An hour had passed since their first meeting, when Austin, Jefferson, and two navy men sat round a little table that had been laid out upon the Cumbria's bridge deck. It was slightly cooler there than it was below, besides which the mess-rooms reeked with damp and mildew. A lamp hung from one of the awning spars above them, and its light fell upon the men's faces and the remnants of the very frugal meal. The handful of bluejackets who came up in her had apparently gone to sleep beneath an awning on the flooring of the pinnace, which lay alongside, but a sharp clinking rose from the lighted engine room, where a couple of naval artificers were busy with Tom, the donkey-man. The gunboat's surgeon, who had been round the forecastle, was talking to Austin, while her commander lay opposite Jefferson, immaculately neat, in a canvas chair.
"Our tale," he said, "is a very simple one. As we didn't seem to be wanted anywhere just now, we moored ship snugly in the bight behind the island, and decided to get a little painting done. She was getting rusty along the water-line, and one can't get at it well when she's washing through a swell, you know. Under the circumstances, I seized the opportunity to do a little rough surveying. We are expected to pick up any information that may be of use to the Admiralty hydrographers."
Jefferson lay very limply in his chair, but his eyes twinkled appreciatively. "Well," he said, "I guess that would look all right in the log, but any one who had seen you start surveying would wonder why you brought those cases of provisions as well as engine oil and packing, and two or three ingots of bearing metal. We were uncommonly glad to get them and see the artificers, though I'm not sure your Admiralty would approve of the way you're squandering its stores."
Onslow laughed. "We are not forbidden to offer assistance to any one in want of it, and the provisions, at least, do not belong to our parsimonious Lords. In fact, they were handed me at Las Palmas by a friend of yours, on the off chance of our falling in with you. Of course, I could not exactly promise that you would get them, though I had reasons for believing the thing was possible."
Jefferson filled a wineglass, and thrust the bottle across the table.
"I think I know the lady's name," he said. "This is the first wine I've drunk since I came to Africa, and it will probably be the last until I get out of it again. To-morrow it's going forward to the sick men in the forecastle. The lady who sent it is not going to mind my passing the kindness on."
"I venture to think she would approve," and Onslow glanced at Austin. "In fact, I couldn't quite help a fancy she intended it as a peace-offering. Miss Brown is, as you are probably aware, capable of conveying an impression without saying anything very definite, and the one I received from her was that she felt she had been a trifle hard on somebody. I should, of course, not have presumed to mention it had it not been borne in on me that it was not intended I should keep that impression entirely to myself. If I have been mistaken I must apologise to her and both of you."
Jefferson stood up with the wineglass in his hand, and the others rose with him.
"This," he said, "is a little out of my usual line, but it's her wine we're drinking, and I can't quite let the occasion pass. 'To Her Serene Excellency, the cleverest woman in the Canaries, who hasn't forgotten us!'"
Austin stood opposite him, a ragged, climate-worn skeleton, with a little flush in his haggard face, and he looked at the gunboat's commander.