He made a gesture of immense contempt.
“What mattered he? The coach would have returned from the cathedral, and the Casa Riego could have been held for days—and who could have known you were not inside. I had conversed earnestly with Cesar the major-domo—an African, it is true, but a man of much character and excellent sagacity. Ah, Manuel! Manuel! If I———But the devil himself fathers the children of such mothers. I am no longer in possession of my first vigour, and you, Señor, have all the folly of your nation....”
He bared his grizzled head to me loftily.
“... And the courage! Doubtless, that is certain. It is well. You may want it all before long, Señor... And the courage!”
The broken plume swept the deck. For a time he blinked his creased, brown eyelids in the sun, then pulled his hat low down over his brows, and, wrapping himself up closely, turned away from me to look at the sail to leeward.
“What an old, old, wrinkled, little, puffy beggar he is!” observed Sebright, in an undertone...
“Well, and what is your worship’s opinion as to the purpose of that schooner?”
Castro shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?”... He released the gathered folds of his cloak, and moved off without a look at either of us.
“There he struts, with his wings drooping like a turkey-cock gone into deep mourning,” said Sebright. “Who knows? Ah, well, there’s no hurry to know for a day or two. I don’t think that craft could overhaul the Lion, if they tried ever so. They may manage to keep us in sight perhaps.”
He yawned, and left me standing motionless, thinking of Seraphina. I longed to see her—to make sure, as if my belief in the possession of her had been inexplicably weakened. I was going to look at the door of her cabin. But when I got as far as the companion I had to stand aside for Mrs. Williams, who was coming up the winding stairs.