Four months earlier, by one of those chances which seem no chance when we look back to them, the Kittiwake had broken down on leaving the anchorage of Port Mahon. Towed back by a consort, she had been there ever since, awaiting some necessary pieces of machinery to be made in England and sent out to her. Hearing by chance that the navigating lieutenant of the Kittiwake was Henry FitzHenry - usually known as Fitz--Mr. Challoner had written to Minorca from the larger island, introducing himself as the Honourable Mrs. Harrington’s cousin, and offering what poor hospitality the Val d’Erraha had to dispense.
In a little island there is not very much to talk about, and the gossips of Majorca had soon laid hold of Fitz. They said that the English señorita up at the Casa d’Erraha had found a lover, and a fine, handsome one at that; else, they opined, why should this English sailor thrash his boat through any weather from Cuidadela in Minorca to Soller in Majorca, riding subsequently from that small and lovely town over the roughest country in the island to the Valley of Repose as if the devil were at his heels. That was only their way of saying it, for they knew as well as any of us that love in front can make us move more quickly than ever the devil from behind.
At Alcudia they watched his boat labour through the evil seas. The wind was never too boisterous for him, the waves never too high.
“It is,” they said, “the English mariner from Mahon going to see the Señorita Challoner. Ah! but he has a firm hand.”
And they smiled dreamily with their deep eyes, as knowing the malady themselves.
This time there had been two figures clad in black oilskins in the stern of the long white boat. Two horses had been ordered by cable to be ready at Soller instead of one. For Eve Challoner had telegraphed to her countrymen at Port Mahon when this strange and horrid numbness seized her father.
The sun was setting behind the distant line of the sea when Fitz and his companion urged their tired horses up the last slope to the Casa d’Erraha. Within the gateway Mrs. Baines, the only English servant in this English house, was awaiting them. She curtsied in an old-fashioned way to the doctor, who had not seen an Englishwoman’s face for two years and more, and asked him to follow her. Fitz did not offer to accompany them--indeed, he made it quite obvious that he did not want to do so. Two of the vague attendants who are always to be found in their numbers about the doorway and stableyard of a Spanish country-house took the horses, and Fitz wandered round the patio to the southern door which led to the terrace.
There was not very much change in Henry FitzHenry since we saw him in Mrs. Harrington’s drawing-room six years earlier. The promise of the boy had been fulfilled by the man, and here was a quiet Englishman, chiefly remarkable for a certain directness of purpose which was his, and seemed to pervade his being. Here was one who had commanded men--who had directed skilled labour for the six impressionable years of his life. And he who directs skilled labour is apt to differ in manner, in thought and habit, from him whose commands are obeyed mechanically.
The naval officer is a man of detail--he tells others to do that which they know he can do better himself.
They said on board the Kittiwake, which was a small ship, that Fitz,--“old” Fitz, they used to call him--was too big for a seafaring life. In height, he was nearly six feet--six feet of spare muscle and bone--such a man as one sees on the north-east coast of England, the east coast of Scotland, or the west coast of Norway - anywhere, in fact, where the Vikings passed.