"Oh, dear no!" and Jacinta laughed. "I, for one, would begin to look for flaws in the thing, whatever it was, and wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to change it for something else. In fact, I don't mind telling you I feel like that to-night. You see, for a year at least, I have been trying to bring a certain thing about, and—now I have succeeded—I wish I hadn't. Of course, you won't understand me, and I don't mean you to; but you may as well remember that it's a somewhat perilous thing to keep on giving people good advice. Some day they will probably act upon it."
"But that ought to please one."
Jacinta glanced once more into the soft darkness that crept up from the East with a little shiver. "Well," she said sharply, "in my case it certainly doesn't."
They were alongside the Estremedura in another minute, but the seaman they found on deck did not know where Austin was, and led them down to Macallister's room. It was beneath the spar-deck, and very hot, for the dynamo was not running that night, and a big oil lamp lighted it. It was also full of tobacco smoke, and—for the port was open—the rumble of the long swell tumbling against the mole came throbbing into it. A big man in very shabby serge, with a hard face, sat opposite the engineer, until the latter, seeing the two women, laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Out ye get!" he said, and his guest was projected suddenly into the dimly-lighted space about the after-hatch.
Then he smiled upon the newcomers affably. "Come away in," he said. "Was it me or Mr. Austin ye came to see?"
"On this occasion it was Mr. Austin," said Jacinta, who found a place opposite him, beside Muriel, on a settee. "Of course, that was because he is going away. Isn't he here?"
"He is not," and Macallister beamed at her. "In one way, it's not that much of a pity. There's twice the light-heartedness in me that there is in Mr. Austin."
"I can quite believe it. Still, light-heartedness of one kind is now and then a little inconvenient. Where has he gone?"
"To the town. I don't expect him until he calls for his man—the one I've just hove out—when the West-coast mailboat comes in. She won't stop more than half an hour, but there's no sign of her yet."