“For phwat the divil——”
But this masterly sentence he never finished. I could see that he was thinking deeply. Presently he settled himself in his chair and began to talk almost as one communing with himself.
“He takes me from London, me that is an orphan and has buried three wives. He puts me on the sea and shows me a wild man’s country. Ach, ’tis a wonderful man, me friend Fabos, and none like unto him. As a lamb to the shearing do I thread in his footsteps.”
“Rather an old sheep, Timothy, is it not?”
He brushed the objection aside, and apostrophising the stars in that grandiose style he had learned from ancient melodrama, he exclaimed:
“Woman eternal, the crimes that are committed in your name.”
“Do you mean to say——”
“I mean to say that ye are going to the Azores to see her.”
“Joan Fordibras?”
“No other. Joan Fordibras. The little divil of a shepherdess in the red dress. Ye are going to see her. Deny it not. Ye are risking much to see her—your duty which bought ye this ship, the knowledge ye have learned out of Africa, the story ye would tell to the British Government. Ye are losing these because of the shepherdess. I’ll deny it, Ean Fabos, when ye tell me it is not true.”