There is languor in the tropical air to-day. Even some frigate birds appear to feel it, for they have alighted with their long, drooping wings on the top-most yards, and hardly care to fly again. The gulls sail slowly but silently round the ship, as if too indolent even to scream; yonder nautilus, or Portuguese man-o'-war, that looks as if it had borrowed its cerulean colours from the azure of the sky itself, can scarcely move along. There is not wind enough to fill even its dainty sails, and see, what is that lying over yonder dark and curious? Fred Arundel lazily lifts the glass, and gazes in that direction.
"It is a shark," he says with half a shudder, "asleep, I think, in the morning sunshine, and with sea birds perching on its fins."
Frank answers not. His eyes are riveted on some far-off green-fringed mountains. It is an island, but it does not seem to lie in the sea. No, it is up in the sky, and floating there like a veritable fairyland.
Now Frank yawns and stretches himself, and next moment a hand is laid on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Señor Sarpinto standing smiling beside him. He is in dressing-gown and slippers, with the never-failing cigarette between his lips.
"My young friend is tired."
"Si, señor," says Frank, "I am tired—tired doing nothing. I'd fain be yonder."
He points to the distant island.
Señor takes the telescope, and looks long and earnestly at it.
"Ah!" he says, or rather sighs, "what a land of delight it is! And all the islands around here, how rich and varied! Young Frank, the day will come when each will bear its own happy population of prosperous white men. There are not even savages on yonder isle. It waits but for a Christian population. And there is wealth yonder too, wealth untold!"
Fred looks at the Spaniard in some little surprise. He had never heard the man talk thus enthusiastically before. Then a happy idea appears to strike Frank all at once.