, and here there is nothing else," he explained. "Otra vez—the other time, comes here a señor Engleesman, and we have the gun, but there is no conejo. Me I say, 'Mira. Conejo into his hole he go!' Bueno! The Engleesman he put the white rat into that hole, and wait, oh, he wait mucho tiempo. Me, away I go. I come back, the Engleesman has bag the Captain of puerto."
Then he turned with a dramatic gesture to the camel, which stretched out its little head towards his leg. "Bur-r-r. Hijo de diablo. Aughr-r-r. Focha camello! Me, I also spick the Avar-r-ack. The condemn camello he comprehend."
The long-necked beast at least knelt down as though it did, and Mrs. Hatherly climbed into the crate with a somewhat apprehensive glance at the gallant captain.
Mrs. Hatherly decided during the ride to the beach that she had seen quite enough of that island in the three days she had spent there, and she had already gone off to theEstremedurawith Muriel and Jacinta when Austin stood smoking on the little mole. Long undulations of translucent brine seethed close past his feet to break with a drowsy roar upon the lava reefs, and theEstremeduralay rolling wildly a quarter of a mile away. A cluster of barefooted men were with difficulty loading her big lancha beneath the mole with the barley-straw the row of camels, kneeling in the one straggling street behind him, had brought down. The men were evidently tired, for they had toiled waist-deep in the surf since early morning, and Austin decided to spare them the journey for his despatch gig.
Accordingly, when the lancha was loaded high with the warm yellow bales he clambered up on them and bade the crew get under way. The long sweeps dipped, and the craft went stern first towards the reef for a moment or two before she crawled out to sea, looking very like a cornstack set adrift as she lurched over the shining swell. Austin lay upon the straw, smoking tranquilly, for everybody leaves a good deal to chance in Spain, and now and then flung a little Castilian badinage at the gasping men who pulled the big sweeps below. As it happened, theycould not see him because the straw rose behind them in a yellow wall. They were cheerful, inconsequent fishermen, who would have done a good deal for him, and not altogether because of the bottle of caña he occasionally gave them.
They had traversed half the distance, when, opening up a point, they met a steeper heave, and when the dripping bows went up after the plunge there was a movement of the barley-straw. Austin felt for a better hold, but two or three bales fetched away as he did so, and in another moment he plunged down headforemost into the sea. When he came up he found a straw bale floating close beside him, and held on by it while he looked about him. The lancha was apparently going on, and it was evident that although the men must have heard the straw fall, they were not aware that he had gone with it. There was, he surmised, no room for the lost bales, and the men could not have heaved them up on top of the load. It therefore appeared probable that they purposed unloading the lancha before they came back for them, and he decided to climb up on the bale.
He found it unexpectedly difficult, for when he had almost dragged himself up the bale rolled over and dropped him in again; while, when he tried to wriggle up the front of it, it stood upright and then fell upon him. After several attempts he gave it up, and set out for the steamer with little pieces of barley-straw and spiky ears sticking all over him. He could swim tolerably well, and swung along comfortably enough over the smooth-backed swell, for his light clothing did not greatly cumber him. Still, he did not desire that any one beyond theEstremedura's crew should witness his arrival.
He was, accordingly, by no means pleased to see Jacinta and Miss Gascoyne stroll out from the deck-house as hedrew in under theEstremedura's side, especially as there were no apparent means of getting on board quietly. The lancha had vanished round the stern, the ladder was triced up, and the open cargo gangway several feet above the brine. The steamer also hove up another four or five feet of streaming plates every time she rolled. Still, it was evident that he could not stay where he was on the chance of the ladies not noticing him indefinitely, and as he swam on again Miss Gascoyne broke into a startled scream.
"Oh!" she said, "there's somebody drowning!"
The cry brought Macallister to the gangway, and he was very grimy in engine-room disarray. Austin, in the water, saw the wicked twinkle in his eyes, and was not pleased to hear Jacinta laugh musically.
"I really don't think he is in any danger," she said.
Austin set his lips, and swam for the gangway as theEstremedurarolled down. His flung up hand came within a foot of the opening, and then he sank back a fathom or more below it as theEstremedurahove that side of her out of the water. When he swung up again Macallister was standing above him with a portentiously sharp boat hook, while two or three grinning seamen clustered round. The girls were also leaning out from the saloon-deck rails.
"Will ye no keep still while I hook ye!" said the engineer.
"If you stick that confounded thing into my clothes I'll endeavour to make you sorry," said Austin savagely.
Macallister made a sweep at him, and Austin went down, while one of the seamen, leaning down, grabbed him by the shoulder, when he rose.
"Let go!" he sputtered furiously. "Give me your hand instead!"
He evidently forgot that the seaman, who held on, was not an Englishman, and next moment he was hove highabove the water. Then there was a ripping and tearing, and while the seaman reeled back with a long strip of alpaca in his hand, Austin splashed into the water. He came up in time to see Macallister smiling in Jacinta's direction reassuringly.
"There's no need to be afraid," he said. "Though I'm no sure he's worth it, I'll save him for ye."
Now, Jacinta was usually quite capable of making any man who offended her feel sorry for himself, but the sight of Austin's savage red face as he gazed at Macallister, with the torn jacket flapping about him in the water and the barley-straw sticking all over him, was too much for her, and she broke into a peal of laughter.
In another moment Macallister contrived to get his boat hook into the slack of Austin's garments, and when two seamen seized the haft they hove him out, wrong side uppermost, and incoherent with wrath. When they dropped him, a tattered, dripping heap, on the deck, Miss Gascoyne leaned her face upon her hands, and laughed almost hysterically, until Jacinta touched her shoulder.
"Mr. Austin evidently believes he has a good deal to thank his comrade for. I think you had better come away," she said.
Austin put himself to some trouble in endeavouring to make Macallister understand what he thought of him, when they had gone, but the engineer only grinned.
"Well," he said, "I'll forgive ye. If I had looked like ye do with two ladies watching me, I might have been a bit short in temper myself, but come away to your room. TheAndalusia's boat came across a while ago, and there's business waiting ye."
Austin went with him, but stopped a moment when he approached his room. The door was open, as usual, and a stranger, in grey tourist tweed, upon whom Englishmanand clergyman was stamped unmistakably, sat inside the room. Austin felt that he knew who the man must be.
"Does he know Miss Gascoyne is on board?" he asked.
"No," said Macallister. "The boat came round under our quarter, and we landed him through the lower gangway. He said he'd stay here and wait for ye. He's no sociable, anyway. I've offered him cigars and anisow, besides some of my special whisky, but he did not seem willing to talk to me."
Austin fancied he could understand it. Macallister, who had discarded his jacket, was very grimy, and his unbuttoned uniform vest failed to conceal the grease stains on his shirt. Then he remembered that his own jacket was torn to rags, and he was very wet; but Macallister raised his voice:
"Here's Mr. Austin, sir," he said.
The clergyman, who said nothing, gazed at him, and Austin, who realised that his appearance was against him, understood his astonishment. He also fancied that the stranger was one with whom appearances usually counted a good deal.
"If you will wait a minute or two while I change my clothes, I will be at your service, sir," he said. "As you may observe, I have been in the sea."
"Swum off to the steamer," said Macallister, with a wicked smile. "It saves washing. He comes off yon way now and then."
Austin said nothing, but stepped into the room, and, gathering up an armful of clothing, departed, leaving a pool of water behind him. The clergyman, it was evident, did not know what to make of either of them. A few minutes later Austin, who came back and closed the door, sat down opposite him.
"My name is Gascoyne," said the stranger, handing himan open note. "Mr. Brown of Las Palmas, who gave me this introduction, assured me that I could speak to you confidentially, and that you would be able to tell me where my daughter and Mrs. Hatherly are staying."
Austin glanced at him with misgivings. He was a little man, with pale blue eyes, and hair just streaked with grey. His face was white and fleshy, without animation or any suggestion of ability in it, but there had been something in the tone which seemed to indicate that he had, at least, been accustomed to petty authority. Austin at once set him down as a man of essentially conventional views, who was deferred to in some remote English parish; in fact, just the man he would have expected Muriel Gascoyne's father to be; that is, before she had revealed her inner self. It was a type he was by no means fond of, and he was quite aware that circumstances were scarcely likely to prepossess a man of that description in his favour. Still, Austin was a friend of Jefferson's, and meant to do what he could for him.
"I know where Miss Gascoyne is, but you suggested that you had something to ask me, and I shall be busy by and by," he said.
Gascoyne appeared anxious, but evidently very uncertain whether it would be advisable to take him into his confidence.
"I understand that you are a friend of Mr. Jefferson's?" he said.
"I am. I may add that I am glad to admit it, and I almost fancy I know what you mean to ask me."
Gascoyne, who appeared grateful for this lead, looked at him steadily. "Perhaps I had better be quite frank. Indeed, Mr. Brown, who informed me that you could tell more about Jefferson than any one in the islands, recommended it," he said. "I am, Mr. Austin, a clergyman whohas never been outside his own country before, and I think it is advisable that I should tell you this, because there may be points upon which our views will not coincide. It was not easy for me to get away now, but the future of my motherless daughter is a matter of the greatest concern to me, and I understand that Mr. Jefferson is in Africa. I want you to tell me candidly—as a gentleman—what kind of man he is."
Austin felt a little better disposed towards Gascoyne after this. His anxiety concerning his daughter was evident, and he had, at least, not adopted quite the attitude Austin had expected. But as Austin was not by any means brilliant himself, he felt the difficulty of making Gascoyne understand the character of such a man as Jefferson, while his task was complicated by the fact that he recognised his responsibility to both of them. Gascoyne had put him on his honour, and he could not paint Jefferson as he was not. In the meanwhile he greatly wished to think.
"I wonder if I might offer you a glass of wine, sir, or perhaps you smoke?" he said.
"No, thanks," said Gascoyne, with uncompromising decision. "I am aware that many of my brethren indulge in these luxuries. I do not."
"Well," said Austin, "if you will tell me what you have already heard about Jefferson it might make the way a little plainer."
"I have been told that he is an American seafarer, it seems of the usual careless type. Seafarers are, perhaps, liable to special temptations, and it is generally understood that the lives most of them lead are not altogether——"
Austin smiled a little when Gascoyne stopped abruptly. "I'm afraid that must be admitted, sir. I can, however, assure you that Jefferson is an abstemious man—Americans are, as a rule, you see—and, though there are occasionswhen his conversation might not commend itself to you, he has had an excellent education. Since we are to be perfectly candid, has it ever occurred to you that it was scarcely likely a dissolute sailor would meet with Miss Gascoyne's approbation?"
Gascoyne flushed a trifle. "It did not—though, of course, it should have. Still, he told her that he was mate of theSachem, which was a painful shock to me. I, of course, remember the revolting story."
He stopped a moment, and his voice was a trifle strained when he went on again. "I left England, Mr. Austin, within three days of getting my daughter's letter, and have ever since been in a state of distressing uncertainty. Mr. Jefferson is in Africa—I cannot even write him. I do not know where my duty lies."
Had the man's intense anxiety been less evident, Austin would have been almost amused. The Reverend Gascoyne appeared to believe that his affairs were of paramount importance to everybody, as, perhaps, they were in the little rural parish he came from; but there was something in his somewhat egotistical simplicity that appealed to the younger man.
"One has to face unpleasant facts now and then, sir," he said. "There are times when homicide is warranted at sea, and man's primitive passions are very apt to show themselves naked in the face of imminent peril. It is in one respect unfortunate that you have probably never seen anything of the kind, but one could not expect too much from a man whose comrade's head had just been shorn open by a drink-frenzied mutineer. Can you imagine the little handful of officers, driven aft away from the boats while the ship settled under them, standing still to be cut down with adze and axe? You must remember, too, that theywere seafarers and Americans who had few of the advantages you and your friends enjoy in England."
He could not help the last piece of irony, but Gascoyne, who did not seem to notice it, groaned.
"To think of a man who appears to hold my daughter's confidence being concerned in such an affair at all is horribly unpleasant to me."
"I have no doubt it was almost as distressing to Jefferson at the time. Still, as you have probably never gone in fear of your life for weeks together, you may not be capable of understanding what he felt, and we had perhaps better get on a little further."
Gascoyne seemed to pull himself together. "Mr. Jefferson has, I understand, no means beyond a certain legacy. It is not, after all, a large one."
"If he is alive in six months I feel almost sure he will have twice as much, which would mean an income of close upon £600 a year from sound English stock, and that, one would fancy, would not be considered abject poverty in a good many English rural parishes."
Gascoyne sighed. "That is true—it is certainly true. You said—if he were alive?"
"As he is now on his way to one of the most deadly belts of swamp and jungle in Western Africa, I think I was warranted. Knowing him as I do, it is, I fancy, certain that if he does not come back with £16,000 in six months he will be dead."
"Ah," said Gascoyne, with what was suspiciously like a sigh of relief. "One understands that it is a particularly unhealthy climate. Still, when one considers that all is arranged for the best——"
Austin, who could not help it, smiled sardonically, though he felt he had an almost hopeless task. It appeared impossible that Gascoyne should ever understand the character of a man like Jefferson. But he meant to do what he could.
"It is naturally easier to believe that when circumstances coincide with our wishes, sir," he said. "Now, I do not exactly charge you with wishing Jefferson dead, though your face shows that you would not be sorry. I am, of course, another careless seafarer, a friend of his, and I can understand that what you have seen of me has not prepossessed you in my favour. Still, if I can, I am going to show you Jefferson as he is. To begin with, he believes, as you do, that Miss Gascoyne is far above him—and in this he is altogether wrong. Miss Gascoyne is doubtless a good woman, but Jefferson is that harder thing to be, a good man. His point of view is not yours, it is, perhaps, a wider one; but he has, what concerns you most directly now, a vague, reverential respect for all that is best in womanhood, which, I think, is sufficient to place Miss Gascoyne under a heavy responsibility."
He stopped a moment, looking steadily at Gascoyne, who appeared blankly astonished.
"Because it was evident to him that a woman of Miss Gascoyne's conventional upbringing must suffer if brought into contact with the unpleasant realities of the outside world, he has staked his life willingly—not recklessly—on the winning of enough to place her beyond the reach of adversity. He realised that it was, at least, even chances he never came back from Africa; but it seemed to him better that she should be proud of him dead than have to pity him and herself living. I know this, because he told me he would never drag the woman who loved him down. He fell in love with her without reflection, instinctively—or, perhaps, because it was arranged so—I do not understand these things. As surely—conventionalities don't always count—she fell in love with him, and then hehad to grapple with the position. Your daughter could not live, as some women do, unshocked and cheerfully among rude and primitive peoples whose morality is not your morality, in the wilder regions of the earth. It was also evident that she could not live sumptuously in England on the interest of £8,000. You see what he made of it. If he died, Miss Gascoyne would be free. If he lived, she could avoid all that would be unpleasant. Isn't that sufficient? Could there be anything base or mean in a nature capable of devotion of that description?"
Gascoyne sat silent almost a minute. Then he said very quietly: "I have to thank you, Mr. Austin—the more so because I admit I was a little prejudiced against you. Perhaps men living as I do acquire too narrow a view. I am glad you told me. And now where is my daughter and Mrs. Hatherly?"
"Wait another minute! Jefferson is, as you will recognise, a man of exceptional courage, but he is also a man of excellent education, and, so far as that goes, of attractive presence; such a one, in fact, as I think a girl of Miss Gascoyne's station is by no means certain to come across again in England. Now, if I have said anything to offend you, it has not been with that object, and you will excuse it. Your daughter and Mrs. Hatherly are on board this ship. It seemed better that you should hear me out before I told you."
"Ah," said Gascoyne. "Well, I think you were right, and again I am much obliged to you. Will you take me to Mrs. Hatherly?"
Austin did so, and coming back flung himself down on the settee in Macallister's room.
"Give me a drink—a long one. I don't know that I ever talked so much at once in my life, and I only hope I didn't make a consummate ass of myself," he said.
"It's no that difficult," said Macallister, reflectively, as he took out a syphon and a bottle of wine. "Ye made excuses for yourself and Jefferson?"
Austin laughed. "No," he said. "I made none for Jefferson. I think I rubbed a few not particularly pleasant impressions into the other man. I felt I had to. It was, of course, a piece of abominable presumption."
Macallister leaned against the bulkhead and regarded him with a sardonic grin.
"I would have liked to have heard ye," he said.