"Mira!" he said. "The cemetery where I bury the hopes of me. O much tomate, mucho profit. I buy more finca and the cow for me. Aha! There is also other time I make the commercial venture. I buy two mulo. Very good mulo. I charge mucho dollar for the steamboat cargo cart. Comes the locomotura weet the concrete block down Las Palmas mole. The mole is narrow, the block is big, the man drives the locomotura behind it, he not can look. Vaya, my two mulo, and the cart, she is in the sea. That is also ruin me. I say, 'Vaya. In fifty year she is oll the same,' but when I see the Finca de tomate I have the temper. Alors, weet permission, me vais chasser the conejo."
"The unfortunate man!" said Jacinta, when he strode away in search of a rabbit. "Still, the last of it wasn't quite unexceptional Castilian."
Austin laughed. "Don Erminio speaks French almost as well as he does English. In fact, he's a linguist in his way. Still, I'm not sorry he didn't insist upon me going shooting with him. It's risky, and I would sooner he'd borrowed somebody else's gun."
They made a tolerable lunch, for the Estremedura's cook knew his business, and, though it very seldom rains there, some of the finest grapes to be found anywhere grow in the neighbouring island of Lanzarote. Then Mrs. Hatherly apparently went to sleep with her back against the wall, while Muriel sat silent in the shadow, close beside her. Perhaps the camel ride had shaken her, and perhaps she was thinking of Jefferson, for she was gazing east towards Africa, across the flaming sea. Jacinta, as usual, appeared delightfully fresh and cool, as she sat with her long white dress tucked about her on a block of lava, while Austin lay, contented, not far from her feet.
"You never told me you had a share in the Finca," she said.
"Well," said Austin, "I certainly had. I also made a speech at the inaugural dinner, and Don Erminio almost wept with pride while I did it. I had, though he did not mention it, a share in his mule cart, too, and once or twice bought a schooner load of onions to ship to Havana at his suggestion. You see, I had then a notion that it was my duty to make a little money. Somehow, the onions never got to Cuba, and our other ventures ended—like the Finca."
"Then you have given up all idea of making money now?"
"It really didn't seem much use continuing, and, after all, a little money wouldn't be very much good to me. A chance of making twenty thousand pounds might, perhaps, rouse me to temporary activity."
"Ah," said Jacinta, looking at him with thoughtful eyes, "you want too much, my friend. You are not likely to make it by painting little pictures on board the Estremedura."
A faint trace of darker colour showed through the bronze in Austin's cheek. "Yes," he said, "that is exactly what is the matter with me. Still, as I shall never get it, I am tolerably content with what I have. Fortunately, I am fond of it—I mean the sea."