Captain Fitzroy answered blandly—"It is very good of you to ask us, but I fear I cannot make any definite arrangements until I learn what orders are awaiting me here."
"Oh, certainly. Come if you can, eh?"
"Yes; suppose we leave it at that."
It was a polite but decided rebuff. It in no way tended to sweeten Lord Ventnor's temper, which was further exasperated when he hurt his shin against one of Robert's disreputable-looking tins, with its accumulation of debris.
The boat swung off into the tideway. Her progress shorewards was watched by a small knot of people, mostly loungers and coolies. Among them, however, were two persons who had driven rapidly to the landing-place when the arrival of the Orient was reported. One bore all the distinguishing marks of the army officer of high rank, but the other was unmistakably a globetrotter. Only in Piccadilly could he have purchased his wondrous sola topi, or pith helmet—with its imitation puggri neatly frilled and puckered—and no tailor who ever carried his goose through the Exile's Gate would have fashioned his expensive garments. But the old gentleman made no pretence that he could "hear the East a-callin'." He swore impartially at the climate, the place, and its inhabitants. At this instant he was in a state of wild excitement. He was very tall, very stout, exceedingly red-faced. Any budding medico who understood the pre-eminence enjoyed by aq. ad in a prescription, would have diagnosed him as a first-rate subject for apoplexy.
Producing a tremendous telescope, he vainly endeavored to balance it on the shoulder of a native servant.
"Can't you stand still, you blithering idiot!" he shouted, after futile attempts to focus the advancing boat, "or shall I steady you by a clout over the ear?"
His companion, the army man, was looking through a pair of field-glasses.
"By Jove!" he cried, "I can see Sir Arthur Deane, and a girl who looks like his daughter. There's that infernal scamp, Ventnor, too."
The big man brushed the servant out of his way, and brandished the telescope as though it were a bludgeon.