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"A burst tube is apt to result in somebody getting scalded, an' stepping into boiling water is sore on a Primera Maquinista's feet. Ye'll just have to make excuses to Jacinta, I'm thinking."
Austin, who knew he could do nothing without Macallister's co-operation, was wondering what persuasion he could use, when he was joined by an unexpected ally. A big, aggressive Englishman in tourist apparel approached the mess-room door and signed to him.
"You were not in your room," he said, as though this was a grievance.
Austin looked at him quietly. "I'm afraid I really haven't the faculty of being in two places at once. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"There is. I particularly want to catch the Liverpool boat via Madeira to-night, and the time you get in cuts it rather fine. It occurred to me that you might be able to hurry her up a little."
"I'm sorry that's out of the question," said Austin, languidly. "You see, I'm not expected to interfere with this steamer's engines."
He was wondering how he could best favour the Englishman with a delicate left-handed compliment, when Macallister, who was once more very dirty, and wore only a dungaree jacket over his singlet, broke in:
"I would," he said, "like to see him try."
"May I ask who you are?" said the passenger, who regarded him superciliously.
"Ye may," and there was a portentious gleam in Macallister's eyes. "I'm only her chief engineer."
"Ah!" said the other, who did not consider it advisable to mention that he had supposed him to be a fireman. "Well, there are, I believe, means of obtaining a favour from a chief engineer. You naturally don't get many pickings in this kind of boat."
Austin laughed softly, for he knew his man. It is now and then permissible to bestow an honorarium upon a chief engineer over a deal in coals, but it requires to be done tactfully, and when the stranger suggestively thrust his hand into his pocket, Macallister hove his six feet of length upright, and looked down on him, with a big hand clenched and blazing eyes.
"Out o' this before I shake some manners intil ye, ye fifteen-pound-the-round-trip scum!" he said.
The stranger backed away from him, and then bolted incontinently as Macallister made for the door. Austin laughed softly when he heard him falling over things in the dark alleyway, and Macallister sat down fuming.
"A bit doosoor on the coal trade is one thing, but yon was – insultin'," he said, and then looked up with a sudden grin. "I'll fix the waster. Can ye no smell a crank-pin burning?"
"I can't," said Austin. "Still, under the circumstances, I'm quite willing to take your word for it."
He went up on deck. It was dark now, but the moon was shining, and he was not surprised to see a sooty fireman clambering in haste up the bridge ladder. Then the throb of the propeller slackened, and when the Estremedura lay rolling wildly athwart the long, moonlit heave, an uproar broke out in the engine room below. The Castilian is excitable, and apt to lose his head when orders which he cannot understand are hurled at him, while Macallister, when especially diligent, did not trust to words alone, but used lumps of coal and heavy steel spanners. He was just then apparently chasing his greasers and firemen up and down the engine room. There was a rush of apprehensive passengers towards the open skylights, from which steam as well as bad language ascended, and Austin, who went with them, found Jacinta by his side.
"I suppose it's nothing dangerous?" she said.
Austin laughed. "If it were Macallister would not be making so much noise. In fact, I don't think you need worry at all. When Miss Jacinta Brown expresses her wishes, things are not infrequently apt to happen."
Jacinta smiled at him. "I have," she said, "one or two faithful servants. Shall we move a little nearer and see what he is doing?"
"I'm afraid the conversation of one of them is not likely to be of a kind that Miss Gascoyne, for example, would approve of."
"Pshaw!" said Jacinta, and followed when Austin made way for her to one of the skylights' lifted frames.
The Estremedura was rolling wickedly, and very scantily attired men were scrambling, apparently without any definite purpose, beneath the reeling lights which flashed upon the idle machinery. They, however, seemed to be in bodily fear of Macallister, who held a spouting hose, while a foamy, soapy lather splashed up from the crank-pit on the big, shining connecting-rod. Austin could see him dimly through a cloud of steam, though he could think of no reason why any of the latter should be drifting about the engine room. There were several English passengers about the skylights, and the one with the aggressive manner was explaining his views to the rest.
"The man is either drunk or totally incapable. He is doing nothing but shout," he said. "You will notice that he spends half the time washing the connecting-rods, which, as everybody knows, cannot get hot. If we miss the Madeira boat I shall certainly call upon the company's manager."
Perhaps he spoke too loudly, or it may have been an accident, though Austin, who saw Macallister flounder on the slippery floor-plates as the steamer rolled, did not think it was. In any case, he drew Jacinta back, and a moment later a jet from the spouting hose struck with a great splashing upon the glass. The aggressive passenger, who was looking down just then, got most of it in his face, and he staggered back, dripping, and gasping with anger. When he once more became vociferous, Austin led Jacinta away.
"I'm afraid we will not catch that boat, but I really don't think you ought to hear Mack's retort," he said.
It was not quite half an hour later when the Estremedura moved on again, and Macallister informed Austin that he could not allow two journals to become overheated in the same voyage. It would, he said, be too much of a coincidence, and some of his subordinates did know a little about machinery. They had accordingly some few minutes yet in hand when they swung round the high Isleta cinder heap into sight of Las Palmas. It gleamed above the surf fringe, a cluster of twinkling lights at the black hills' feet, and there were other lights, higher up, on ships' forestays, behind the dusky line of mole. In between, the long Atlantic heave flashed beneath the moon, and there was scarcely two miles of it left. Austin, standing forward with a pair of night-glasses, and Jacinta beside him, watched the lights close on one another dejectedly.
"We'll be in inside ten minutes, and I think the Madeira boat has still her anchor down," he said. "I had to give the quartermaster orders to have our lancha ready, and he'll take any passengers straight across to her."
"I believe you did what you could," said Jacinta. "Still, you see – "
"Oh, yes," said Austin. "You like success?"
Jacinta looked at him with a little enigmatical smile. "When any of my friends are concerned, I believe I do."
Austin went aft, and a little while later found Macallister standing by the poop, which was piled with banana baskets, among which seasick Canary peasants lay. The big crane on the end of the mole was now on the Estremedura's quarter, and they were sliding into the mouth of the harbour. Close ahead, with white steam drifting about her forecastle, lay the Madeira boat.
"They're heaving up," said the engineer. "Jacinta will no' be pleased with ye, I'm thinking."
"There's only one thing left," said Austin. "One of us must fall in."
Macallister grinned. "Then I know which it will be. It was not me who swam across the harbour last trip. But wait a moment. There's a dozen or two Spaniards among the baskets, an' I'm thinking nobody would miss one of them."
Austin, who knew what his comrade was capable of, seized hold of him, but Macallister shook his grasp off and disappeared among the baskets. Then there was a splash in the shadow beneath the ship, a shout, and a clamour broke out from the crowded deck. A gong clanged below, the captain shouted confused orders from his bridge, and the Estremedura slid forward, with engines stopped, past a British warship with her boats at the booms. Then in the midst of the confusion, Austin, who was leaning on the rail, wondering what had really happened, felt himself gripped by the waist. They had slid into the shadow of the Isleta, which lay black upon the water just there.
"Noo's your chance," said a voice he knew. "It's a hero she'll think ye. In ye go to the rescue!"
Austin, who was by no means certain that there was a man in the water at all, had no intention of going if he could help it, but, as it happened, he had no option. The Estremedura rolled just then, he felt himself lifted, and went out, head foremost, over the rail. The steamer had gone on and left him when he rose to the surface, but there was nobody either swimming or shouting in the water behind him. He knew it would be a minute or two yet before they got the big passenger lancha over, but the Estremedura's propeller was thrashing astern, and when she came back towards him he seized the boat-warp already lowered along her side. Nobody appeared to notice him, for one of the British warship's boats was then approaching. She flashed by as he crawled in through the opened gangway, and a man stood up in her.
"Spanish mail ahoy!" he cried. "Anybody speaking English aboard of you? If so, tell your skipper to go ahead. We have got the banana basket he dropped over. He can send for it to-morrow."
Austin slipped, unnoticed, into his room, but he laughed as he heard the roar of a whistle, and saw a long, black hull ringed with lights slide by. It was the Madeira boat, steaming down the harbour.
CHAPTER III
ON THE VERANDA
It was a clear, moonlight night when Pancho Brown, Mrs. Hatherly, and Erminio Oliviera, the Estremedura's captain, sat in big cane chairs on the veranda of the Hotel Catalina, Las Palmas. The Catalina is long and low, and fronted with a broad veranda, a rather more sightly building than tourist hotels usually are, and its row of windows blazed that night. They were, most of them, wide open, and the seductive strains of a soft Spanish waltz drifted out with the rhythmic patter of feet and swish of light draperies, for the winter visitors had organised a concert and informal dance. A similar entertainment was apparently going on in the aggressively English Metropole, which cut, a huge, square block of building, against the shining sea a little further up the straight white road, while the artillery band was playing in the alameda of the town, a mile or two away. The deep murmur of the Atlantic surf broke through the music in a drowsy undertone.
Pancho Brown was essentially English, a little, portly gentleman with a heavy, good-humoured face. He was precise in dress, a little slow in speech, and nobody at first sight would have supposed him to be brilliant, commercially or otherwise. Still, he had made money, which is, perhaps, the most eloquent testimony to anybody's business ability. He was then meditatively contemplating his daughter, who was strolling in the garden with a young English officer from the big white warship in the harbour. A broad blaze of silver stretched back across the sea towards the hazy blueness in the east beyond which lay Africa, and it was almost as light as day. Mrs. Hatherly followed his gaze.
"An only daughter must be a responsibility now and then," she said. "I have never had one of my own, but for the last few months my niece has been living with me, and I have had my moments of anxiety."
Pancho Brown, who fancied she was leading up to something, smiled in a fashion which suggested good-humoured indifference, though he was quite aware that his daughter was then talking very confidentially to the young naval officer.
"I am afraid I do not deserve your sympathy," he said. "Jacinta's mother died when she was eight years old, but ever since she came home from school in England Jacinta has taken care of me. In fact, I almost think it is Jacinta who feels the responsibility. I am getting a little old, and now and then my business enterprises worry me."
"And does that young girl know anything about them?"
"Jacinta," said Brown, "knows a good deal about everything, and it really doesn't seem to do her any harm. In fact, I sometimes feel that she knows considerably more than I do. I make mistakes now and then, but if Jacinta ever does I am not aware of them."
"Still, a girl with Miss Brown's appearance – and advantages – must naturally attract a good deal of attention, and, of course, one has – "
Brown smiled at her indulgently. "When Jacinta chooses her husband I shall, no doubt, approve of him. I am not sure," he added, with an air of reflection, "that it would make any great difference if I didn't."
"You are to be envied," said his companion, with a little sigh. "I feel the responsibility circumstances have placed on me is unpleasantly heavy, and I am almost sorry I missed the Madeira boat two or three weeks ago. If we had gone in her we should not, of course, have been in Las Palmas now."
"It is almost as evident that I should have been left forlorn to-night," said Brown, with cumbrous gallantry.
Mrs. Hatherly appeared to reflect. "It is a curious thing that Miss Brown assured me we should not catch the steamer that night, though we had apparently half an hour to spare; but in one respect it was perhaps fortunate, after all. If we had gone to Madeira I should not have consulted Dr. Lane, who seems to understand my case so thoroughly; but, on the other hand, we should have seen no more of Mr. Jefferson."
"It is not such a long way to Madeira, and there is a steamer every week or so. From what I know of Mr. Jefferson, I think it is possible he would have gone there, too."
"You are well acquainted with him?"
Brown glanced at her with a faint twinkle in his eyes. "I know a little about everybody in these islands, madam. Mr. Jefferson is considered a straight man, and I may mention that he meets with Jacinta's approval. I almost think I could vouch for his character. I wonder," and he smiled genially, "if it would be as much to the purpose if I said that he had just been left eight thousand pounds?"
"Eight thousand pounds is not very much," and Mrs. Hatherly turned to him as if for guidance. "Mr. Jefferson called on me this afternoon, and it would be almost three weeks before I could get a letter from Muriel's father, who trusted her to me. Of course, a good deal would depend upon what I said about him; but, after all, Muriel has not a penny of her own."
"The sum in question is apt to go a long way when the man who has it is an American, and I really think you could leave him and Miss Gascoyne to settle the affair between them." Brown stopped a moment, and then added, as if by an afterthought: "It is, of course, quite possible that they have done so already; and, in any case, I am not sure, my dear madam, that Jefferson would be very greatly discouraged by your opposition. He is – as has been said – an American."
The little, red-cheeked lady made a gesture of resignation, but just then Captain Oliviera, who spoke a little English, and appeared to feel himself neglected, broke in:
"You come here for your healt, señora?" he said. "Bueno! My sobrecargo go by the step, and he is savvy much the medsin. Me, he cure, frecuentemente, by the morning. Ola, I call him!"
"Otra vez," said Brown, restrainingly, and Mrs. Hatherly favoured the captain, who was big and lean and bronzed, with a glance of interested scrutiny.
"You are an invalid, too?" she said. "One would scarcely fancy it. In fact, you seem very robust to me. What do you suffer from?"
Brown made this a trifle plainer, and Don Erminio smiled. He had no great sense of fitness, and was slightly reckless in his conversation.
"Mi t'roat, and the head of me – by the morning," he said, and made a curious gurgling to give point to the explanation. "El sobrecargo he laugh and say, 'Aha, mi captain, you want a peek-a-up again.' It is of mucho effecto. I go call him. He make some for you."
"Peek-a-up!" said Mrs. Hatherly, and Brown laid his hand restrainingly upon the gallant skipper's arm.
"It is a preparation they find beneficial at sea, though I do not think it would suit your case," he said, and Oliviera roused himself to a further effort.
"Good man, mi sobrecargo. Much education. Also friend of me. I say him often: 'Carramba! In Spain is no dollar. Why you stay here?' Aha, Señor Austin savvy. By and by he marry a rich English señorita."
It occurred to Mrs. Hatherly that Brown's face lost a trifle of its usual placidity as his eyes rested on his daughter, who was, however, still apparently talking to the naval officer. The Catalina did not possess a particularly attractive garden then, but there were a few dusty palms in it, and any one strolling in their shadow that moonlight night could see the filmy mists drifting athwart the great black cordillera, and the wisp of lights that twinkled above the hissing surf along the sweep of bay until they ended in a cluster where the white-walled city rose above the tossing spray. There were several pairs of young men and women who apparently found the prospect attractive, but Brown did not notice Austin among them. He and Mrs. Hatherly sat in the shadow, but Oliviera was in the moonlight, which was probably how it happened that a man who appeared in the lighted doorway close by turned towards him, evidently without noticing the others.
"That you, Don Erminio? Then come right along," he said. "I've got to give somebody a good time, and you have so much human nature it's easy pleasing you. Get up on your hind feet, and have some champagne – enough to make your throat bad for a month, if you feel like it."
Oliviera rose with alacrity. "Aha!" he said. "I come."
He wasted no time in doing it, though he reluctantly spared a moment to make his companions a little grave inclination, for Don Erminio was, after all, a Castilian, and when he had gone the two who were left looked at one another. The joyous satisfaction in the voice and attitude of the man at the door had its significance for both of them. Mrs. Hatherly looked troubled, but there was a faint twinkle in her companion's eyes.
"I wonder if Mr. Jefferson often gives his friends invitations of that kind?" she said.
Brown smiled reassuringly. "I almost think I could answer for his general abstemiousness. Still, there are occasions upon which even the most sedate of us are apt to relax a little, and wish to share our satisfaction with our friends."
"Then," said Mrs. Hatherly, with evident anxiety, "you fancy – "
"I should almost fancy this is one of the occasions in question."
The little, red-cheeked lady rose with a sigh. "I have tried to do my duty," she said. "Now, I think I must find Muriel, if you will excuse me."
She left him, and when Brown also sauntered into the hotel the veranda remained empty until Jacinta came up the broad stairway just as it happened that Austin came out of the door. She was attired diaphanously in pale-tinted draperies, and seemed to Austin, almost ethereal as she stopped a moment at the head of the stairway with the moonlight upon her. He was, however, quite aware that material things had their value to Jacinta Brown, and that few young women had a more useful stock of worldly wisdom. In another moment she saw him, and made him a little sign with her fan. He drew forward a chair, and then leaned against the balustrade, looking down on her, for it was evident that Jacinta had something to say to him.
"As I haven't seen you since that night on board the Estremedura, I naturally haven't had an opportunity of complimenting you," she said.
"May I ask upon what?" and Austin looked a trifle uneasy.
"Your discretion. It would, perhaps, have been a little cold for a moonlight swim, and one's clothing would also be apt to suffer. After all, there was, of course, no reason why it should afford you any pleasure to display your gallantry."
Austin's face flushed. "There have been other occasions when it would have pleased me to twist Macallister's neck," he said. "No doubt you overheard what he said to me?"
"I did," said Jacinta, who looked at him quietly over her fan. "It is a little astonishing that neither of you noticed me. Still, of course, your attitude was, at least, sensible. What I do not understand is why you saw fit to change it a minute or two later. I had, I may mention, left the poop then."
"I'm not sure I understand."
Jacinta laughed musically. "Now," she said, "I really believe you do."
"Well," said Austin, with a doubtful smile, "if you think I went overboard of my own will to win your approbation, you are mistaken. I did not go at all. I was, in fact, thrown in. Macallister is, as you know, a somewhat persistent person."
"Ah!" said Jacinta. "That explains a good deal. Well, I feel almost tempted to be grateful to him for doing it, though you were, of course, sensible. There was really no reason why you should wish me to credit you with courage and humanity – especially when you didn't possess them."
Austin hoped she did not see that he winced, for although he had borne a good deal of her badinage, he felt his face grow hot. He was quite aware that this girl was not for him, and he had, he believed, succeeded in preventing himself falling in love with her. It seemed quite fitting that she should regard him as one of her servants, and since he could look for nothing more, he was content with that. He had, however, a spice of temper, and sometimes she drove him a trifle too hard.
"Still," he said, "if I ever did anything really worth while, I think I should insist upon your recognising it, though it is scarcely likely that I shall have the opportunity."
"No," said Jacinta, reflectively, "I scarcely think it is; but, after all, I have a little to thank you for. You see, you did delay the Estremedura. I suppose you have not seen Mr. Jefferson during the last half hour?"
"No," said Austin, with a little start of interest. "Has he – "
"He has. Muriel, at least, has evidently arrived at an understanding with him. I am not sure they saw me, but I came across them a little while ago – and they looked supremely happy."
There was satisfaction in her voice, but it was with a mildly ironical and yet faintly wistful expression she gazed at the shining sea. It somewhat astonished Austin, though there was so much about Jacinta that was incomprehensible to him.
"Well," he said, "I'm glad; but I should scarcely have fancied Miss Gascoyne would have attracted Jefferson. After all, one would hardly consider her a young woman who had very much in her. Indeed, I have wondered why you were so fond of her."
Jacinta smiled curiously as she looked at him. "She is wonderful to Jefferson. There is no grace or goodness that she is not endued with in his estimation."
"But if she doesn't possess them?"
"Then," said Jacinta, decisively, "because he believes she does, she will acquire them. There are women like that, you know, and I am not sure that sensible people like you and I don't lose the best of life occasionally. If a man believes a girl of Muriel's kind angelic she is very apt to unfold shining wings, though nobody else ever fancied that she had anything of the kind about her."
"Ah!" said Austin, who was a little stirred, though he would not admit it. "No doubt you know. A good many men must have thought that of you."
Jacinta laughed again. "No, my friend," she said. "I have met men who thought me amusing, and two or three who thought me clever – but that is a very different thing – while it is possible that the others remembered I was Pancho Brown's daughter. So, you see, my wings have not unfolded. In fact, I sometimes think they are in danger of shrivelling away."
There was nothing that Austin could say, for he was the Estremedura's sobrecargo, and had never forgotten that Pancho Brown was reputed to be making several thousand a year. Still, he found silence difficult, and changed the subject.
