"We could tow them in a raft. Then the English and American tourists who come out in the mail boats might charter us for trips."
"I'm afraid you'd find them exacting. They'd expect nice berths and a good table. Do you carry a good cook?"
Grahame chuckled and Walthew grinned.
"Modesty prevents my answering, because my partners leave me to put up the hash. I'll admit it might be better; but our passengers wouldn't find that out until we got them away at sea."
Evelyn was frankly amused. She could not imagine his cooking very well, but she liked his humorous candor.
"Your plans seem rather vague," she said.
"They are, but one doesn't want a cut and dried program for a cruise about the Spanish Main. One takes what comes along; in the old days it used to be rich plate ships and windfalls of that kind, and I guess there's still something to be picked up when you get off the liners' track. One expects to find adventures on the seas that Drake and Frobisher sailed."
Evelyn mused. She was shrewd enough to perceive that the men were hiding something, and they roused her curiosity, but she thought Walthew was right. Romance was not dead, and the Spanish Main was a name to conjure with. It brought one visions of desolate keys where treasure was hidden, the rush of the lukewarm Gulf Stream over coral reefs, of palm-fringed inlets up which the pinnaces had crept to cut out Spanish galleons, and of old white cities that the buccaneers had sacked. Tragic and heroic memories haunted that blue sea, and although luxurious mail boats plowed it now, the passions of the old desperados still burned in the hearts of men.
Walthew was smooth-faced, somewhat ingenuous, and marked by boyish humor, but Evelyn had noticed his athletic form, and thought he could be determined. He was no doubt proficient in sports that demanded strength and nerve. For all that, it was Grahame and his hawk-like look that her thoughts dwelt most upon, for something about him suggested that he had already found the adventures his comrade was seeking. He was a soldier of fortune, who had taken wounds and perhaps still bore their scars. She remembered the cool judgment he had shown when he came to her rescue.