After a bit, however--with the usual inconsistency of lovers--he picked it up, and thought what a pretty hand she wrote, and then that he would go over Gibraltar with her, and he would find out if she were really engaged to that beastly Maltese. Ronald's language was strong but not choice. Then he sent a reply to Carmela, saying he would see her in the morning, and afterwards drank a bottle of champagne, and felt better. Oh what a queer disease is love, with its hopes, its fears, its smiles and tears, its kisses and blisses, and--its intense egotism.
The next day Monteith arose, cooled his hot head with a shower bath, donned a suit of spotless, white flannels, put a straw hat on his curly locks, and sallied forth with the determination to save his charming Princess from the clutches of the ogre Vassalla, or die in the attempt.
"Hullo," cried Pat, seeing the unusual splendour of Master Ronald's apparel, "going on the mash to-day? gad you'll knock the Gib girls over like nine-pins."
Whereat Ronald informed Pat in confidence that he intended to try his fate with Miss Cotoner that day, and Pat informed Ronald, likewise in confidence, that he thought he was quite right, and would bet him a bottle of champagne he would be accepted, which wager Monteith took, and went on deck with a light heart and a strong determination to win. All this time, however, in spite of his new-born love, Monteith never for a moment wavered from his determination to hunt down the assassin of his dead friend, and told Captain Templeton as much.
"How are you going to do it?" asked Templeton, dubiously, "we cannot even find out Ventin's real name."
"Isn't there a portrait of him among his luggage?" asked Monteith. Templeton shook his head.
"Not anything likely to lead to identification," he answered, "but I'll have a talk with you after we leave Gibraltar, for I must confess I would like the riddle solved," and the captain went off to his post on the bridge as they were now nearing the famous Rock.
Who that has once seen it can forget that enormous grey mass rising up from the blue water into the blue sky, with the red-roofed town nestling at its base? Monteith had never seen anything so impressive since Aden, which he had beheld, vague and mysterious, in the starlight. He realized with a thrill of pride that this was one of the visible signs of England's greatness, and he thought, with satisfaction, that he, too, was of the race that had conquered it. Aden, Malta, Gibraltar, all held by England; it made Ronald quite patriotic when he thought of the impregnability of these strongholds. If he had been a poet he would have burst into verse, but as he was not he simply contented himself with a commonplace observation--
"By Jove, it's wonderful!"
The Anglo-Saxon race are rarely enthusiastic.