Her companion glanced at her sharply with a sudden keenness in his eyes, but he said nothing, and the girl smiled again.
"When you hear of them I would like you to remember that they are friends of mine," she said. "You will, of course, recognize that nobody I said that of could do anything that was really reprehensible."
"I might admit that it was unlikely," said her companion.
"Then," said Benicia, "when the time comes I would like you to remember it. That is another thing you will promise."
She flashed one swift glance at her companion, who smiled, and then looked round as Dom Clemente and two of the gunboat's officers came towards them along the deck. She roused herself to talk to them, and succeeded brilliantly, now and then to the momentary embarrassment of the officers, who were young, while the man with the gray hair lay in a deck chair a little apart watching her over his cigar. She was clever, and quick-witted, but he knew also that she was like her father, one who at any cost stood by her friends. At the same time he was a little puzzled, for, in the case of a young woman, friend is a term of somewhat vague and comprehensive significance, and she had mentioned that there were two of them. That appeared to complicate the affair, but he had, at least, made a promise, and it was said of him that when he did so he usually kept it, though it was now and then in a somewhat grim fashion. There were also men in the sweltering towns beside the surf-swept beach the gunboat crawled along who would have felt uneasy had they known exactly why he had been sent out to them.
CHAPTER XXV
DOMINGO APPEARS
The carriers had stopped in a deserted village one morning after a long and arduous march from the mission station, when Ormsgill, lying in the hot white sand, looked quietly at Nares, who sat with his back against one of the empty huts.
"If I knew what the dusky image was thinking I should feel considerably more at ease," he said. "Still, I don't, and there's very little use in guessing. After all, we are a long way from grasping the negro's point of view on most subjects yet. They very seldom look at things as we do."
Nares nodded. "Anyway, I almost fancy we could consider what he has told us as correct," he said. "It's something to go upon."