For Jacinta Part 7

They wound down into a hollow, through which, as one could see by the tortuous belt of stones, a little water now and then flowed, and dismounted in the scanty shadow of a ruined wall. It had been built high and solid of blocks of lava centuries ago, perhaps by the first of the Spanish, or by dusky invaders from Morocco. As it was not quite so hot there, Austin and the Captain made preparations for a meal when a bare-legged peon led the beasts away. Then the Captain frowned darkly at the prospect.

"Ah, mala gente. Que el infierno los come!" he said, with blazing eyes, and swung a brown hand up, as though appealing to stones and sky before he indulged in another burst of eloquence.

"What is he saying?" asked Muriel Gascoyne. "He seems very angry."

Austin smiled. "I scarcely think it would be altogether advisable to enquire, but it is not very astonishing if he is angry," he said. "Don Erminio is not, as a rule, a success as a business man, and this is a farm he once invested all his savings in. I am particularly sorry to say that I did much the same."

Miss Gascoyne appeared astonished, which was, perhaps, not altogether unnatural, as she gazed at the wilderness in front of her. There were, she could now see, signs that somebody had made a desultory attempt at building a wall which was nearly buried again. A few odd heaps of lava blocks had also been piled up here and there, but the hollow was strewn with dust and ashes, and looked as though nothing had ever grown there since that island was hurled, incandescent, out of the sea. It was very difficult to discover the least evidence of fertility.

"Ah!" said Jacinta, "so this is the famous Finca de La Empreza Financial?"

Oliviera overheard her, and once more made a gesture with arms flung wide.

"Mira!" he said. "The cemetery where I bury the hopes of me. O much tomate, mucho profit. I buy more finca and the cow for me. Aha! There is also other time I make the commercial venture. I buy two mulo. Very good mulo. I charge mucho dollar for the steamboat cargo cart. Comes the locomotura weet the concrete block down Las Palmas mole. The mole is narrow, the block is big, the man drives the locomotura behind it, he not can look. Vaya, my two mulo, and the cart, she is in the sea. That is also ruin me. I say, 'Vaya. In fifty year she is oll the same,' but when I see the Finca de tomate I have the temper. Alors, weet permission, me vais cha.s.ser the conejo."

"The unfortunate man!" said Jacinta, when he strode away in search of a rabbit. "Still, the last of it wasn't quite unexceptional Castilian."

Austin laughed. "Don Erminio speaks French almost as well as he does English. In fact, he's a linguist in his way. Still, I'm not sorry he didn't insist upon me going shooting with him. It's risky, and I would sooner he'd borrowed somebody else's gun."

They made a tolerable lunch, for the _Estremedura_'s cook knew his business, and, though it very seldom rains there, some of the finest grapes to be found anywhere grow in the neighbouring island of Lanzarote. Then Mrs. Hatherly apparently went to sleep with her back against the wall, while Muriel sat silent in the shadow, close beside her. Perhaps the camel ride had shaken her, and perhaps she was thinking of Jefferson, for she was gazing east towards Africa, across the flaming sea. Jacinta, as usual, appeared delightfully fresh and cool, as she sat with her long white dress tucked about her on a block of lava, while Austin lay, contented, not far from her feet.

"You never told me you had a share in the Finca," she said.

"Well," said Austin, "I certainly had. I also made a speech at the inaugural dinner, and Don Erminio almost wept with pride while I did it.

I had, though he did not mention it, a share in his mule cart, too, and once or twice bought a schooner load of onions to ship to Havana at his suggestion. You see, I had then a notion that it was my duty to make a little money. Somehow, the onions never got to Cuba, and our other ventures ended--like the Finca."

"Then you have given up all idea of making money now?"

"It really didn't seem much use continuing, and, after all, a little money wouldn't be very much good to me. A chance of making twenty thousand pounds might, perhaps, rouse me to temporary activity."

"Ah," said Jacinta, looking at him with thoughtful eyes, "you want too much, my friend. You are not likely to make it by painting little pictures on board the _Estremedura_."

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 senor 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 cana 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 c.u.mber 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 rea.s.suringly.

"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.