Ormsgill looked at him with half-closed eyes. "I'll have to ask you to speak plainly."
"I'll try," and Desmond made a little deprecatory gesture. "There are women it isn't wise to leave too long alone. They were not made to live that way, and if they find it insupportable you can't blame them. How many years is it since Miss Ratcliffe has had more than a few weeks of your company, and is it natural that a young woman should be quietly content while the man she is to marry wanders through these forests endeavoring to throw his life away? Besides that, the thing might very possibly not commend itself to her mother."
The lines grew a trifle deeper on Ormsgill's forehead, and his eyes were grave. "I have," he said, "been a little afraid of what her mother might do myself."
"Then why don't you go across to Grand Canary and make sure she doesn't try to influence the girl? Isn't it only reasonable that she should expect you to be there and save her all unpleasantness in case of anything of that kind happening?"
Ormsgill said nothing for several minutes, but it was borne in upon his comrade that his efforts had been thrown away. He had, however, after all, not expected them to be successful. At length Ormsgill spoke quietly.
"I can't go," he said. "Domingo has carried those boys away into the interior and I pledged myself that they should go home when their time was up. As it is, unless I can take them from him they will be driven to death in a few years. For that, I think, I should be held responsible."
He rose with a little sigh. "Dick," he said, "I have this thing to do, and even if it costs me a good deal it must be done. I am going back inland, and may be three or four months away. You can't stay here. After all, I don't know that I shall have much difficulty in getting the boys out of the country when I come down again."
Desmond smiled. "I may go to Las Palmas or Madeira, but I'll be here when you want me. We can fix that later. It seems to me I've said quite enough to-night."
Then they went up the companion, and Ormsgill talked of other matters as they sat under the lee of the deck-house, and watched the white seas sweep out of the darkness and vanish into it again.