“I couldn’t get a slant on him in the moonlight,” answered Cary. “He is pretty well warped and dried up, but he seems to have a kick in him.”
“Nobody knows how old that Ramon Bazán is, Ricardo. He looked just like this when I was a little, little girl.”
Cary absently filled his briar pipe. Teresa snatched it from him and objected:
“That monkey was trying to smoke it just like a man. Dirty beast! Here, you take a cigarette from me and I will scrub that pipe with boiling water.”
One other thing troubled her. That story of the galleon bell. Did Ricardo think she was stupid to believe all that stuff? It sounded true in the patio, in the moonlight of Cartagena, but would he laugh at her when he was at sea again in the Tarragona with that wise amigo of his, the chief engineer? Listen! It was no more wonderful than the marble pulpit in the cathedral, all carved with the images of the saints. It was well known to everybody that the Pope had commanded the best artists of Spain to carve that pulpit for a gift to the faithful people of Cartagena. The Pope had blessed it before the ship sailed from Cadiz. Oh, very long ago!
The ship was close to the Spanish Main when the English buccaneers had captured her. They were very angry to find the cases of marble that were all carved with the blessed images of the Catholic saints. So they threw the cases overboard when they plundered the ship. All this heavy marble! It did not sink at all, but floated on the waves. A long time these cases of marble floated until, one day, they washed right up on the beach of Cartagena.
The bishop called all the people to see the holy miracle and there was a procession to the cathedral with incense and banners and hymns. And there is the marble pulpit to-day, and the priests saying Mass under the canopy.
Richard Cary gravely agreed that such a miracle could not be doubted, even by a heretic. And he did not have to be persuaded to believe in the marvelous powers of the galleon’s bell to toll a warning of disaster. This comforted the heart of Teresa Fernandez, so shrewd and yet so credulous. She was radiantly happy in these golden moments with the man she loved.
He left her at the ship’s gangway. The chief officer was on watch. Dour and taciturn, he was human enough to say:
“You didn’t have to hurry back, Mr. Cary. A pity to cut it short on a night like this. The old man is ashore.”