For Jacinta Part 2

"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 a.s.sumption 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 b.u.t.terscotch," 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."

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 pa.s.senger, 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 sc.u.m!" 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 circ.u.mstances, I'm quite willing to take your word for it."

He went up on deck. It was dark now, but the moon was s.h.i.+ning, 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 pa.s.sengers 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, s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sengers 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 splas.h.i.+ng upon the gla.s.s. The aggressive pa.s.senger, 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 cl.u.s.ter of twinkling lights at the black hills' feet, and there were other lights, higher up, on s.h.i.+ps' 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-gla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 p.o.o.p, 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 n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 wars.h.i.+p 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!"