"Vaya!" said a deep voice beyond the open door. "Eso no me gusta," and while the steward backed out in haste, a couple of plates went flying over the rail.
"Don Erminio," said Jacinta, "evidently doesn't approve of his dinner."
Miss Gascoyne appeared astonished, and looked at Austin gravely.
"Does he often lose his temper in that fashion?" she asked. "Isn't it very childish to throw—good food into the sea?"
"The captain is, when you come to know him, really a very good-natured man," said Austin. Then he stopped, and stood up suddenly as two figures came towards them along the deck, and another from the opposite direction. "It's Monsignor—I wonder what Macallister wants with him."
A little, portly priest moved forward with a smile of good-humoured pride, and an ecclesiastic of a very different stamp walked at his side. The latter was a great man, indeed, a very great man, though he had once toiled in comparative obscurity. Even Miss Gascoyne had apparently heard of him.
"If one could venture, I should like to speak to him," she said.
Neither Jacinta nor Austin seemed to hear her. They were both watching Macallister, and he, at least, clearly intended to accost the clerics. He was now dressed immaculately in blue uniform, and in that condition he was a big, handsome man, but he was also a North British Calvinist, so far as he had any religious views at all, and accordingly not one who could reasonably be expected to do homage to a dignitary of Rome. Still, the little fleshy priest was a friend of his, and when the latter presented him he bent one knee a trifle and gravely took off his uniform cap. The ecclesiastic raised two fingers and spoke in Latin. Macallister smiled at him reassuringly.
"That isn't exactly what I meant, but it can't do me any harm coming from a man like you, while if it does me any good I daresay I need it. You see, I'm one of the goats," he said.
The great man glanced at his companion, who translated as literally as he could, though he also explained that the Señor Macallister not infrequently made things easier for some of the peasants who travelled third class on board the Estremedura. Then a whimsical but very kindly twinkle crept into the great man's eyes, and he laid a beautiful, olive-tinted hand on the shoulder of the mechanic who had graciously approved of him.