For Jacinta

"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."

Austin, who knew he could do nothing without Macallister's co-operation, was wondering what persuasion he could use, when he was joined by an unexpected ally. A big, aggressive Englishman in tourist apparel approached the mess-room door and signed to him.

"You were not in your room," he said, as though this was a grievance.

Austin looked at him quietly. "I'm afraid I really haven't the faculty of being in two places at once. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"There is. I particularly want to catch the Liverpool boat via Madeira to-night, and the time you get in cuts it rather fine. It occurred to me that you might be able to hurry her up a little."

"I'm sorry that's out of the question," said Austin, languidly. "You see, I'm not expected to interfere with this steamer's engines."

He was wondering how he could best favour the Englishman with a delicate left-handed compliment, when Macallister, who was once more very dirty, and wore only a dungaree jacket over his singlet, broke in:

"I would," he said, "like to see him try."

"May I ask who you are?" said the passenger, who regarded him superciliously.

"Ye may," and there was a portentious gleam in Macallister's eyes. "I'm only her chief engineer."

"Ah!" said the other, who did not consider it advisable to mention that he had supposed him to be a fireman. "Well, there are, I believe, means of obtaining a favour from a chief engineer. You naturally don't get many pickings in this kind of boat."

Austin laughed softly, for he knew his man. It is now and then permissible to bestow an honorarium upon a chief engineer over a deal in coals, but it requires to be done tactfully, and when the stranger suggestively thrust his hand into his pocket, Macallister hove his six feet of length upright, and looked down on him, with a big hand clenched and blazing eyes.

"Out o' this before I shake some manners intil ye, ye fifteen-pound-the-round-trip scum!" he said.

The stranger backed away from him, and then bolted incontinently as Macallister made for the door. Austin laughed softly when he heard him falling over things in the dark alleyway, and Macallister sat down fuming.

"A bit doosoor on the coal trade is one thing, but yon was – insultin'," he said, and then looked up with a sudden grin. "I'll fix the waster. Can ye no smell a crank-pin burning?"

"I can't," said Austin. "Still, under the circumstances, I'm quite willing to take your word for it."

He went up on deck. It was dark now, but the moon was shining, and he was not surprised to see a sooty fireman clambering in haste up the bridge ladder. Then the throb of the propeller slackened, and when the Estremedura lay rolling wildly athwart the long, moonlit heave, an uproar broke out in the engine room below. The Castilian is excitable, and apt to lose his head when orders which he cannot understand are hurled at him, while Macallister, when especially diligent, did not trust to words alone, but used lumps of coal and heavy steel spanners. He was just then apparently chasing his greasers and firemen up and down the engine room. There was a rush of apprehensive passengers towards the open skylights, from which steam as well as bad language ascended, and Austin, who went with them, found Jacinta by his side.

"I suppose it's nothing dangerous?" she said.

Austin laughed. "If it were Macallister would not be making so much noise. In fact, I don't think you need worry at all. When Miss Jacinta Brown expresses her wishes, things are not infrequently apt to happen."

Jacinta smiled at him. "I have," she said, "one or two faithful servants. Shall we move a little nearer and see what he is doing?"

"I'm afraid the conversation of one of them is not likely to be of a kind that Miss Gascoyne, for example, would approve of."

"Pshaw!" said Jacinta, and followed when Austin made way for her to one of the skylights' lifted frames.

The Estremedura was rolling wickedly, and very scantily attired men were scrambling, apparently without any definite purpose, beneath the reeling lights which flashed upon the idle machinery. They, however, seemed to be in bodily fear of Macallister, who held a spouting hose, while a foamy, soapy lather splashed up from the crank-pit on the big, shining connecting-rod. Austin could see him dimly through a cloud of steam, though he could think of no reason why any of the latter should be drifting about the engine room. There were several English passengers about the skylights, and the one with the aggressive manner was explaining his views to the rest.

"The man is either drunk or totally incapable. He is doing nothing but shout," he said. "You will notice that he spends half the time washing the connecting-rods, which, as everybody knows, cannot get hot. If we miss the Madeira boat I shall certainly call upon the company's manager."

Perhaps he spoke too loudly, or it may have been an accident, though Austin, who saw Macallister flounder on the slippery floor-plates as the steamer rolled, did not think it was. In any case, he drew Jacinta back, and a moment later a jet from the spouting hose struck with a great splashing upon the glass. The aggressive passenger, who was looking down just then, got most of it in his face, and he staggered back, dripping, and gasping with anger. When he once more became vociferous, Austin led Jacinta away.

"I'm afraid we will not catch that boat, but I really don't think you ought to hear Mack's retort," he said.

It was not quite half an hour later when the Estremedura moved on again, and Macallister informed Austin that he could not allow two journals to become overheated in the same voyage. It would, he said, be too much of a coincidence, and some of his subordinates did know a little about machinery. They had accordingly some few minutes yet in hand when they swung round the high Isleta cinder heap into sight of Las Palmas. It gleamed above the surf fringe, a cluster of twinkling lights at the black hills' feet, and there were other lights, higher up, on ships' forestays, behind the dusky line of mole. In between, the long Atlantic heave flashed beneath the moon, and there was scarcely two miles of it left. Austin, standing forward with a pair of night-glasses, and Jacinta beside him, watched the lights close on one another dejectedly.

"We'll be in inside ten minutes, and I think the Madeira boat has still her anchor down," he said. "I had to give the quartermaster orders to have our lancha ready, and he'll take any passengers straight across to her."

"I believe you did what you could," said Jacinta. "Still, you see – "

"Oh, yes," said Austin. "You like success?"

Jacinta looked at him with a little enigmatical smile. "When any of my friends are concerned, I believe I do."

Austin went aft, and a little while later found Macallister standing by the poop, which was piled with banana baskets, among which seasick Canary peasants lay. The big crane on the end of the mole was now on the Estremedura's quarter, and they were sliding into the mouth of the harbour. Close ahead, with white steam drifting about her forecastle, lay the Madeira boat.

"They're heaving up," said the engineer. "Jacinta will no' be pleased with ye, I'm thinking."

"There's only one thing left," said Austin. "One of us must fall in."

Macallister grinned. "Then I know which it will be. It was not me who swam across the harbour last trip. But wait a moment. There's a dozen or two Spaniards among the baskets, an' I'm thinking nobody would miss one of them."

Austin, who knew what his comrade was capable of, seized hold of him, but Macallister shook his grasp off and disappeared among the baskets. Then there was a splash in the shadow beneath the ship, a shout, and a clamour broke out from the crowded deck. A gong clanged below, the captain shouted confused orders from his bridge, and the Estremedura slid forward, with engines stopped, past a British warship with her boats at the booms. Then in the midst of the confusion, Austin, who was leaning on the rail, wondering what had really happened, felt himself gripped by the waist. They had slid into the shadow of the Isleta, which lay black upon the water just there.

"Noo's your chance," said a voice he knew. "It's a hero she'll think ye. In ye go to the rescue!"

Austin, who was by no means certain that there was a man in the water at all, had no intention of going if he could help it, but, as it happened, he had no option. The Estremedura rolled just then, he felt himself lifted, and went out, head foremost, over the rail. The steamer had gone on and left him when he rose to the surface, but there was nobody either swimming or shouting in the water behind him. He knew it would be a minute or two yet before they got the big passenger lancha over, but the Estremedura's propeller was thrashing astern, and when she came back towards him he seized the boat-warp already lowered along her side. Nobody appeared to notice him, for one of the British warship's boats was then approaching. She flashed by as he crawled in through the opened gangway, and a man stood up in her.

"Spanish mail ahoy!" he cried. "Anybody speaking English aboard of you? If so, tell your skipper to go ahead. We have got the banana basket he dropped over. He can send for it to-morrow."

Austin slipped, unnoticed, into his room, but he laughed as he heard the roar of a whistle, and saw a long, black hull ringed with lights slide by. It was the Madeira boat, steaming down the harbour.

CHAPTER III

ON THE VERANDA

It was a clear, moonlight night when Pancho Brown, Mrs. Hatherly, and Erminio Oliviera, the Estremedura's captain, sat in big cane chairs on the veranda of the Hotel Catalina, Las Palmas. The Catalina is long and low, and fronted with a broad veranda, a rather more sightly building than tourist hotels usually are, and its row of windows blazed that night. They were, most of them, wide open, and the seductive strains of a soft Spanish waltz drifted out with the rhythmic patter of feet and swish of light draperies, for the winter visitors had organised a concert and informal dance. A similar entertainment was apparently going on in the aggressively English Metropole, which cut, a huge, square block of building, against the shining sea a little further up the straight white road, while the artillery band was playing in the alameda of the town, a mile or two away. The deep murmur of the Atlantic surf broke through the music in a drowsy undertone.

Pancho Brown was essentially English, a little, portly gentleman with a heavy, good-humoured face. He was precise in dress, a little slow in speech, and nobody at first sight would have supposed him to be brilliant, commercially or otherwise. Still, he had made money, which is, perhaps, the most eloquent testimony to anybody's business ability. He was then meditatively contemplating his daughter, who was strolling in the garden with a young English officer from the big white warship in the harbour. A broad blaze of silver stretched back across the sea towards the hazy blueness in the east beyond which lay Africa, and it was almost as light as day. Mrs. Hatherly followed his gaze.

"An only daughter must be a responsibility now and then," she said. "I have never had one of my own, but for the last few months my niece has been living with me, and I have had my moments of anxiety."

Pancho Brown, who fancied she was leading up to something, smiled in a fashion which suggested good-humoured indifference, though he was quite aware that his daughter was then talking very confidentially to the young naval officer.

"I am afraid I do not deserve your sympathy," he said. "Jacinta's mother died when she was eight years old, but ever since she came home from school in England Jacinta has taken care of me. In fact, I almost think it is Jacinta who feels the responsibility. I am getting a little old, and now and then my business enterprises worry me."

"And does that young girl know anything about them?"

"Jacinta," said Brown, "knows a good deal about everything, and it really doesn't seem to do her any harm. In fact, I sometimes feel that she knows considerably more than I do. I make mistakes now and then, but if Jacinta ever does I am not aware of them."

"Still, a girl with Miss Brown's appearance – and advantages – must naturally attract a good deal of attention, and, of course, one has – "