He smiled up at Heyst in his peculiar lip-retracting manner, and added by way of afterthought:
“That's what will happen to him in the end, if he doesn't learn to restrain himself. But I've taught him to mind his manners for a while, anyhow!”
And again he addressed his quick grin up to the man on the wharf. His round eyes had never left Heyst's face ever since he began to deliver his account of the voyage.
“So that's how he looks!” Ricardo was saying to himself.
He had not expected Heyst to be like this. He had formed for himself a conception containing the helpful suggestion of a vulnerable point. These solitary men were often tipplers. But no!—this was not a drinking man's face; nor could he detect the weakness of alarm, or even the weakness of surprise, on these features, in those steady eyes.
“We were too far gone to climb out,” Ricardo went on. “I heard you walking along though. I thought I shouted; I tried to. You didn't hear me shout?”
Heyst made an almost imperceptible negative sign, which the greedy eyes of Ricardo—greedy for all signs—did not miss.
“Throat too parched. We didn't even care to whisper to each other lately. Thirst chokes one. We might have died there under this wharf before you found us.”
“I couldn't think where you had gone to.” Heyst was heard at last, addressing directly the newcomers from the sea. “You were seen as soon as you cleared that point.”
“We were seen, eh?” grunted Mr. Ricardo. “We pulled like machines—daren't stop. The governor sat at the tiller, but he couldn't speak to us. She drove in between the piles till she hit something, and we all tumbled off the thwarts as if we had been drunk. Drunk—ha, ha! Too dry, by George! We fetched in here with the very last of our strength, and no mistake. Another mile would have done for us. When I heard your footsteps, above, I tried to get up, and I fell down.”