Part 6 (2/2)
”The liner will be clear of the land by now,” she said. ”I suppose you are glad you did not go with Jefferson? You never told me that he had asked you to!”
Austin, who ignored the last remark, laughed in a somewhat curious fas.h.i.+on.
”Well,” he said, reflectively, ”in one respect Jefferson is, perhaps, to be envied. He is, at least, attempting a big thing, and if he gets wiped out over it, which I think is quite likely, he will be beyond further trouble, and Miss Gascoyne will be proud of him. In fact, it is she I should be sorry for. She seems really fond of him.”
”Is that, under the circ.u.mstances, very astonis.h.i.+ng?”
”Jefferson is really a very good fellow,” said Austin, with a smile. ”In fact, whatever it may be worth, he has my sincere approbation.”
Jacinta made a little gesture of impatience. ”Pshaw!” she said. ”You know exactly what I mean. I wonder if there is one among all the men I have ever met who would--under any circ.u.mstances--do as much for me?”
She glanced at him for a moment in a fas.h.i.+on which sent a thrill through him; but Austin seldom forgot that he was the _Estremedura_'s purser. He had also a horror of cheap protestations, and he avoided the question.
”You could scarcely expect--me--to know,” he said. ”Suppose there was such a man, what would you do for him?”
There was just a trace of heightened colour in Jacinta's face. ”I think, if it was necessary, and he could make me believe in him as Muriel believes in Jefferson, I would die for him.”
Austin said nothing for a s.p.a.ce, and looked eastwards towards Africa, across the long, smooth heave of sea, while he listened to the throbbing of the screw and the swash of the water beneath the steamer's side. He was quite aware that while Jacinta, on rare occasions, favoured her more intimate masculine friends with a glimpse of her inner nature, she never permitted them to presume upon the fact. He had, he felt, made some little progress in her confidence and favour, but it was quite clear that it would be inadvisable to venture further without a sign from her.
Jacinta was able to make her servants and admirers understand exactly what line of conduct it was convenient they should a.s.sume. If they failed to do so, she got rid of them.
”Whatever is Mrs. Hatherly going to Fuerteventura for?” he asked.
”Dry weather,” said Jacinta, with a little smile.
Austin laughed. ”One would fancy that Las Palmas was dry and dusty enough for most people. I suppose you told her there is nowhere she can stay? They haven't a hotel of any kind in the island.”
”That,” said Jacinta, sweetly, ”will be your business. You are a friend of Don Fernando, and he has really a comfortable house. Still, I expect three days of it will be quite enough for Mrs. Hatherly. You can pick us up, you know, when you come back from Lanzarote.”
Austin made a little whimsical gesture of resignation. ”There is, presumably, no use in my saying anything. After all, she will be company for Confidencia.”
”Who is, by the way, a friend of yours, too.”
”I have artistic tastes, as you know. Confidencia is--barring one or two--the prettiest girl in these islands.”
He moved away, but he turned at the top of the ladder, and Jacinta smiled.
”It is almost a pity a taste of that kind does not invariably accompany an artistic talent,” she said.
Austin went down to his little room, which was almost as hot as an oven, and strove to occupy himself with his papers. The attempt, however, was not a success, for his thoughts would follow Jefferson, who was on his way to Africa with a big centrifugal pump, a ricketty steam launch, and a second-hand boiler of the locomotive type. In view of his ulterior purpose, there was, it seemed to Austin, something ludicrously incongruous about this equipment, though he realised that the gaunt American possessed in full degree the useful practical point of view in which he himself fell short. Jefferson was, in some respects, primitive, but that was, after all, probably fortunate for him. He knew what he desired, and set about the obtaining of it by the first means available.
Then he dismissed the subject, and climbing into his bunk went to sleep.
Next morning he took Jacinta, Mrs. Hatherly, and Muriel Gascoyne ash.o.r.e, and afterwards went on with the _Estremedura_ to the adjoining island. It was three days later, and the steamer had come back again, when he and her captain rode with the three ladies towards the coast, after a visit to the black volcanic hills. Mrs. Hatherly and Muriel sat in a crate-like affair upon the back of a camel, with distress in their faces, for there is probably no more unpleasant form of locomotion to anyone not used to it than camel-riding. The beast possesses a gait peculiarly its own, and at every lurch of its shoulders the two women jolted violently in the crate. The camel, however, proceeded unconcerned, with long neck moving backwards and forwards like a piston-rod. The rest rode horses, and a gun and several ensanguined rabbits lay across the Captain's saddle. He rode like a Castilian, and not a sailor, and Jacinta had noticed already that Austin was equally at home in the saddle. The fact had, naturally, its significance for her.
It was then about two o'clock in the afternoon, and very hot, though the fresh trade breeze blew long wisps of dust away from under the horses'
feet. n.o.body could have called that part of Fuerteventura a beautiful country, but it had its interest to two of the party, who had never seen anything quite like it before. Behind them rose low hills, black with streams of lava, red with calcined rock, and every stone on them was outlined in harsh colouring in that crystalline atmosphere. In front lay a desolation of ashes and scoriae, with tracts of yellow sand, blown there presumably from Africa, which swirled in little spirals before the breeze. It was chequered with clumps of euphorbia and thorn, but they, too, matched the prevailing tones of grey and brown and chrome, and there was not in all the waste a speck of green. Further still in front of them the sea flamed like a mirror, and a vault of dazzling blue hung over all.
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