“But I should have supposed that in the hour of danger you would have paid him more than usual attention?”
“The fact is, Sahib, I have found out that the fellow is not worth his salt: the last time we had an infernal squall with him on board, and if he doesn’t keep this one off, I’ll just throw him overboard, and take to Santa Caterina: hang me, if I don’t—the brother-in-law!”[57]
And so saying the Tindal looked ferocious things at the placid features of San Ignacio.
The peculiar conformation of our captain’s mind, recalled to memory a somewhat similar phenomenon which we noticed in our younger days. We were toiling up a steep and muddy mountain-road over the Apennines, on foot, to relieve our panting steeds, whom the vetturino was fustigating, con amore, at the same time venting fearful imprecations upon the soul of Sant’ Antonino Piccino, or the younger.
At length, tired of hearing the cadet so defamed, we suggested that our friend should address a few similar words to the other Sant’ Antonino—the elder.
“The elder!” cried the vetturino, aghast with horror. “Oh, per Bacco che bestemmia—what a blasphemy! No, I daren’t abuse His Sanctity; but as for this little rufiano of a younger, I’ve worn his portrait these ten years, and know by this time that nothing is to be got out of him without hard words.”
On the fourth day after our departure from Panjim, a swarm of canoes full of fishermen, probably the descendants of the ancient Malabar pirates, gave us happy tidings of speedy arrival. They were a peculiar-looking race dressed in head-gear made of twisted palm leaves, and looking exactly as if an umbrella, composed of matting, had been sewn on to the top of a crownless hat of the same material.
And now we are in the Malabar seas.