"I've not been to Madagascar," said Jaffery again.
Captain Maturin smiled gravely. "Why not come along with me. Mr. Chayne?"
Jaffery's eyes danced and his smile broadened so that his white teeth showed beneath his moustache. "Why not?" he cried. And bringing down his hand with a clamp on Liosha's shoulder—"Why not? You and I. Out of this rotten civilisation?"
Liosha drew a deep breath and looked at him in awed amazement. So did I. I thought he was going mad.
"Would you like it?" he asked.
"Like it!" She had no words to express the glory that sprang into her face.
Captain Maturin leaned forward.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Chayne, we've no license for passengers, and certainly there's no accommodation for ladies."
Jaffery threw up a hand. "But she's not a lady—in your silly old sailor sense of the term. She's a hefty savage like me. When you had me aboard, did you think of having accommodation for a gentleman? Ho! ho! ho! At any rate," said he, at the end of the peal, "you've a sort of spare cabin? There's always one."
"A kind of dog-hole—for you, Mr. Chayne."