“The señorita,” translated Antonio in effect—but, as I have before said, I will not attempt a written description of his articulation or phrases; I write that he may be intelligible—“wishes to know how long you intend to remain in this situation, and to what part of the world you are proceeding when you sail?”
“To England!” cried the lady, when Antonio had made answer out of the mouth of Greaves. “Santa Maria purissima! How shall I find my mother? If she has been rescued she will have been conveyed to some port on the South American coast, whence she will return to Acapulco, and there await news of me. To England! Ave Maria! The world will then divide me from my mother. Blessed Virgin! I did think this ship was proceeding to a South American port. To England! I shall never see my mother again.”
She exclaimed awhile in this sort of language, but untheatrically. Nay, there was a dignity in her astonishment and concern; very little tossing of hands and uprolling of eyes. The main article in the outward expression of her grief and alarm lay in the piteous look she fastened on me, as though she would rather appeal to me than to the captain; as though, indeed, she considered that since I was the first to take her by the hand on the island, and to bring her off from a situation of horror, she was entitled to look to me for all further kindnesses.
“The señorita’s mother,” said Greaves, “was, of course, rescued, and is, no doubt, safe and well?” Antonio turned his back upon the lady that she might not see him squint, and he shrugged his shoulders. “But we have no right to suppose,” continued Greaves, looking sternly at the Spaniard, “that the ship which rescued the señora conveyed her to a port whence she could easily reach Acapulco. On the contrary, in all probability the ship was bound round the Horn, in which case the lady may be now on her way to Europe.”
Antonio translated; the lady Aurora gazed at him somewhat passionately, and beat the air with a gesture of irritation, clearly unable to collect the captain’s meaning from the fellow’s interpretation of it. Antonio talked much and gesticulated with singular energy. The lady then appeared to comprehend.
“She says that her mother is rich,” said Antonio, “and is well known as the widow of Don Alonzo de Cueva, the merchant of Lima. She will pay liberally to be conveyed to Acapulco, where she has a brother who is a priest. She will return to Acapulco because she is sure to believe that the señora, her mother, will seek her there.”
“Tell the lady,” said Greaves, “that I am truly sorry not to be able to put her ashore at any port where she would be within easy reach of Acapulco. When I have filled my water casks I am proceeding to England as straight as the rudder can steer the ship, touching nowhere, and giving everything that passes plenty of room. Yet this tell her, likewise, that on our way to England we may chance to fall in with a vessel bound to a port on this side the South American coast. Should we fall in with such a vessel, I will transfer the lady to her.”
He spoke slowly, with the deliberateness of a man who is in pain while he discourses. Antonio made shift to render the captain’s words intelligible to the lady. She asked, through the Spanish seaman, what Captain Greaves would charge to put her ashore at Lima or Valparaiso.
“It is not to be done,” said Greaves; “beg her not to repeat that request.”
She seemed to gather the matter of his speech by his manner. Her eyes came to mine, earnest, pleading, with a deeper shadow in their dark depths as though tears were not far off. It was a look that made me curse my ignorance of the Spanish tongue. Much could I have said to comfort and hearten her; but though I had been able to talk as fluently as she, it was not for me to intrude then. I was mate, and Greaves was captain; and I stood at the rail seeming to watch the island as it blackened to the fading crimson light, and to be keeping a lookout for the return of the longboat.