"When you cannot see your way you trust your luck and drive ahead," Macallister remarked in uncouth Castilian. "If you do not get to the spot you want, you get somewhere and the hardest road is often shortest. Land your anchor and let us start."
"Bueno!" said the captain, who got up and went to the windlass.
At high tide, when Cayman floated, they carried out the kedge, and hove the main anchor and put it in the boat. Kit went with the landing party and doubted if they could have got out the anchor had not Miguel been on board. They had no mechanical help; while the boat plunged in the foaming surf the ponderous lump of iron must be lifted by muscular effort and when one struggles against an angry backwash one cannot lift much. Kit was exhausted, his hands bled, and Miguel's arm was torn, but they got the anchor over and returning to the ketch were fronted by another obstacle.
In broken water the boat would not carry all the chain; they must take it by fifteen-fathom lengths, and the connecting shackles had rusted fast. Kit thought nobody but Macallister could have knocked out the pins, but at length the cable was divided and they resumed their labour in the surf.
CHAPTER VI
BETTY DEMANDS HELP
On the evening of Austin's return to Las Palmas he and Jefferson smoked and talked on the veranda steps. Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Jefferson were occupied with some sewing at a table near the lamp, but Olivia was not about. She had gone to a concert at the Metropole with a young English tourist whom Mrs. Austin approved. For all that, Mrs. Austin did not know how far Olivia approved and she was bothered about Kit. He had been longer than she had expected, and to some extent perhaps she was accountable for him. Mrs. Austin generally meant well and as a rule her plans to help people worked, but Kit was headstrong and had not left much to her.
She wondered what Austin thought about her sending off the Cayman. Harry did not say much and he had been occupied since his return. Jefferson had, no doubt, talked to Muriel, but Muriel was sometimes reserved. Now Jefferson and Harry were together, Mrs. Austin thought she might, if she were cautious, get a useful hint.
"I would rather like to get up an excursion to the mountains for Mrs. Gardner's party. She was Muriel's friend in England, and we have not done much to amuse her," she said. "However, I expect you could not join us?"
"You mustn't count on Jake and me," Austin replied. "We have let things go long enough."