But Courtenay’s voice gave no hint of the tumult in his breast, though some malign spirit seemed to whisper the agonizing question: “Will you permit her to fall into the hands of the ghouls waiting without?”
“I find the get-up of our visitors distinctly humorous,” he said, “and I hope they are a bit scared of us. We would prefer their room to their company.”
“I thought that Señor Suarez would hail them, as he can speak their language. Perhaps he does not wish them to know he is on board?”
Now, Elsie had heard the man’s impassioned appeal when the Indians were first sighted, so Courtenay felt that she, too, was acting.
“You look nice and cool up there,” he answered, “and your words do not belie your looks.”
“Please, what does that mean exactly?”
“Need I tell you? You treat our troubles airily.”
“Shall one ‘wear a rough garment to deceive’?” she quoted with a laugh. “Don’t you remember the next verse? You ought to retort: ‘I am no prophet, I am an husbandman!’ But that would not be quite right, for you are a sailor.”
She blushed a little at the chance turn of the phrase. Neither the girl nor her hearers recalled the succeeding verses, wherein the destruction of Jerusalem is foretold: “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried.”
Indeed, a new direction was given to Elsie’s thoughts by the somewhat scowling aspect of Christobal’s face. He was looking at Courtenay in a manner which betokened a certain displeasure. The Spaniard’s cultivated cynicism was subjugated by a more powerful sentiment. It seemed to Elsie that he envied Courtenay his youth and high spirits, for, in very truth, the mere exchange of those harmless pleasantries had tuned the younger man’s soul to the transcendental pitch of the knight errant. In his heart he was vowing to rescue this fair lady from the dangers which beset her, though he said jokingly with his lips: