Harold Bindloss - For Jacinta

Austin felt the last observation jar upon him, for he knew that the inhabitants of that land would, in respect of sobriety and morality, compare very favourably with those of several more enlightened places he was acquainted with at home, and that was going far enough for him. Still, he could defer to another's convictions when they were evidently sincere, and it seemed to him that Jacinta's warning glance was a trifle unnecessary. There was, however, an interruption just then, for a steward appeared with a laden tray at the door of the captain's room.

"Doesn't Don Erminio take his comida in the saloon?" asked Jacinta.

"No," said Austin. "Not when we have English ladies on board. He's a different man, you know, and some of them will insist on talking Spanish to him. It's a little trying to have to admit you don't understand your own language."

"Vaya!" said a deep voice beyond the open door. "Eso no me gusta," and while the steward backed out in haste, a couple of plates went flying over the rail.

"Don Erminio," said Jacinta, "evidently doesn't approve of his dinner."

Miss Gascoyne appeared astonished, and looked at Austin gravely.

"Does he often lose his temper in that fashion?" she asked. "Isn't it very childish to throw – good food into the sea?"

"The captain is, when you come to know him, really a very good-natured man," said Austin. Then he stopped, and stood up suddenly as two figures came towards them along the deck, and another from the opposite direction. "It's Monsignor – I wonder what Macallister wants with him."

A little, portly priest moved forward with a smile of good-humoured pride, and an ecclesiastic of a very different stamp walked at his side. The latter was a great man, indeed, a very great man, though he had once toiled in comparative obscurity. Even Miss Gascoyne had apparently heard of him.

"If one could venture, I should like to speak to him," she said.

Neither Jacinta nor Austin seemed to hear her. They were both watching Macallister, and he, at least, clearly intended to accost the clerics. He was now dressed immaculately in blue uniform, and in that condition he was a big, handsome man, but he was also a North British Calvinist, so far as he had any religious views at all, and accordingly not one who could reasonably be expected to do homage to a dignitary of Rome. Still, the little fleshy priest was a friend of his, and when the latter presented him he bent one knee a trifle and gravely took off his uniform cap. The ecclesiastic raised two fingers and spoke in Latin. Macallister smiled at him reassuringly.

"That isn't exactly what I meant, but it can't do me any harm coming from a man like you, while if it does me any good I daresay I need it. You see, I'm one of the goats," he said.

The great man glanced at his companion, who translated as literally as he could, though he also explained that the Señor Macallister not infrequently made things easier for some of the peasants who travelled third class on board the Estremedura . Then a whimsical but very kindly twinkle crept into the great man's eyes, and he laid a beautiful, olive-tinted hand on the shoulder of the mechanic who had graciously approved of him.

"If he is kind to these poor hill men he is a friend of mine. The charity it covers many – differences," he said.

Then, as they came aft together, Austin also took off his cap, and touched Miss Gascoyne's arm as he turned to the cleric. The girl rose gravely, with a tinge of heightened colour in her face and a little inclination, and, though nobody remembered exactly what was said, unless it was the eminent cleric, who was, as usual with his kind, a polished man of the world as well, he moved on with the girl on one side of him and Macallister talking volubly in a most barbarous jargon on the other. Mrs. Hatherly and the little priest took their places behind them, and Austin gathered that as a special favour Macallister was going to show them all his engines. Jacinta leaned back in her seat and laughed musically.

"Macallister," she said, "is always unique, and he will probably finish the entertainment by offering Monsignor a glass of whiskey. It is to be hoped he doesn't apostrophise his firemen with his usual fluency. Still, do you know, I am rather pleased with you? You have made Muriel happy."

"If I have pleased you it is rather more to the purpose," said Austin, reflectively. "I have, however, noticed that when you express your approbation there is usually something else to be done."

Jacinta smiled. "It is very little, after all, but perhaps I had better explain. Muriel met Jefferson, who had been to London to see somebody, on board the Dahomey , and – I'm telling you this in confidence – there are reasons for believing the usual thing happened. She is really good, you know, while Jefferson is a somewhat serious man himself, as well as an American. They treat women rather well in his country – in fact, they seem to idealise them now and then. Besides, I understand it was remarkably fine weather."

"Yes," said Austin, who glanced suggestively across the sunlit heave towards the dim, blue heights of Grand Canary, "it is, one would believe, quite easy to fall in love with any one pretty and clever during fine weather at sea. That is, of course, on sufficient provocation. There are also, I think, Englishmen with some capacity for idealisation – but hadn't you better go on?"

Jacinta pursed her lips as she looked at him with an assumption of severity, but she proceeded. "Now, I had arranged for Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel to spend the winter in Grand Canary, but she has heard of a doctor in one of the hotels at Madeira, and is bent on going there. There is, of course, nothing the matter with her; but if she approves of the doctor in question it is very probable that she will stay in that hotel until the spring. Still, she is changeable, and if she doesn't go at once it is possible that she will not go at all. The Madeira boat leaves Las Palmas about half an hour after we get there, and I don't want Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel to catch her. Muriel doesn't want to, either."

Austin shook his head. "Don't you know that it is rather a serious thing to delay a Spanish mailboat?" he said. "Still, I suppose you have decided that it must be done?"

"I think so," said Jacinta sweetly. "I also fancy you and Macallister could manage it between you. You have my permission to tell him anything you think necessary."

She rose and left him, with this, and Austin, who was not altogether pleased with his commission, waited until after the four o'clock comida, when, flinging himself down on a settee in the engineer's room, cigar in hand, he put the case to Macallister, who grinned. The latter, as a rule, appeared to find his native idiom more expressive in the evening.

"I'm no saying Jacinta's no fascinating, an' I've seen ye looking at her like a laddie eyeing a butterscotch," he said. "Still, it can no be done. Neither o' our reputations would stand it, for one thing."

"We have nothing to do with the Madeira boat, and the Lopez boat for Cuba doesn't sail until an hour after her," said Austin. "Besides, Jacinta wants it done."

Macallister looked thoughtful. "Weel," he said, "that is a reason. Jacinta thinks a good deal of me, an' if I was no married already I would show ye how to make up to her. I would not sit down, a long way off, an' look at her. She's no liking ye any the better for that way of it."

"Hadn't you better leave that out?" said Austin stiffly. "I'm the Estremedura 's sobrecargo, which is quite sufficient. Can't you have a burst tube or something of the kind?"

"A burst tube is apt to result in somebody getting scalded, an' stepping into boiling water is sore on a Primera Maquinista's feet. Ye'll just have to make excuses to Jacinta, I'm thinking."