In spite of herself she turned and faced him. He met her glance steadily, confidently, expectant.
She gave a queer, half-exasperated little laugh.
"I think Captain Aylmer is a man who is easily refused nothing," she said, and passed quietly out of the room.
CHAPTER X
BY FAVOR OF THE FOG
"I do not like this!" piped a small and dejected voice. "I came to ride a black horse, not to be bumped in this vessel forgotten of God!"
In English these words would have sounded strangely from the lips of a child of six, but little John Aylmer was fluent in the Arab jargon of his grandfather's native household.
He was sitting disconsolate in the cockpit of the lateen Esmeralda. His company was Señor Emilio Albaceda, mariner and practical exponent of the tenets of an uncompromising Free Trade. From the uncovered hatch came the sound of wind whistling in the cordage and the swish and thud of the combers breaking past. Upon one of the narrow bunks which flanked the tiny cabin lay Landon, fast asleep. A guttering and extremely odoriferous lamp of vegetable oil was the sole illuminant. The prospects of comfort and entertainment in such surroundings were not those likely to appeal to a child accustomed to luxury and constant attention.
"Pazienza!" grunted the skipper, good-humoredly. "Black horses are not found upon the sea, though a friend of mine who prefers the running of contraband to the priesthood for which his parents destined him, read me once verses from a journal—true poetry in praise of a boot polish the name of which does not stay by me—where the waves of the Atlantic were likened unto stallions white-maned. I confess I thought the notion original."