"They've been at it the whole o' a half hour, an' no a fall to cheer a body yet. One would think it was dancing they were," he said. "It wasn't to see that I wasted a tumblerful o' anisow on them."
Now, anisado is a preparation of spirit and extract of anise seed, which is esteemed in that country, and Austin looked hard at his comrade, because he had a jar of it, intended for a Spanish friend, in his room. He was a trifle uneasy, since a lock is not an insuperable obstacle to an engineer. The latter, however, changed the subject.
"It's a kind o' pity about your clothes," he said. "Miss Jacinta Brown is going across with us to-night, an' she was enquiring kindly after ye."
Austin had a good deal of composure, and he often needed it, but the shrewd Scottish eyes saw the momentary pleasure in his face. Then, because he did not appreciate Macallister's badinage on that subject, he went into his room and bolted the door behind him before he switched on the light and examined the anisado jar. It seemed quite full when he shook it, and the seal was intact, but on looking closer he saw that the impression on the latter was not what it had been when he left it. He was aware that a certain proportion of sea-water may be added to rum without the average consumer noticing any great difference, but he had suspicions that a blend of brine and anise was not likely to be appreciated by its recipient, and he was for a moment or two consumed with righteous indignation. This, however, passed, for he realised that his expostulations would be heard with laughter. It was all a part of the happy-go-lucky life he led, and nobody concerns himself unduly about anything under the flag of Spain. The Castilian, as a rule, bears his troubles patiently, which is, perhaps, just as well, since he rarely sees them coming or makes any attempt to get out of the way of them.
Austin accordingly busied himself with his papers, and it was an hour later when he went on deck. The Estremedura had gone to sea by then, and the lights of the little Spanish town blinked above the broad fringe of surf astern. High above her the great black cordillera cut hard and sharp against the luminous blueness of the night, and the long heave of the Atlantic flashed, white-topped, beneath the moon ahead. She swung over it with slanted spars and swaying funnel, while the keen trade-breeze sang in her rigging, and now and then a flying-fish ricocheted, gleaming, from sea-top to sea-top beneath her side. She was very well kept above decks, a trim, yacht-like vessel, and for a while Austin leaned over her quarter-rails, smoking a cigarette, and wondering when Miss Jacinta Brown would come up on deck. There was a very deaf Englishman, who insisted on conversing with him in stentorian tones in the saloon, and he had no desire for his company. In the meanwhile, it was pleasant to lounge there and watch the moonlight gleam upon the tumbling seas.
There were, he admitted, a good many compensations in the life he led. The warmth and colour of the South appealed to him, and, though they are not particularly numerous, there are men like him who retain a somewhat chastened affection for the sea they earn their bread upon. It is true that he earned very little more than that on board the Estremedura, and he had once had his aspirations like other men, as well as a prospect of realising them; but when financial disaster overtook the family firm nobody seemed anxious to secure the services of a young man without specialised training, who had artistic and somewhat expensive tastes, which was, perhaps, not altogether astonishing. That was how Austin eventually came on board the Estremedura, and stayed there, though there were odd hours when he took himself to task for doing so. Still, he did not exactly know where he could go if he left her, and the indifference of the Latins was already infecting him. Men in Spain believe that the future is quite able to take care of itself.
By and by, however, a slim, white-clad figure appeared in the entrance to the saloon companion, and he moved in that direction with evident alacrity. As one result of being the Estremedura's sobrecargo, he was acquainted with everybody of importance in the archipelago, and among them all there was nobody who figured more prominently than Miss Jacinta Brown. She was English on both sides, though she had lived in those islands most of her twenty-five years, and understood the Spaniards, probably better than they understood themselves, for they are rather an impulsive than an introspective people. She also understood her countrymen, and ruled over them, as well as Spanish artillery officers and Commandantes. It was not very evident how she did it, for there were a good many Spanish women, at least, almost as pretty, and of much better birth than she, and she apparently received no great assistance from her father, for Pancho Brown was a merchant of an unusually solid and unimaginative description. The wives of the English visitors, however, did not, as a rule, like Jacinta. They said she was forward, and it was a pity she had no mother; but when any of them received an invitation from her it was immediately proclaimed all over the hotel.
She smiled at Austin graciously, and allowed him to place her a deck chair beneath a big lifeboat, where it was out of the wind, after which he procured himself another, and sat down and looked at her. Jacinta did not seem to mind it, and most men would probably have found it difficult to keep their eyes off her. She was little, shapely, and very dainty, though she could, as Austin knew, on occasion be essentially dignified. She had brown hair and eyes, with a little scintillating gleam in them, and her face was slightly tinted with the warm Andalusian olive, though there was only English blood in her. She was dressed in white, as usual, with a simplicity that suggested perfect taste, while, as he watched her, Austin wondered again exactly where her compelling attractiveness lay. He had met women with more delicate complexions, finer features, softer voices, and more imposing carriage; that is, women who possessed one or two of these advantages, but he had not as yet met any one to be compared to Jacinta, as he expressed it, in the aggregate. Then it seemed that she read his thoughts, which was, as he had noticed, a habit of hers.
"Yes, the dress is a new one. I am rather pleased with it, too," she said.
Austin laughed. "If I hadn't had the pleasure of making your acquaintance some time ago, you would have astonished me. As it is——"