He found them courteous. Though that is not a coast which English yachts frequent, one had called there not very long before, and they had a pleasant recollection of the hospitality they had enjoyed on board her. Besides, it was very soon evident that this red-faced yachtsman was not one of the troublesome Englishmen who demand information about social and political matters which do not concern them. Desmond took the authorities off to dinner, and showed them his sporting rifles and one or two letters given him by gentlemen of their own nationality whom he had similarly entertained at Funchal Madeira. His young companion with the heavy sea-bronzed face was even more ingenuous, and there was no doubt that the wine and cigars were excellent.
Strangers with any means were also singularly scarce in that town, and its rulers finding Desmond friendly made much of him, and supplied him freely with the information he required respecting the localities where one might still come across big game. He was, in fact, a social success, and contrived to spend a fortnight there very pleasantly. Still, there was one of his new friends who considered it advisable to take certain precautions, which came indirectly to the knowledge of the latter's daughter.
It also happened that Desmond's companion, Lister, who went ashore alone now and then, enjoyed himself in his own fashion. He was a young man whose tastes and idiosyncrasies had caused his friends at home some anxiety, and they had for certain reasons prevailed upon Desmond to take him to sea for a few months out of harm's way. Lister submitted unwillingly, but he discovered that even that sweltering African town had pleasures to offer him, and determined on making the most of them.
It was a very hot evening when he sat in the patio of a little flat-topped house which bore a legend outside announcing that it was a caffee. A full moon hung above the city and flooded half the little square round which the building rose with silvery light. The summit of the white walls cut sharply against the cloudless blue, and the land breeze flowed in through a low archway heavy with heat and smells. Now and then the roar of the Atlantic surf swelled in volume and rolled across the roofs in a deep-toned rumbling. Lister, however, naturally noticed very little of this.
He lay in a Madeira chair near a little table upon which stood several flasks of wine and glasses, as well as a bundle of cigarettes. A lamp hung above him, and his light white clothing displayed the fleshiness of his big, loosely-hung frame. His face was a trifle flushed, and there was a suggestive gleam in his eyes when he glanced towards the unglazed square of lighted window behind which a comely damsel of somewhat dusky skin was singing to a mandolin, but the occasional bursts of hoarse laughter made it evident that the lady had other companions, and there was then a little but rather painful punctured wound in one of Lister's hands. She had made it that afternoon with a slender silver-headed strip of steel which she wore in her dusky hair, and Lister could take a hint when it was plain enough.
As it happened, a partial acquaintance with one or two Latin languages had been drilled into him in preparation for a certain branch of his country's service to which prejudiced persons had eventually denied him admission, and he had afterwards acquired sundry scraps of Portuguese in Madeiran wine-shops. As the result of this, his companions understood part, at least, of what he said. Two of them who had very yellow hands and somewhat crisp black hair were shaking dice upon the table, while a third lay quietly in a basket lounge watching the Englishman with keen dark eyes. The latter threw a piece of paper money down on the table.
"It's against me," he said. "I'll double on the same odds you don't shake as high again. Pass your friend the wine, Dom Domingo."
The quiet man made this a trifle plainer, and thrust the wine flask across the table, but Lister did not notice that one of the others looked at him as if for permission or instructions before he flung the dice back into the box.
"One who knows the game would not give quite such odds," he said in passable French. "It is the cards you play on board the steamer?"
"No," said Lister, who had consumed a good deal of wine, "not often. I wish we did. It would pass the time while we lie waiting off your blazing beaches."