I turned to face the coxswain of the frigate's barge and a farrago of Spanish gibberish of which I understood not a word. And upon my saying as much, a second person stepped forward into the yellow glow of an oil lanthorn which hung from a bracket upon a warehouse wall hard by. 'Twas the cloaked figure of the barge, and instead of a midshipman or under-officer the scanty light revealed a young woman whose lissome grace was vibrant through the cumbersome folds of her wrap. A single ejaculation of sibilant Spanish, and the coxswain was hushed.
"Sir," said she then in English as good as my own, "can you direct me to the Whale's Head Tavern?"
I could bring forth no better than a stammer in answer. She was the second stranger that day to ask for the Whale's Head, which my father had remarked the previous evening for a noted resort of bad characters; and certes, she appeared to be the last sort of woman who might be expected to have anything to do with the kind of roistering wickedness which went on there. Also, I could not forbear asking myself how came so fair a maid aboard a Spanish frigate.
In the soft lanthorn-light she was anything but Spanish in her looks. Dark, yes, with hair that shone a misty-black, but her eyes were as blue as Darby McGraw's, and her nose had the least suspicion of a tilt to it. Her mouth was wide, with a kind of twist at the ends that quirked up oddly when she laughed and drooped with a sorrow fit to crack open your heart if she wept. And she was little more than a child in years, with a manifest innocence which went oddly with the question she had asked me.
A slim foot tapped impatiently upon the cobbles as I stared.
"Well, sir," she said coldly, "does it happen you do not know English better than Spanish?"
"N-no," I managed to get out. "But—but the truth is, the Whale's Head is no place for such as you, mistress."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I do not catch your meaning, perhaps," she answered. "It is my father I go to meet there."
"But he would never favor your coming there at this hour," I protested.