“I feel so lost without the Holy Scriptures I brought from home,” he said, “and the precious hymn book I used when I was younger than you are. Ah, how many times they have made my heart light when it was sore with trouble. I can buy new ones on shore, but they’ll not be like the ones I used so long. And I want to mail a letter to my dear old father. I think the Captain would let us go if you were to ask him.”
Kit was rapidly gaining experience of the world, but he still had a great deal to learn about the people who live in it. That there are men who try to hide their wickedness under a cloak of deep piety he had no suspicion. It was very nice in the new steward, he thought, to take the first opportunity to replace his lost Bible and mail a letter to his aged father; and though he felt more like going to bed, he went to the Captain and readily got permission for them both to go ashore, without the least suspicion that the steward would much have preferred to go alone, but was using him as a cat’s-paw because the Captain would be more likely to oblige him.
They were taken to the landing-steps in the gig, with the understanding that the boat would return for them at half-past ten, Mr. MacNish carrying along a small leather satchel, strongly mounted with brass, that looked quite luxurious for the steward of a tramp steamship.
“I want to make a few trifling purchases,” he explained, “and this will be handy to carry them aboard in. Perhaps I can’t find what I want, but I’ll not worry over it; ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”
As they climbed up the slippery stone steps Kit noticed two men who looked like Americans sitting on a bench in the little park, and imagined that they looked very hard and sharp at him and his companion. And he saw that the steward noticed them too; indeed there was little that Mr. MacNish did not notice, now that they were ashore. He looked around as if there might be highwaymen behind the trees, and clutched his satchel a little tighter, though it was too dark for him to see the men distinctly.
When they crossed the small park they were in Bay Street, the main business street of the place; and they had not gone far before they were in front of a dingy saloon, with doors standing wide open.
“I feel the chill of the night air,” Mr. MacNish said, stopping before the door, “and it is dangerous to be chilled in the tropics. Let us go in and get something to warm us.”
“I am warm enough, thank you,” Kit answered; “I don’t care for anything.”
“You know the apostle advises us to take a little wine for the stomach’s sake,” the steward urged.
“My stomach’s all right!” Kit laughed. “I suppose they didn’t have any quinine in those days; quinine’s much better.”