"Herr Captain Almbach, I know, of course, best what you really are--and--and--I know a young woman."
A smile, which he suppressed with difficulty, quivered about Captain Almbach's lips, but he compelled himself to remain serious.
"Really!" said he, coolly, "that is, indeed, a remarkable event for you."
"And I will bring her to you," continued Jonas.
Now Captain Almbach began to laugh aloud. "Jonas, I believe you are not sane. What in the world am I to do with this young woman. Shall I marry her?"
"You shall do nothing with her," explained the sailor, with an injured countenance. "You are only to look at her."
"A very modest pleasure," scoffed Hugo. "Who then is the lady concerned, and what necessity requires me to look at her?"
"It is the little Annunziata, Signora Biancona's lady's maid," replied Jonas, who now became more fluent of speech. "A poor, quiet young thing, without father or mother. She has only been a couple of months with the Signora, and at first all went well with her; but there is a man," the sailor clenched his fist with intense rage, "called Gianelli, and he is the conductor; he follows the poor thing at every step, and never leaves her in peace. She has repulsed him once very roughly, and on that account he maligned her to the Signora, and since then the Signora is so unkind and violent to her, that she can stand it no longer. In that house, indeed, she does not see much good, and therefore she shall leave, and must leave, and I shall not allow her to remain any longer."
"You appear to be very fully informed about that little Annunziata," remarked Hugo, dryly. "She is an Italian; have you learned all these details by pantomimic means?"
"The Signora's servant helped us now and then, when we could not get on," confessed Jonas, quite openly. "But he speaks horrible German, and I do not like him putting his finger into everything. Without reference to this, though, she shall get away from the whole crew; she must absolutely go into a German house."