For Jacinta

by Harold Bindloss

Jefferson made an impatient gesture. "If you want me, you have got to try."

Austin wasted no more time. It was evidently valuable then, and he knew his man. He signed to the Spanish fireman to back the launch astern, and clutched the rope Jefferson flung him as she drove across the lighter's bows.

"I can tow her just as well with you on board here," he roared.

"I guess you can," and a sea wet Jefferson to the waist as he floundered aft towards the lighter's stern. "Still, you're going to find it awkward to steer her, too."

This was plain enough, and Austin decided that if Jefferson meant to stay on board it was his affair, while he was far from sure that he would gain anything by attempting to dissuade him, even had there been time available. As it was, he realised that the lighter would probably go ashore while they discussed the question, and he signed to the Spanish fireman, who started the little engine full speed ahead, and then opened the furnace door. There was a gush of flame from the funnel, and the tow-rope tightened with a bang that jerked the launch's stern under. Then, while she was held down by the wallowing lighter a big, white-topped sea burst across her forward, and for a few seconds Austin, drenched and battered by the flying spray, could see nothing at all. When it blew astern he made out Jefferson standing knee deep in water at the lighter's helm, though there was very little else visible through the rush of white-streaked brine. Austin shouted to the fireman, who once more opened the furnace door, for that cold douche had suddenly made a different man of him.

He did, for the most part, very little on board the Estremedura, and took life as easily as he could, but there was another side of his nature which, though it had been little stirred as yet, came uppermost then, as it did occasionally when he brought his despatches off at night in an open roadstead through the trade-wind surf. It was also known to the Estremedura's skipper that he had once swum off to the steamer from the roaring beach at Orotava when no fishermen in the little port would launch a barquillo out. Thus he felt himself in entire sympathy with Jefferson as every big comber hove the launch up and the spray lashed his tingling skin, while for five anxious minutes the issue hung in the balance. Launch and lighter went astern with the heavier seas, and barely recovered the lost ground in the smooths when a roller failed to break quite so fiercely as its predecessors.

Then the Spanish fireman either raised more steam, or the heavy weight of coal astern at last acquired momentum, for they commenced to forge ahead, the launch plunging and rolling, with red flame at her funnel, and the smoke and spray and sparks blowing aft on Austin, who stood, dripping to the skin, at the tiller. Ahead, the long seas that hove themselves up steeply in shoal water came foaming down on him, but there was a little grim smile in his eyes, and he felt his blood tingle as he watched them. When he glanced over his shoulder, which it was not advisable to do unguardedly, he could see Jefferson swung up above him on the lighter's lifted stern, and the long white smoother that ran seething up the reef.

It, however, fell further behind them, until he could put the helm over and run the lighter into smoother water behind the mole, when Jefferson flung up his arm again.

"Swing her alongside the grain boat, and then hold on a minute. I'll come ashore with you," he said.

Austin stopped the launch and cast the tow-rope off, and the lighter, driving forward, slid in under the big grain tramp's side. A few minutes later Jefferson appeared at her gangway, and when Austin ran in jumped on board. He was a tall man, and was just then very wet, and as black as any coal heaver. This, however, rather added to the suggestion of forcefulness that usually characterised him.