"To see I didn't get up. I had my chance then, and I crawled out of my berth. I believe I fell over several things before I got out on deck, and then I knew we were all right at last. There was the Peak—high up in the sky in front of us, with Gomera a blue smudge low down at its feet. We ran in under the lee, and, because they were played out, and Tom had trouble with his engines, stayed there three days."
He stopped a moment, with a little laugh. "I think Austin was 'most astonished as I was to find he'd brought her home. He'd been running four or five days on dead reckoning, and wasn't much more than a hundred miles out."
"I wonder where he is," said Brown.
Jefferson looked a trifle perplexed, and it was evident that others of the party had asked themselves the same question, for there was a moment's silence until Muriel spoke.
"If he doesn't come soon I shall feel very vexed with him; but we want to hear how you got the steamer off," she said.
Jefferson commenced his tale diffidently, but, because Austin had worked in the sombre background—more effectively than he could do already—the rest listened with full comprehension. His unvarnished narrative was, however, striking enough, and, save for the splashing of the fountain, and his low voice, there was a suggestive silence in the patio, until he stopped abruptly when he came to the scene in which Austin pleaded for the negro.
"The man wasn't fit to look at," he said.
"But why did Mr. Austin go near him?" asked Muriel, with a little shiver.
"To save his life," said Jefferson, awkwardly. "You see, we couldn't have him there—and he really wasn't a man then. The thing he had we believed contagious, and somebody had to put him into his canoe."
Muriel gazed at him with an expression of perplexity, and it was clear that she did not quite understand what had taken place on the night in question, which was, however, not astonishing. Brown appeared a trifle uncomfortable, and Jefferson was sincerely thankful when Jacinta broke in.