“Look at their beauty,” I said.
“I have, until I’m out of all heart with it,” he replied. “A pinnacle or two, with clouds round the top; a field of sugar-cane; hundreds of palms, hundreds of blacks; mean houses and a paltry pier—that’s a West Indian island. I liked the first; I tolerated the second; I even bore with the third; but the fourth wearied me; the fifth harrowed me; the sixth sickened me; the seventh—that is this one—has absolutely maddened me; and the eighth or ninth will probably kill me.”
I said:
“You ought not to have come here. Why did you?”
"'without firing off their wretched brass guns.'"
“I took advice,” he answered drearily. “So-called friends assured me that what I wanted was constant change of scene, with variety and novelty. They asserted that these things were to be found in the West Indies, and I believed them. Look at the climate, too; even that never changes. Look at the sky; English people cannot stand this eternal surface of dead blue. They are not accustomed to it, and it frets their optic nerves. In fact, the whole scheme of things here sets the nervous system on edge from morning till night. There is a cannon somewhere in this steamer, and it will fire in a moment; for no reason, that I can see, except a nautical love of unnecessary noise. These ships cannot come to a place or depart again without firing off their wretched brass guns.”
He went moaning away to his cabin, saying that he never knew one room from another on board ship: they were all so exactly alike; and I proceeded to scan further fresh arrivals.
One party consisted of a man and his wife. They had recently been turned out of Venezuela, upon political grounds, and were now going up to St. Thomas, to meet some friends there and arrange a Revolution. A very pretty little French girl and her mother were also among the passengers. The Treasure knew them well, and, when he heard they were coming, grew excited, and hurried away to shave and change his clothes.
The Treasure’s Enchantress was certainly very beautiful, with a slight, trim figure, great wealth of raven hair and flashing eyes. Moreover, she appeared to like him, and told me that he always gave her mother the best cabin in the ship.