"Yes," said Ormsgill quietly, "I am going on. After all, I owe the girl I thought she was a good deal—and to plain folks there is safety in doing the obvious thing." His voice softened a little. "It may be hard for her—in fact when I went back she probably had a good deal to bear with too. One grows hard and bitter when he has lived with the outcasts as I have done."
Nares understood that he meant what other men called duty by the obvious thing, but the definition, which he felt was characteristic of the man, pleased him. He was one who could, at least, recognize the task that was set before him, and, as it happened, he once more made this clear when he rose and called to the boys who had flung themselves down on the warm white sand.
"Well," he said, "we have now to outmarch Herrero, and there is a good deal to be done."
They went on, Ormsgill limping a little, for his wound still pained him, and vanished into the shadows of the bush, two weary, climate-worn men who had malignant nature and, so far as they knew, the malice of every white man holding authority in that country against them. Still, at least, their course was clear, and in the meanwhile they asked for nothing further.
It also happened one afternoon while they pushed on through shadowy forest and steaming morass that a little and very ancient gunboat crept along the sun-scorched coast. Her white paint, although very far from fresh, gleamed like ivory on the long dazzling swell that changed to a shimmering sliding green in her slowly moving shadow, for she was steaming eight knots, and rolling viciously. Benicia Figuera, who swung in a hammock hung low beneath her awnings, did not, however, seem to mind the erratic motion. She was watching the snowy fringe of crumbling surf creep by, though now and then her eyes sought the far, blue hills that cut the skyline. Her thoughts were with the man who was wandering in the dim forests that crept through the marshes beyond them.
By and by she aroused herself, and looked up with a smile at the man who strolled towards her along the deck. She had met him before at brilliant functions in Portugal where he was a man of importance, and he had come on board in state a few hours earlier from a little sweltering town above a surf-swept beach whose citizens had seriously strained its finances to do him honor. He was dressed simply in plain white duck, a little, courtly gentleman, with the look of one who rules in his olive-tinted face. He sat down in a deck chair near the girl.
"After all, it is a relief to be at sea," he said. "One has quietness there."
Benicia laughed. "Quietness," she said, "is a thing you can hardly be accustomed to Señor. Besides, you are in one way scarcely complimentary to the citizens yonder."
"Ah," said her companion, "it seems they expect something from me and it is to be hoped that when they get it some of them will not be disappointed. I almost think," and he waved a capable hand, "that before I am recalled they will not find insults bad enough for me."
Benicia felt that this was quite possible. Her companion was she knew a strong man as well as an upright one, who had been sent out not long ago with ample powers to grapple with one or two of the questions which then troubled that country. It was also significant that while he was known as a judicious and firm administrator his personal views on the points at issue had not been proclaimed. Benicia had, however, guessed them correctly, and she took it as a compliment that he had given her a vague hint of them. Perhaps, he realized it, for he watched her for a moment with a shrewd twinkle in his dark eyes.