For Jacinta
"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.
"Well," he said, "you haven't told me yet why you are so fond of Miss Gascoyne."
"She – is – good, and, after all, goodness really does appeal to some of us. Besides, when I went to an English school, a stranger, more Spanish than English in thought and sentiment, and most of the others held aloof from me, she saw I was lonely, and came and made friends with me. I was glad to cling to her then, and you see I haven't forgotten it."
There was a tone in the girl's voice which sent a little thrill through the man. It was very clear that Jacinta did not forget a kindness, and he had once or twice already had glimpses of her deeper nature. While he stood silent, and, as it happened, in the shadow, Miss Gascoyne came out of the door and approached Jacinta with the moonlight on her face. Austin was almost startled as he glanced at her.
When he had last seen Muriel Gascoyne he had considered her a comely English girl without imagination or sensibility. She had, in fact, appeared to him narrow in her views, totally unemotional, and more than a little dull, certainly not the kind of young woman to inspire or reciprocate passionate admiration in any discerning man. Now, as she came towards him with her eyes shining and the soft colour in her face, which was very gentle, she seemed transfigured and almost radiant. She stooped and kissed Jacinta impulsively.
"I am so happy, my dear," she said. "We owe ever so much to you."
Austin had the grace to wish himself somewhere else, though he did not see how he could get away, but Jacinta, with her usual boldness, turned in his direction.
"Well," she said, "I almost think you owe Mr. Austin a little, too. If he hadn't stopped the Estremedura you would probably have been in Madeira now."
Again Muriel Gascoyne astonished Austin, for though it was evident she had not been aware of his presence, she showed no embarrassment, and smiled at him with a simplicity which, though he had not expected it from her, had in it the essence of all womanly dignity.
"Yes," she said, "I realise that. Mr. Austin, Harry has been looking for you everywhere."
Austin made her a little grave inclination, and then, because she seemed to expect it, shook hands with her.
"I am glad that the man you have promised to marry is one of my friends," he said. "There is not a better one in these islands."
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 the Estremedura'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.
CHAPTER IV
A BIG CONTRACT
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 pulling her 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 the Estremedura, 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 the Estremedura'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 just then. 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 the Estremedura, 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 insular Englishman, 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 the Estremedura, 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. Then he 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 the Sachem– 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 the Sachem'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 when the 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."