A faint trace of darker colour showed through the bronze in Austin's cheek. "Yes," he said, "that is exactly what is the matter with me. Still, as I shall never get it, I am tolerably content with what I have. Fortunately, I am fond of it – I mean the sea."
"Of course," said Jacinta, with a curious little sparkle in her eyes, "contentment is commendable, though there is something that appeals to one's fancy in the thought of a man struggling against everything to acquire the unattainable."
"So long as it is unattainable, what would be the good? Besides, I am almost afraid I am not that kind of man."
Jacinta said nothing further, and half an hour slipped by, until a trail of smoke with a smear of something beneath it, crept up out of the glittering sea.
"The Andalusia," said Austin. "She takes up our western run here under the new time-table. I hope she's bringing no English folks from Las Palmas to worry us."
As it happened, there was a man on board the Andalusia who was to bring one of the party increased anxiety and distress of mind, but they did not know that then, and in the meanwhile the peon with the horses and Don Erminio came back again. He brought no rabbits, but he had succeeded in badly scratching one of the Damascene barrels of Austin's gun.
"The conejo he no can eat the stone, and here there is nothing else," he explained. "Otra vez – the other time, comes here a señor Engleesman, and we have the gun, but there is no conejo. Me I say, 'Mira. Conejo into his hole he go!' Bueno! The Engleesman he put the white rat into that hole, and wait, oh, he wait mucho tiempo. Me, away I go. I come back, the Engleesman has bag the Captain of puerto."
Then he turned with a dramatic gesture to the camel, which stretched out its little head towards his leg. "Bur-r-r. Hijo de diablo. Aughr-r-r. Focha camello! Me, I also spick the Avar-r-ack. The condemn camello he comprehend."
The long-necked beast at least knelt down as though it did, and Mrs. Hatherly climbed into the crate with a somewhat apprehensive glance at the gallant captain.
CHAPTER VI
AUSTIN'S POINT OF VIEW
Mrs. Hatherly decided during the ride to the beach that she had seen quite enough of that island in the three days she had spent there, and she had already gone off to the Estremedura with Muriel and Jacinta when Austin stood smoking on the little mole. Long undulations of translucent brine seethed close past his feet to break with a drowsy roar upon the lava reefs, and the Estremedura lay rolling wildly a quarter of a mile away. A cluster of barefooted men were with difficulty loading her big lancha beneath the mole with the barley-straw the row of camels, kneeling in the one straggling street behind him, had brought down. The men were evidently tired, for they had toiled waist-deep in the surf since early morning, and Austin decided to spare them the journey for his despatch gig.
Accordingly, when the lancha was loaded high with the warm yellow bales he clambered up on them and bade the crew get under way. The long sweeps dipped, and the craft went stern first towards the reef for a moment or two before she crawled out to sea, looking very like a cornstack set adrift as she lurched over the shining swell. Austin lay upon the straw, smoking tranquilly, for everybody leaves a good deal to chance in Spain, and now and then flung a little Castilian badinage at the gasping men who pulled the big sweeps below. As it happened, they could not see him because the straw rose behind them in a yellow wall. They were cheerful, inconsequent fishermen, who would have done a good deal for him, and not altogether because of the bottle of caña he occasionally gave them.
They had traversed half the distance, when, opening up a point, they met a steeper heave, and when the dripping bows went up after the plunge there was a movement of the barley-straw. Austin felt for a better hold, but two or three bales fetched away as he did so, and in another moment he plunged down headforemost into the sea. When he came up he found a straw bale floating close beside him, and held on by it while he looked about him. The lancha was apparently going on, and it was evident that although the men must have heard the straw fall, they were not aware that he had gone with it. There was, he surmised, no room for the lost bales, and the men could not have heaved them up on top of the load. It therefore appeared probable that they purposed unloading the lancha before they came back for them, and he decided to climb up on the bale.
He found it unexpectedly difficult, for when he had almost dragged himself up the bale rolled over and dropped him in again; while, when he tried to wriggle up the front of it, it stood upright and then fell upon him. After several attempts he gave it up, and set out for the steamer with little pieces of barley-straw and spiky ears sticking all over him. He could swim tolerably well, and swung along comfortably enough over the smooth-backed swell, for his light clothing did not greatly cumber him. Still, he did not desire that any one beyond the Estremedura's crew should witness his arrival.
He was, accordingly, by no means pleased to see Jacinta and Miss Gascoyne stroll out from the deck-house as he drew in under the Estremedura's side, especially as there were no apparent means of getting on board quietly. The lancha had vanished round the stern, the ladder was triced up, and the open cargo gangway several feet above the brine. The steamer also hove up another four or five feet of streaming plates every time she rolled. Still, it was evident that he could not stay where he was on the chance of the ladies not noticing him indefinitely, and as he swam on again Miss Gascoyne broke into a startled scream.
"Oh!" she said, "there's somebody drowning!"
The cry brought Macallister to the gangway, and he was very grimy in engine-room disarray. Austin, in the water, saw the wicked twinkle in his eyes, and was not pleased to hear Jacinta laugh musically.
"I really don't think he is in any danger," she said.
Austin set his lips, and swam for the gangway as the Estremedura rolled down. His flung up hand came within a foot of the opening, and then he sank back a fathom or more below it as the Estremedura hove that side of her out of the water. When he swung up again Macallister was standing above him with a portentiously sharp boat hook, while two or three grinning seamen clustered round. The girls were also leaning out from the saloon-deck rails.
"Will ye no keep still while I hook ye!" said the engineer.
"If you stick that confounded thing into my clothes I'll endeavour to make you sorry," said Austin savagely.
Macallister made a sweep at him, and Austin went down, while one of the seamen, leaning down, grabbed him by the shoulder, when he rose.
"Let go!" he sputtered furiously. "Give me your hand instead!"
He evidently forgot that the seaman, who held on, was not an Englishman, and next moment he was hove high above the water. Then there was a ripping and tearing, and while the seaman reeled back with a long strip of alpaca in his hand, Austin splashed into the water. He came up in time to see Macallister smiling in Jacinta's direction reassuringly.
"There's no need to be afraid," he said. "Though I'm no sure he's worth it, I'll save him for ye."
Now, Jacinta was usually quite capable of making any man who offended her feel sorry for himself, but the sight of Austin's savage red face as he gazed at Macallister, with the torn jacket flapping about him in the water and the barley-straw sticking all over him, was too much for her, and she broke into a peal of laughter.
In another moment Macallister contrived to get his boat hook into the slack of Austin's garments, and when two seamen seized the haft they hove him out, wrong side uppermost, and incoherent with wrath. When they dropped him, a tattered, dripping heap, on the deck, Miss Gascoyne leaned her face upon her hands, and laughed almost hysterically, until Jacinta touched her shoulder.
"Mr. Austin evidently believes he has a good deal to thank his comrade for. I think you had better come away," she said.
Austin put himself to some trouble in endeavouring to make Macallister understand what he thought of him, when they had gone, but the engineer only grinned.
"Well," he said, "I'll forgive ye. If I had looked like ye do with two ladies watching me, I might have been a bit short in temper