I felt suddenly conspicuous on that beach. We stood far from shelter. Nor are cobbles good to run upon....
"I think we'd better be going," I suggested, and caught sight of my companion, and stopped.
He still wore his wool cap, and it occurred to me even then that he had not turned a hair throughout our flight. But now his face was curiously splotched red and white and his eyes blazed seaward in fixity. He did not budge.
"Tell me," said Angus Jones—"tell me what was that word with which they harried us a while back? I seemed to spy a meaning. The one word they had for us alike?"
"Va-se'mbora?" I said, fidgeting. "Oh, it's the common repulse to beggars and nuisances. You say it when you want to be rid of some one. Va-se'mbora! Which means in the vernacular: Chase yourself."
"Chase yourself," repeated Angus Jones softly. "Think of that now! They seek to tax us. They refuse us dole. They beat us here and yon. They will not let us go, though we would only leave their country for their country's good.... Withal they tell us: Chase yourself! And they are, as you say, a simple people, living on a far island."
The tawny head was close in.
"It's time to move," I urged.
But Angus Jones picked up an oar and cut the painter from a fishing boat and went down to the water's edge. He made a singular figure on Funchal beach, drawn to all his lean height, with the clothes flapping on him as he struck a noble pose. For myself I retreated among the boats where I might hide in some cuddy.
"Observe the epic grandeur of the scene," declaimed Angus Jones. "Here I stand on a rock in mid-Atlantic to meet the raging monarch of the midmost jungle. 'Tis lofty, incredible—in a sense, miraculous."