“Please do not look like that again,” said Teresa, her accents slightly tremulous. “You scare me. It was just like the ghost of one of those mad Englishmen in the little ships. I was going to tell you some more, but you must be nice and gentle. The ship’s bell from the galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario was saved by a Spanish officer from a fort when the hulk drifted ashore. This one he gave the bell to my old ancestor, Don Juan Diego Fernandez, and it stayed always in Cartagena. I give you my word, Ricardo, it is hanging right now in the patio of my uncle’s house, close to the Plaza de la Independencia. There is the bronze bell, very beautiful, and it hangs from an oak timber that was in the galleon. If you go ashore with me, I will show you the bell in my uncle’s patio. We can sit there, and my uncle he will amuse you. He is a very funny old guy.”
“The bell of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario,” Richard Cary mused aloud. “Yes, I shall want to see it, Teresa.”
“Hum-m, in Cartagena you will be admired, let me tell you that, Ricardo,” said she, with a flash of asperity. “A girl in every port? And you have made a fool of Teresa Fernandez. It does not happen every day. I swear by the blessed Santa Marta.”
“I’ll swear it never happened to me before—to find a girl like you and fall in love with her,” was his ardent declaration.
“Do you truly love me, Ricardo? Such a man as you?” Her sigh was both wistful and happy. “I was hoping—I thought I saw it in your eyes, in your smile, but—”
For answer he kissed her on the lips, clinging lips that returned the caress. Responsively she surrendered to his masterful sway. In her heart was the faith to believe that he could never be fickle or inconstant, once his love was pledged. A girl in every port? She had spoken in jest.
It was time for them to part. On watch, later in the night, he found himself repeating:
“Could man be drunk forever
With liquor, love or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning