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KIT MUSGRAVE'S LUCK

BY
HAROLD BINDLOSS

AUTHOR OF PARTNERS OF THE OUT TRAIL, THE LURE OF THE NORTH, THE WILDERNESS MINE, Etc.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1921, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

Published in England under the Title
"Musgrave's Luck"

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America.

CONTENTS

KIT MUSGRAVE'S LUCK

PART I
THE WIDE HORIZON

CHAPTER I
KIT'S PLUNGE

The morning was hot, and Kit Musgrave, leaning on the African liner's rail, watched the volcanic rocks of Grand Canary grow out of the silver haze. He was conscious of some disappointment, because on the voyage to Las Palmas he had pictured a romantic white city shining against green palms. Its inhabitants were grave Spaniards, who secluded their wives and daughters in old Moorish houses with shady patios where fountains splashed. Now he saw he had got the picture wrong.

Las Palmas was white, but not at all romantic. A sandy isthmus, swept by rolling clouds of dust, connected the town and the frankly ugly port. The houses round the harbor looked like small brown blocks. Behind them rose the Isleta cinder hill; in front, coal-wharfs and limekilns, hidden now and then by dust, occupied the beach. Moreover, the Spaniards on board the boats about the ship were excited, gesticulating ruffians. Bombay peddlers, short, dark-skinned Portuguese, and Canario dealers in wine, tobacco, and singing birds, pushed up the gangway. All disputed noisily in their eagerness to show their goods to the passengers.

Yet Kit was not altogether disappointed. Somehow the industrial ugliness of the port and the crowd's businesslike activity were soothing. Kit had not known much romantic beauty, but he knew the Lancashire mining villages and the mean streets behind the Liverpool docks. Besides, he was persuaded that commerce, particularly British commerce, had a civilizing, uplifting power.

Seeing he would buy nothing, the peddlers left him alone, and he mused about the adventure on which he had embarked. Things had happened rapidly since he went one morning to Don Arturo's office in Liverpool and joined the crowd in the great man's waiting-room. Don Arturo was not Spanish, but at Grand Canary he was generally given the Castilian title and the Spaniards declared the island would soon be his. He was an English merchant of the new Imperialist school and he gave Kit exactly one and a half minutes. Perhaps he approved the embarrassed lad, for half an hour afterwards Kit had engaged to start for the Canaries and take a sobrecargo's post on board a Spanish steamer. The secretary admitted the pay was small, but argued that since Don Arturo controlled all the business worth controlling in the Canaries and West Africa, the chances for promotion were remarkably good. In short, Kit could sail in two days and was a fool if he did not go.

Kit agreed and signed the contract. He knew some Castilian, which he had studied at evening classes conducted by the Liverpool Y.M.C.A. Since he thought the association's motto, Mens sana in corpore sano, good, he had also trained his muscles at the Y.M.C.A gymnasium. For a city clerk he was healthy and strong.

The two days before he sailed were marked by new and disturbing thrills. Kit was conservative, and sprang from cautious, puritanical stock. His grandfather was a Cumberland sheep farmer, his father kept a shop and had taught Kit the virtues of parsimonious industry. His mother was kind but dull, and had tried not to indulge her son. Although Kit was honest and something of a prig, he had the small clerk's respect for successful business. He was raw and his philosophy was Smiles'. In order to make progress one must help oneself.

Yet he had not altogether escaped the touch of romance, and when he agreed to sail his first duty was to explain things to Betty. She kept the books at a merchant's office, and sometimes they went to a tea-shop and sometimes to a cheap concert. Betty did not go to theaters, but now and then took Kit to church. She was high-church and wore a little silver cross. Betty was thin, pale and quiet, and Kit's mother approved her, although nothing had been said about their marrying. Kit saw that in the meantime marriage was not for him. To marry on pay like his was not fair to the girl. Yet he imagined he loved Betty; anyhow, he liked her much.

When she left the office in the evening they went to a tea-shop. Kit found a quiet corner and helped Betty to cakes. He was embarrassed and his careless talk was forced. Betty studied him and did not say much. Her quietness had some charm, and she was marked by a touch of beauty that might have developed had she enjoyed fresh air, good food, and cheerful society. Women had not then won much reward for their labor, and Betty was generally tired. At length Kit, with awkward haste, told her his plans. Betty drained her cup and gave him a level glance. Kit thought her paler than before, but the electric light was puzzling.

"You are going to the Canaries and perhaps to West Africa! Are you going for good?" she said.

"Why, no!" said Kit. "I expect I'll stop for a year or two. Anyhow, if I make much progress, I'll come back then. You see, I'm forced to go. There's no chance for me in Liverpool; you get old while you wait for the men in front to move up the ladder. If I stop until I'm forty, I might get up a few rounds."

"Is it necessary to get up?" Betty asked.

Kit looked at her with surprise. Sometimes Betty's philosophy was puzzling, and he wondered whether she got it at church. Kit had not heard another clergyman preach like the vicar and thought him privately rather a fool. But Betty seldom argued and they did not jar.

"Of course!" he said. "So long as you can get up honestly, you have got to get up. You can't stop in the pushing crowd at the bottom."

Betty was quiet for a few moments. She looked tired and Kit imagined she knew all he knew about the pressure of the crowd. Then she said, "If only we didn't push! Perhaps there's room enough, and we might make things better."

"Oh, well," said Kit, rather comforted by her calm, but vaguely disappointed because she could philosophise. "Anyhow, although it's hard, I must seize my chance. I shall miss you. You have been much to me; now I've got to go, I begin to see how much. Perhaps it's strange I didn't see before. You don't argue, you belong to my lot, but somehow one feels you're finer than other girls one meets—"

He stopped and Betty gave him a curious smile. "Do you know many girls, Kit?"

"I don't," he admitted. "I haven't bothered about girls; I haven't had time. They expect you to tell them they're pretty, to send them things, to josh and make them laugh, and now and then to quarrel about nothing. Rather a bore when you'd sooner be quiet; but you're not like that. We have been pals, and now I wish you were going out with me."

"There's not much use in wishing."

"That is so," Kit agreed and hesitated for a moment or two while his face got red. "You couldn't go now, but I'm coming back. Suppose I get on and my pay is good? Will you marry me when I go out again?"

Betty gave him a long, level glance. For all that, he thought her hand shook when she moved her cup and his heart beat.

"No," she said quietly. "Anyhow, I won't promise. Perhaps, if you do come back, we'll talk about it, but you mustn't feel you're bound to ask."

Kit got a jolt. That Betty liked him was obvious, and the girls he knew were keen for a lover. Betty, of course, was not like them, but she was human. In a sense, however, her refusal was justified. Perhaps he was a dull fellow; a girl by whom he was once attracted declared he was as gloomy as a funeral. Then, with his rather shabby clothes and small pay, he was certainly not worth bothering about. For all that, Betty's refusal strengthened his resolve.

She was firm, but he got a hint of strain. The thrill of his adventure had gone and he was sorry for Betty. He knew how she lived; the dreary shabby street she left in the morning for her nine hours' work, the pinching to make her pay go round. All was dull and monotonous for her, but he was going to a land of wine and sun. He could not move her, and she left him, puzzled and unhappy, in the street.

The evening before he sailed they went to a concert, and Betty let him come with her to the door of her lodgings. She opened the door and then looked up the street. Nobody was about and when Kit advanced impulsively, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. Then she firmly pushed him back.

"Good-bye!" she said, and the door shut.

Kit thought about it while he leaned against the rails on board the African boat. Perhaps it was strange, but he had not kissed Betty before. To hold her in his arms had rather moved him to a curious tenderness than to passion. When he thought about Betty he felt gentle; but he braced himself and forced a smile, for the new governor of an African jail came up with Bones and Blades.

Considine was an old soldier, with a red face and twinkling eyes, who had been long in India, but did not state his rank. Bones and Blades were raw lads from Lancashire going out to a West African factory for the yearly pay of eighty pounds. Their notion of life at the factory was romantically inaccurate.

"The boat stops six hours," Considine remarked. "Long enough to see the town, and they tell me wine is cheap. I'll go ashore with you, Musgrave. Where's my money, Bones?"

"I'll keep t' brass until you come back," Bones rejoined.

Considine was fat and his hair was going white, but he turned with unexpected swiftness and seizing the lad, took his cap.

"No time to get my boots, but your deck-shoes won't go on! Hand out my pocket-book."

Bones gave up the book and went to the gangway with Kit.

"I expect that's your boat. We were pretty good pals on this voyage and I hope we'll meet again. What do you say, Blades?"

"I'd like it," agreed the other and then his friendly grin vanished and his freckled face got grave. "All the same, Africa's a queer country and you can't have adventures without some risk. Well, good luck, Musgrave! I'd better say good-bye!"

Kit gave him his hand and afterwards learned that Blades' dream of romantic adventures was not realized. His job was to count bottles of trade gin, and he and Bones died of fever before they earned their first year's pay.

In the meantime, Considine jumped into the boat. He wore neat white clothes, thin, red slippers, and Bones' cap, which was much too small.

"I ought to have stopped on board," he said with a twinkle. "All the same, when I get to Africa I'll have long enough to play up to my job. At Las Palmas I'm not important. When you want a frolic, go where you're not known."

Kit did not want a frolic. He was thoughtful and rather daunted. All his old landmarks were gone; he was in a new country where people did not use the rules he had known at Liverpool. Besides, he was thinking about Betty. For all that, when the Spanish boatman rowed him across the harbor to a lava mole he roused himself. The patron declared that although the fare was fixed in pesetas English passengers paid with shillings. It was, however, not for nothing Kit sprang from sternly frugal stock. He stated in his best Castilian that the peseta was worth ninepence and he would pay with Spanish money or would not pay at all. The patron's violent arguments did not move him, but when he heard a laugh he looked up.

Two ladies occupied the pavement at the top of the steps. One was little, dressed in white, with fine lace on her fashionable clothes, and looked dignified. The other was young and wore a dress of corn-yellow. Her eyes were brown and luminous, her hair was nearly black, and her rather olive skin had something of a peach's bloom. Her type of beauty was new to Kit, but when he saw she remarked his glance he turned to the gesticulating boatman.

Mrs. Austin was an important lady at Las Palmas, where her husband, and her father, Don Pancho Brown, carried on a merchant business. People said Jacinta Austin ruled both. Olivia, her sister, had not long returned from an English school.

Señor Don Erminio Martinez, captain of a small Spanish mail steamer, engaged the ladies in talk, because Olivia was beautiful and he waited for his boat. Don Erminio was big, brown-skinned and athletic. He wore shabby English clothes and a small English cap, and looked something like a bullfighter. On the whole, he was a trustful, genial ruffian, although the Barcelona anarchists were his political models. He used a little uncouth French and English.

Mrs. Austin noted her sister's glance at the boat. The tall young man was obviously English, and had come to take a post; he was raw and did not wear the tourist's stamp. Mrs. Austin knew men and there was something honest and thoughtful about him that she approved. All the same, she did not want Olivia to approve.

"Book Castilian; I think the accent's Lancashire," the girl remarked. "I wonder where he's going; African shipping office: bananas, or coal?"

"It's not important," Mrs. Austin rejoined.

"Oh, well, unless he's a hermit, we are bound to meet him, and he's fresh blood anyway. One gets very bored by the banana and coaling men. Still I think he's their type."

"The type's plain, but I doubt if he's for the coaling wharf; the young man looks honest," said Mrs. Austin, and turning to the captain, added: "I expect he will join the correillo."

Correillo is not classical Castilian, but the captain knew she meant a small mail steamer and spread out his hands.

"Aha! Another animal. He come to me. All animales the Yngleses of Don Arturo. Verdad. People without shame and education——"

"I am English, my friend," Mrs. Austin rejoined.

"One forgets; the thing looks impossible," said Don Erminio, with a bow. "You have a charm and sympathy. But the others! With teeth and neck like the camel, and the air commanding. They come on board my steamer. 'I am Ynglesa. All the ship for me.' But another animal of a sobrecargo! Señora, I am your servant. I go and tear my hair."

He went off, and Olivia laughed. "It's strange, but people don't like us, and at the beginning I expect the young man will have some trouble on board Campeador. All the same, Don Erminio's really a good sort. Well, it looks as if the dispute about the fare had stopped. He's beaten the patron."

She stepped back, for Kit came up the steps behind a boatman who carried his tin box. Considine followed, and at the end of the mole the boatman called a tartana. Kit got into the little trap, and Considine, pushing the driver from his seat, seized the reins. The horse kicked, the tartana rocked, and they started for Las Palmas in a cloud of dust.

"At home, we're a sober lot," Mrs. Austin remarked. "In the South, we're joyfully irresponsible. How do you account for it?"

"I don't account for it," said Olivia. "There's no use in bothering about things like that. Besides, the young man looks remarkably sober."

CHAPTER II
OTHER RULES

After a collision with a steam tram, the tartana reached Las Palmas and Considine got down at a wine shop. He refused to pay for the damage to the trap, and wishing Kit good luck, vanished among the barrels in the dark shop. The tartanero drove Kit to the steamship office, and sitting on the doorstep declared he would not go away until his just claim was met. Kit, somewhat embarrassed, was shown into the manager's room and received by a little, fastidiously neat Spanish gentleman. The driver's mournful voice pierced the lava walls, and when Kit narrated the grounds for his complaint, Don Ramon shrugged.

"It is not important; when the tourists are about, such disputes are numerous," he said in careful English, and gave a clerk some orders.

The tartanero's clamour stopped and Don Ramon resumed: "We will send a note to the purser, and if your countryman does not miss his ship, the thing is finished. Many do miss their ships and there is trouble for us. I have much admiration for the English, but they make disturbances."

"We are not all like that," Kit objected.

"You are not like that in England; I was at the Company's office," Don Ramon agreed. "All was in stern order, but in this country you have other rules. Well, it is not important. To-night you join your steamer; I will tell you your duties."

He did so with kind politeness, and Kit liked the man then and afterwards. By and by Don Ramon sent him to a Spanish hotel, and for a time he wrote letters to his mother and Betty behind a bougainvillea that climbed from the flagged patio to a balcony. The creeper's splendid purple shone against the yellow wall and on the opposite balcony old bronze rails twinkled. The shade was cool, and all was quiet but for the rumble of the Atlantic surf. While Kit wrote his frank, boyish letters, he thought about Betty with shy tenderness. In a sense she had refused him, but his normal mood was calm and he had not known passion yet. He wrote to Betty very much as he wrote to his mother.

By and by he put up his writing case and went off to get some stamps at a baker's shop. In Spanish countries one cannot, as a rule, buy stamps at a post office. Then he looked at his watch, and seeing it was two o'clock, walked across the town. Don Ramon had stated that he need not go on board before midnight. The streets were strangely quiet and for the most part nobody was about; Kit understood the citizens went to sleep in the afternoon. He saw nothing romantic. Las Palmas rather looked business-like and modern than picturesque. The houses had straight, square fronts and the roofs were flat. Only the white belt of surf and background of broken volcanic mountains relieved the utilitarian ugliness.

The wine shops had no call for Kit, but he noted the splashed floors, pungent smells, and swarms of flies. A girl on a balcony near the cathedral dropped a red oleander and another smiled, but Kit did not turn his head. He sprang from sober, puritanical stock, and his code was austere; one earned one's pay and studied in order to earn more; one shunned indulgence and trained one's body. Kit had trained his at the gymnasium and a cheap swimming club. In summer he sailed races on board cheap little boats. Although his horizon was not wide, his health and nerve were good.

He followed the carretera that runs south from the town. In Spain, a road is often a bridle-track a mule can hardly climb, but the government carretera is wide and level. In the distance was Telde, where oranges grow, and Kit set off in the dust and scorching heat. The Trade-breeze blew behind him; on his left hand the Atlantic broke in shining foam against black lava reefs; on his right, across the thin belt of cultivation, dark rocks, melted by volcanic fire, rose like a giant wall.

A few palms and fields of feathery sugar cane bordered the road. Then Kit saw vines, tied to sticks and growing in hot dust, and by and by a thread of water in a deep barranco. Washerwomen knelt by the channel, beating wet clothes with stones, and Kit understood afterwards why his shirts wore out. Some of the women were young, but when he stopped for a moment at the bridge they did not look up. To beat the clothes was their job, and maize flour and goat's milk cheese are dear. Farther on, Kit saw others, carrying big earthen jars on their heads. They looked like Moorish women, for their feet and arms were very brown, and long black shawls half hid their faces. In the fields, barefooted men laboured among the tomatoes and vines. It was obvious the peons did not sleep in the afternoon; but for the most part their white clothes were good and they looked happy.

Soon after he passed a lava village, Kit got tired. This was strange, but the sun was hot; and there was a wall about which lizards ran. Behind, grew fleshy green bananas, with big flowers like bleeding-hearts; and he sat down in the shade. He had meant to walk to Telde; going four miles an hour, one could get back before nine o'clock, but it was cool among the bananas and he had begun to feel the drowsy calm of the islands where nothing is important and the sun always shines.

He mused about Betty. She was thin and often looked tired. If he could bring her out, to feel the sun and balmy wind and see the blaze of colour! He pictured her bending over her account books in a dark office and going home through the dreary streets. She knew no joy and brightness; his horizon was getting wider, but hers was not. Then he remembered Betty's silver cross. Betty went to church; perhaps she found her romance there and saw things beyond his view. She had refused to marry him and perhaps her kiss was meant for good-bye. He did not know, but when he got promotion he was going back to try again. In the meantime, for Betty's sake, he meant to keep his simple rules; to go straight, do what he said, cheat nobody, and by diligence force his way to fortune.

He heard shouts and mocking laughter, and looked up. The governor of the African jail was running along the road, his face red, and wet by sweat; Bones' small cap occupied ridiculously the back of his head. His white jacket had lost some buttons and blew open; his thin, red slippers were trodden down at the heels. He laboured on with stern resolution, looking straight in front. Behind came a swarm of ragged children, pelting him with soil and stones.

"Shilling, penique, puerco Ynglisman!" they cried.

For a moment or two Kit gazed at Considine with angry impatience. He did not know if the fellow was very drunk, but it was obvious he was not sober, and his breathless panting jarred on the drowsy calm. Don Ramon had said the English made disturbances. Yet the fellow was Kit's countryman; and he got up. Driving off the children, he stopped Considine.

"Where are you going?"

"Must catch my ship. Purser said five o'clock."

Kit looked at his watch. It was four o'clock, and Las Palmas was some distance off. The port was three miles farther, but one could get a tartana at the town.

"You're heading the wrong way," he said. "Can you run?"

"Turn me round and see me go," Considine replied. "Beat you, anyway. Loser pays for drinks."

Kit turned him round and they started, but when a piece of lava a boy threw struck his head, it cost Kit something to use control. Now and then Considine's red slippers came off and they were forced to stop. Considine declared that if he stooped he could not get straight again, and Kit resignedly put the slippers on his feet. He felt himself ridiculous and wanted to leave the wastrel, but somehow could not. If Considine lost his ship and got into trouble at Las Palmas, he might lose his post. Kit saw his business was to help him out.

He got very hot. The Trade-breeze blew the dust in his face, and the dust turned to mud on his wet skin; he saw dark patches on his white jacket. Considine's slippers came off oftener, and Kit remarked that not much of his stockings was left, but they made progress, and at length the town was close in front. Kit wondered whether the citizens had finished their afternoon sleep, and did not know if it was a relief or not to find the first street empty and quiet. He did not want people to see him, but he must find a tartana, and none was about. Considine, going five miles an hour, was a yard or two in front. When he saw a wine shop he stopped.

"Here we are!" he gasped. "The loser pays."

Kit pushed him across the pavement; Considine turned and knocked off his hat. While Kit picked up his hat the other reeled towards the wine shop and people came out. Kit seized him and drove him on. The market was not far off and he had seen tartanas in the square. He was breathless, tired and dusty, and had trodden on his soft grey hat. People were beginning to run after them, but he meant to put Considine on board a tartana and send him to the port.

The market was nearly deserted, for in the Canaries one buys food before the sun is high, but a few stalls were occupied and three or four small traps waited for hire. Kit waved to a driver and seized Considine. Then he tried to get his breath, and wiping his hot face, smeared his skin with muddy grit.

"Loser pays," said Considine. "What's good stopping in the sun? Let's get some wine!"

He tried to make off, but Kit shook him angrily and glanced about. A crowd had begun to gather and all the traps were coming. At the end of a neighbouring street, the girl he had noted at the mole talked to a man in English clothes. She was very handsome and looked cool and dignified. Kit was young and got hotter when he saw her eyes were fixed on his dishevelled companion. He felt humiliated and could have borne it better had she looked amused, but she did not. She watched him and Considine with grave curiosity, as if she studied people of another type than hers. Kit got very angry.

Four traps arrived, the drivers gesticulating and cracking whips, and Kit dragged Considine to the nearest. Considine struggled and tried to push him back.

"Not going yet," he shouted. "Beat you easy. Where's my wine? Don't you pay your debts?"

His jacket tore and he almost got away, but Kit got a better hold.

"You're going now! Get in!"

"Won't go with that fellow. Don't like his horse," Considine declared.

The crowd had got thicker and people jeered and laughed.

"Todos animales. Gente sin verguenza!" one remarked.

Kit frowned. He knew the Castilian taunt about people who have no shame, but he held on to Considine. The drivers did not help; they disputed noisily who should get the passenger. Then the man Kit had noted with the girl came up.

"Put him on board. I'll lift his legs," he said.

They did so with some effort, for Considine was heavy and kicked.

"To the mole; African steamer's boat," said Kit; Considine occupied the driver's seat.

"Show you how to drive!" he said, and shoving back the tartanero, used the whip.

The horse plunged, the wheels jarred the pavement, there was a crash as a stall overturned, and the tartana rolled across the square and vanished. Kit heard Considine's hoarse shout and all was quiet. He looked about. The girl who wore the yellow dress was gone, but the man stood close by and gave him a quiet smile. He had a thin, brown face and Kit saw a touch of white in his hair. A mark on his cheek looked like an old deep cut.

"You didn't go with your friend," he remarked.

"I did not; I've had enough," said Kit and added anxiously: "D'you think he'll get the African boat?"

The other looked at his watch. "If he runs over nothing before he makes the port, it's possible. A West-coast trader, I expect?"

"No," said Kit. "He's the governor of a jail. An old soldier, I understand."

His companion smiled. "The British Colonial office uses some curious tools, but if he sweated for you in India, their plan's perhaps as good as handing out a job to a political boss."

"Then, you're not English?"

"I'm an American. I don't know if it's important, but since you'd had enough of the fellow, why did you bother?"

"For one thing, I wanted to get rid of him," Kit said naïvely. "Then, of course, since he is English, I felt I had to see him out."

The other nodded. "A pretty good rule, but if you stick to it at Las Palmas, I reckon you'll be occupied! Which way do you go?"

"To the Fonda Malagueña," said Kit.

His companion indicated a shady street and left him at the top, and when Kit loafed in the patio after his six o'clock dinner, he pondered. Las Palmas was not at all the romantic city he had thought, and the men he had met going south on board the steamer were a new type. They were business men, holding posts at African factories, but they were not the business men he knew at Liverpool. He could not picture them punctual, careful about small things, or remarkably sober. They had a touch of rashness he distrusted but rather liked. Yet he understood some occupied important posts. In fact, it looked as if the Liverpool small clerk's rules did not apply everywhere; in the south men used others. Although Kit was puzzled his horizon was widening.

CHAPTER III
A MOUNTAIN EXCURSION

Two weeks after Kit joined his ship, she returned to Las Palmas, and on the whole he was satisfied with his occupation. Campeador was fast and built on a steam yacht's model, except that her bow was straight. Although she rolled horribly across the combers the Trade-breeze piles up, she shipped no heavy water. Then Kit thought it strange, but she was kept as clear as a British mail-liner.

He had begun to like her crew; the grave bare-legged fishermen who rowed the cargo launches, and the careless officers. All were Spanish but Don Pedro Macallister, the chief engineer, for although the roll stated that his birthplace was Portobello, it was not in Spain. The rules require that Spanish mail-boats be manned by Spanish subjects, but government officials are generally poor and English merchant houses sometimes generous.

For two weeks Campeador steamed round the islands, stopping at surf-hammered beaches to pick up cattle, camels, sheep and mules. Now the livestock was landed and Kit, waiting for a boat to carry him ashore, mused about his first encounter with the captain. Campeador was steaming out from Las Palmas, rolling violently as she breasted the long, foam-crested seas, and Kit staggered in the dark across the lumbered deck where the crew were throwing cargo into the hold. She had, as usual, started late, for in Spain nobody bothers about punctuality.

He reached the captain's room under the bridge. Don Erminio had pulled off his uniform and now wore a ragged white shirt and shabby English clothes. His cap, ridiculously shrunk by spray, was like a schoolboy's. Kit inquired politely what he was to do about some goods not recorded in the ship's manifest, and the blood came to the captain's olive skin.

"Another animal! All sobrecargos are animals; people without honour or education!" he shouted. "I am a Spanish gentleman, not a smuggler!"

Kit was half daunted by the other's theatrical fury, but his job was to keep proper cargo lists, and what he undertook he did. It was not for nothing his ancestors were hard sheep-farmers in the bleak North.

"Nevertheless, I want to know about the chemical manure for Palma," he said.

Don Erminio seized the tin dispatch-box and threw it on the floor.

"Look for the documents! Do I count bags of manure? I am not a clerk. When the company doubts my honour I am an anarchist!" He kicked the tumbled papers. "If you find five pesetas short, I throw the manure in the sea. People without education! I go and tear my hair!"

He went, and when the door banged Kit sat down and laughed. He had borne some strain, but the thing was humorous. To begin with, Don Erminio's hair was very short. Then, although his grounds for anger were not plain, Kit thought it possible the cargo belonged to a relation of the captain's. Picking up the papers, he returned to his office, and when Campeador reached port the bags of manure were entered on the manifest. Don Erminio, however, bore him no grudge. In the morning he met Kit with a friendly smile and gave him a list of the passengers, for whom landing dues must be paid.

"Sometimes one disputes about the sum. It is human, but not important," he remarked. "You will write three lists for the robbers who collect the dues."

Kit said the list obviously did not give the names of all on board, and Don Erminio grinned.

"It is a custom of the country. If one pays all one ought, there is no use in having official friends. I put down the names of people the collectors know."

When the steamer was ready to leave Palma, Kit and Don Erminio went to the agent's office and were shown a pile of bags of silver. There was a bank at Las Palmas, but for the most part the merchants did not use its cheques, and Kit's duty was to carry the money to their creditors. The agent gave him a list.

"You will count the bags before you sign? It is the English habit!" he said.

Kit saw Don Erminio studied him and imagined the agent's voice was scornful. For a moment or two he thought hard, and then took up a pen.

"I expect all the money is here?"

"I have counted," said the agent and Kit signed the document.

He knew he had broken a sound business rule and perhaps had run some risk, but he had begun to see the rules were different in Spain. When he went out he heard the agent say, "Muy caballero!"

"This one is not altogether an animal," the captain agreed.

Kit afterwards counted the silver and found the list accurate. On the morning he waited for his boat at Las Palmas, he mused about it, and admitted that perhaps his philosophy did not cover all the complexities of human nature. By and by Macallister joined him, and he asked: "Who is the American with a scar on his cheek I met before we sailed?"

"I'm thinking ye mean Jefferson. A fine man! He was Austin's partner and they transact some business together noo."

"Then who is Austin?"

"He was sobrecargo and held your post, but he didna bother aboot the freight. Pented pictures, until he and Jefferson salved the Cumbria and I married him to Jacinta Brown."

"You married him to the lady," Kit remarked.

"Weel, I reckon I had something to do with it. For a' that, Don Pancho Brown is cautious, and although he's anither daughter, I doubt if I could do as much again. Ony way, if ye trust old Peter, ye'll no go far wrang."

Kit was frankly puzzled about his new friend. Macallister's hair was going white, but his eyes twinkled humorously, and Kit often found it hard to determine whether he joked or not. All the same, people did trust Macallister. In the meantime, Kit wanted to know about Austin and Jefferson. Macallister told him.

Jefferson was mate of an American sailing ship, and inheriting a small legacy, undertook to float a wreck on the African coast. His money soon ran out, his men fell sick, and when he fronted disaster Jacinta Brown sent Austin to help. Austin was poor and not ambitious, but he had some talent that Jacinta roused him to use. Macallister said Jacinta could make any man do what she wanted and the girl Jefferson married was her friend. Money was raised, Austin went to Africa, and he and Jefferson salved the stranded ship. Their adventures made a moving tale and when they returned Pancho Brown gave Austin a share in his merchant business. Macallister repeated that he was really accountable for Jacinta's marrying Austin, and when he stopped, studied Kit.

"I dinna ken what I can do for you," he said in a thoughtful voice. "Ye're no like Austin. He was a lad o' parts. Aweel, ye're young and a' the lassies are no' fastidious."

"Anyhow, I'm not an adventurer," Kit rejoined and hesitated. "Besides, if I'm ever rich enough to marry, there's a girl at home——"

"Yin?" remarked Macallister. "Man, when I was young I had the pick o' twelve! Then I'm thinking it was no' for nothing she let ye away. Maybe ye have some talents, but ye're no' amusing."

He turned, for Juan the mate, who wore spectacles, and the captain came on deck. Don Erminio carried an old pinfire gun, hung round his shoulders by a strap; he wore a big cartridge belt and black leggings, and looked like a brigand.

"Vamos!" he said. "Me, I am cazador. I go shoot the rabbit. If the patron is not about, perhaps I shoot the goat."

A boat came to the ladder and Kit, rather doubtfully, got on board. He knew something about his companions and imagined the excursion might be marked by adventures. For one thing, the goats that roamed among the hills were not altogether wild but belonged to somebody. When the party landed he thought his doubts were justified. Two horses, a big white donkey, and a mule were waiting, and a violent dispute began, for the muleteer declared he went with the animals and must be paid before they started. He called his saint to witness that he knew the captain.

"Buen!" Don Erminio remarked at length and turned to Kit. "He is more animal than the mulo, but it is not important. Vamos! Now we start."

They set off in a dust cloud, but presently left the road and laboured across a waste of hot sand. When the sand stopped they went by winding paths to the hills, and when they pushed up a dry watercourse Kit's troubles began. The track was rough, and dangerous in places where the sharp lava blocks were piled in heaps, but Don Erminio rode his lean horse like a gaucho. The fat mate rode like a sack, but his big, cautious donkey knew the hills, and Macallister had the carriage and balance of a cavalry soldier. He declared he had learned to ride in the Greys, and Kit thought it possible, although Macallister's statements were sometimes not accurate. He carried a sharp stick, with which at awkward spots he pricked Kit's mule.

A Spanish mule is as surefooted as a cat, but riding is not a pastime for small shipping clerks, and Kit had not mounted before. The pack-saddle was very wide and galled his legs, the jolts shook him hard, and when they reached the top of the watercourse his muscles ached intolerably. The muleteer ran beside him, sometimes holding on by the stirrup and sometimes by the animal's tail. At the top the path went obliquely up a precipitous cinder bank and Macallister used his pointed stick. The mule kicked and Kit, falling backwards, rolled for some distance down the pitch. When he got up he was shaken, bruised and very sore, but he saw Macallister's twinkle and heard Don Erminio's hoarse laugh. His mouth went hard. He had engaged to ride to a hill village and he was going to ride there.

The muleteer helped him up and they presently reached a row of square lava houses standing among palms and sugar cane. There was a small, dark wine shop, at which Don Erminio stopped.

"Buen' caballero!" he remarked to Kit. "Now we take a drink and then I shoot the goat."

There was no glass in the wine shop windows and the Trade-breeze blew through the room. After the glare outside, to sit in the shade and rest one's aching muscles was soothing, and Kit drank two cups of red wine. The captain drank caña, a raw rum, and presently picking up a guitar began to sing. His voice was good and Kit liked the music, although he did not know it was classic opera. He sang on, without embarrassment, when Macallister began, "Gae bring to me a pint o' wine," and the clashing melodies brought a group of peons to the door.

"Ave Maria!" one exclaimed. "But they are strange, the men of the sea!"

By and by Kit noted the empty bottles and got up. He had had enough and resolved he would not help Don Erminio to shoot another's goat. Moreover, he imagined his companions had had too much. Starting for the port, he left the village but soon afterwards sat down by a euphorbia bush. Although his head was clear, his legs were a trifle unsteady; the red wine was stronger than he had thought, but perhaps his coming out from the cool, dark shop into the scorching sun accounted for something. He frowned, and resolving he would not again indulge like that, began to look about.

Overhead, a tremendous rampart of broken mountains cut the sky. In places, the rocks, torn by volcanic heat, were black as ink; in places they were red, and some belts shone in the searching light like polished steel. In the hollow of a barranco where water ran were tall palms and luminous green cane, dotted by red oleanders and geraniums. The sky was all blue and the Atlantic glimmered like a big turquoise.

Kit felt the landscape's charm, for he had not known much of Nature's beauty. At Liverpool, when one went out with a bicycle on Saturdays, one followed the tram-lines across a flat country stained by smoke and the dust of traffic. He had once stopped for a week with his father's relations in the North and remembered the quiet, green valley where the river ran, but the moors about it were hidden by rain-clouds, and mist rolled down the long wet slopes. Now sea and mountains were touched with splendid colour by the Southern sun.

He mused about his companions. He thought Macallister a good sort, and liked the Mate and Don Erminio. Their irresponsible carelessness had charm, but Kit did not altogether approve; his friends and relations were frugal, industrious folk. He had a vague notion that their utilitarian virtues were sometimes shabby; for example, in Kit's circle, one was sober because soberness paid. But at the same time, to waste his youth and talents in indulgence was folly.

Yet he was not altogether moved by selfish caution; Kit's unconscious asceticism was his by inheritance. The blood of yeomen flockmasters, who by stern self-denial had held their sheep-walks on the bleak hills, was in his veins. They were hard folk, who fronted bitter gales, took no thought for their bodies, and lived that they might work.

But, since he was not a hermit, it was plain he must go with his new friends as far as his code allowed, but when he had done so he would stop. He thought, for example, he had stopped in time when he left the wine shop after Macallister ordered another bottle. Then, looking at his watch, he got up and started for Las Palmas.

CHAPTER IV
KIT'S OBSTINACY

When he had gone some distance Kit climbed down a ravine that promised a short line to the harbour, and stopped as he crossed a field of maize at the bottom. A girl, standing by a horse, was occupied by a strap, and Kit knew her before she looked up. She wore a short linen riding-skirt, a thin yellow jacket, and a big yellow hat that shone against the tall green corn. Her olive skin had a warm tinge; her brown hair looked burnished. She was Mrs. Austin's sister, and Kit admitted he had not in England met a girl like this. He thought her vivid; it was the proper word.

"Have you some bother about the harness?" he asked.

Olivia looked up and noted that he was tall and straight. His colour was fresh, for Kit was not much sunburned yet, and his eyes were frank. In a way, he was rather an attractive fellow, but not altogether her sort. For one thing, he was Don Arturo's man and his white clothes were cheap. All the same, when the winter tourists were gone, young men were not numerous.

"A strap has broken," she replied. "Perhaps one could get a piece of string through the hole. Have you some?"

"I have a leather bootlace," said Kit. "If you'll wait a minute——"

He was going off, but she stopped him. "You had better see how much we need, because if you cut too much, you may have some trouble to reach Las Palmas."

"That is so; you're rather clever," said Kit, who looked at the broken strap. "Well, I'll find a block where I can take off my boot."

Olivia smiled. Lava blocks were all about, but she liked his fastidiousness. In a minute or two he came back with a piece of the lace and began to mend the strap.

"Let me help," said Olivia. "That loop is not very neat; I don't think you are much of a workman."

"In England, I was a shipping clerk," Kit rejoined.

Olivia noted his frankness. As a rule, the young men from the coal wharf and banana stores talked guardedly about their English occupations. Some had come for a warmer climate and some for fresh experience, but none admitted he had come for better pay. She helped Kit to pull the loop straight and he remarked that it did not look very firm.

"It will hold," she said. "In Grand Canary harness is mainly string. You are on board the correillo, are you not? I think I saw you land from the African boat."

Kit said he had joined the ship two weeks since, and Olivia wondered whether he was dull. He ought to have seen that her remembering his arrival was flattering, but he obviously did not.

"Well," she resumed, "what do you think about the correillo's officers?"

"I don't know yet. You see, one doesn't meet men like these at Liverpool. For one thing, Campeador generally sails an hour or two late. That's significant."

"In Spanish countries, punctuality is not a virtue and nobody is a slave to rules. We do what we like, when we like, and let people wait."

"Sometimes it must make things awkward," Kit remarked. "However, if you're satisfied about the harness, can I help you up?"

Olivia gave him a quick glance; it looked as if he were willing to let her go. He was dull, but his dullness was intriguing. In fact, since Olivia knew her charm, it was something of a challenge. She said she would walk across the maize field and signed Kit to lead the horse.

"I expect you'll make for the carretera," he said "Isn't it the easiest way to your side of the town?"

"If you know where I live, you know who I am."

"I do know. You are Mrs. Austin's sister. Macallister told me."

Olivia frowned. She was not jealous, but sometimes she felt as if Jacinta's popularity swamped hers.

"What did Don Pedro tell you about my sister?"

"He said she ruled the English colony and at Las Palmas what she said went."

"Oh, well! Perhaps he did not exaggerate very much. Macallister does exaggerate, you know. But was this all?"

Kit was embarrassed. Macallister had said much more.

"He told me something about Mr. Austin and the wreck on the African coast."

Olivia pondered. She knew Macallister and noted Kit's embarrassment.

He occupied the post Austin had occupied. On the whole, Olivia was amused, but while she thought about it they passed the end of a path that turned off through the corn.

Kit was quiet. He felt the vivid light and colour made a proper background for his companion's exotic beauty, and not long since it was unthinkable that a girl like this should engage him in friendly talk. Yet, although one got a hint of pride and cultivation, she was frank and he thought her kind. The dreariness he had known at Liverpool was gone; walking in the splendid sunshine by Olivia's horse, he felt another man. For all that, Olivia thought they had talked long enough and when they came out from the maize she stopped. Then she saw with some annoyance she had passed the proper path.

They had reached the edge of the narrow tableland, and in front a bank of volcanic cinders ran down steeply and vanished, as if there was a cliff not far below. The smooth surface was broken here and there by the marks of horses' feet, and one saw in the distance a bridle path wind among the rocks. A little cement channel, carrying water from the hills, crossed the steepest pitch, and indicated how the horses had reached an easier gradient. Yet to ride along the channel looked horribly risky, and Kit thought the bank of cinders had recently slipped down and carried away the path.

"Give me the bridle," said Olivia.

"You're not going to get up?"

Olivia smiled. She had pluck and rode like a Spaniard. Moreover, in the Canaries, the hill roads are generally bad. Then perhaps she was willing Kit should see her cross the awkward spot.

"My sister is waiting for me. Can you hold the stirrup?"

"I won't try! You mustn't ride along the channel."

The blood came to Olivia's skin. Jacinta ruled all the men she knew and Olivia thought something of her sister's power was hers. Then she was proud and young, and the fellow had told her she must not.

"Do you mean you won't help me up?" she said. "After all, I can get up without you."

Kit went forward a few yards and then turned and fronted her. He blocked the way and his mouth was firm. Olivia looked at him haughtily and her eyes sparkled. His object was plain; he meant to stop and force her to go another way.

"Move back, please!" she said sharply.

"Not yet," said Kit and indicated the watercourse. "You see, for a few yards there's nothing but the channel. You couldn't walk across the cinders and lead the horse. The pitch is very steep."

"One could ride along the channel."

"I think not. The top's rounded and the cement's smooth. The horse would slip."

"Do you know much about horses?" Olivia asked.

Kit coloured, because he imagined he understood her taunt. "I know nothing; until this morning I hadn't mounted a horse. All the same, the risk is obvious."

Olivia looked at her wrist-watch. "My sister has some engagements for the afternoon and needs me. I ought to be at home. This is the shortest line to the town, but since you won't let me use it, perhaps you have another plan."

"I have," said Kit. "I'll ride the horse across."

With an effort he got into the saddle. The saddle was a man's, but he had not long since finished his first riding lesson, and all his muscles ached. Olivia marked his awkwardness and hesitated, although she let him go. The thing was not so risky as he thought and the horse was steady. Still she admitted that the fellow's nerve was good.

Kit's heart beat and his look was strained. He expected to fall and might roll over the cliff. Then he noted that the horse tried the treacherous cinders with its feet as it climbed obliquely to the watercourse. He thought the animal was used to the hill-tracks, and if it knew how to get across, he would let it. One could not go up hill because of the rocks, and on the other side the slope was precipitous. Not far off, the bank of cinders stopped and one saw nothing but a vulture poised against the sky. He left the bridle slack and the horse went on. After a few minutes the animal stepped off the watercourse and headed cautiously down the slope.

To brace himself back hurt horribly, but Kit did so. They had nearly passed the top of the cliff and in front a slump of cactus grew beside a winding path. If he could hold out until they reached the clump, he could get down. In the meantime, his stiff, galled knees had no grip and the animal's cautious movements jarred his aching back. He sat like a sack until the horse stepped on a rolling stone, and then his feet came out of the awkward Spanish stirrups. He struck the ground, and rolled into the cactus. A cloud of dust marked his plunge.

When the dust blew away Kit was rather surprised to find he had stuck to the bridle and the horse had not run off. Then he was conscious of a strange pricking over much of his body, as if he had been stung by nettles. He looked at his clothes and saw they were pierced by small spines like needles. He pulled out a number, but they stuck to his hands and it was plain both ends were sharp. Then he looked at the cactus and understood why it was called prickly pear. The needles grew in tufts on the round fruit and thick, fleshy leaves. He got up and shook his clothes, but could not shake off the tormenting spines. While he was occupied Olivia joined him.

"Since you have got across, I expect you see you're not very logical," she remarked.

"It looks like that," said Kit. "Nevertheless, I was logical as far as I knew."

Olivia studied him quietly and Kit got embarrassed. His clothes and skin were smeared by dust and he felt like a pincushion. The prickling was intolerable and he wanted to rub his leg. Olivia's charm was strong, but he wished she would go. In fact, he imagined she knew this, because her eyes twinkled.

"Your logic's not very sound," she resumed. "For example, I began to ride when I was eight years old, and you admitted you began this morning. Why did you imagine you could ride along the channel when I could not? However, you have kept me for some time and I mustn't stop."

Kit did not know what he ought to do, but he gave her the bridle and held the stirrup.

"Not that way! Keep your hand firm and your arm stiff," she said, and putting her foot on his hand, sprang to the saddle. Then she turned and smiled. "You have pluck, but you had better get back on board and change your clothes."

She started the horse, and leaning back in a strangely graceful pose, let the animal go. The pitch was steep, and the soil was loose, but they plunged down the hill. Kit knew nothing about a horse's paces; he rather thought it skated. When Olivia had gone he tried to pull out the spines, but finding that for the most part they stuck to his hands he gave it up. Then he lighted a cigarette and reflected moodily.

To begin with, it looked as if Miss Brown knew all about prickly pear, and her amused sympathy annoyed him. Then his battling her was obviously not justified, and as he watched her speed down the slopes below he frowned. He had refused to let a girl who rode like that undertake a feat he had tried; and then had fallen into the prickly pear. The thing was ridiculous. In the meantime, his skin was tingling; he must get off his clothes, and he started for Las Palmas.

CHAPTER V
MRS AUSTIN'S VERANDA

Don Erminio and Kit were fishing in the bay behind the Isleta, the hill of volcanic cinders that shelters the Port of Light. Off-shore, the Trade-breeze was fresh, but in the bay the rocks broke the sea. The captain had moored his barquillo to a reef and stood in a pool, with the warm, green water washing about his knees. His legs and arms were bare, as were Kit's, but they wore rawhide sandals, because where the sea-urchin grows one protects one's feet. Don Erminio carried a dripping bag, in which something moved, and a pole with a sharp hook like a salmon gaff. Kit carried a short fishing rod and was rather wet. Stepping out on a dry ledge, he looked about.

A quarter of a mile off, the long, white-topped combers rolled across the bay and then broke on the north shore of the island in a belt of foam. Mist had begun to creep down the mountain wall, and in the distance Galdar hill rose against the sunset. Farther off, across a belt of shining sea, Teneriffe's snowy peak glimmered upon a background of dull green and red. Some distance from land, a small ketch-rigged vessel steered for the Isleta. It was nearly six o'clock and would soon be dark.

"Vamos!" said Don Erminio. "One does not get rich while one looks about, and the salt fish I sent home from San Sebastian is almost gone."

Kit remarked that the captain had sent a large box and asked if Señora Martinez liked salt fish.

"She does not, but it is not important," said Don Erminio. "Children are always hungry and meat costs much. When one is a sportsman, fish costs nothing, and there is more money for me."

He stepped on some wet weed, and staggering across the ledge, declared the man who made his sandals had no shame, but Don Erminio was seldom angry long, and Kit admitted he was a sportsman. They were looking for the big, yellow-striped eel, which in the Canaries is a delicacy, and when the captain got his breath he plunged into the shallow water and began to whistle.

"Salta, morena!" he called in a thin, high-pitched note.

The morena feeds on pulps, the squid and octopus, which blow out air with a whistling noise when the pools get dry. The Spaniards eat the small pulps, but some are large and morena-fishers state they eat men. After a time Don Erminio jumped into a chasm where the surge swung to and fro, and presently stopped in front of a dark cave. Long weed tossed about with the wash, and the light that touched the rock was broken by puzzling reflections, in which the captain's legs shone lividly white. Kit, standing behind him, rather wished he would leave the cave alone. Somehow the dark hole looked forbidding, but Don Erminio declared he had seen a morena go in and Kit resigned himself to wait.

By and by he remarked, under water, a dark object stretched across a rock. It was spotted and looked rather like a thick stalk of weed. He thought it wavered, but the movement of the water might account for this, and Don Erminio began to pull about the weed. When Kit looked down again, the object was curved and thicker than he had thought. It obviously moved and its outer end was getting near the captain's leg. Then Kit saw another, and for a moment stood stiff and quiet while something throbbed in his ears. He knew the objects were the arms of an octopus.

He roused himself, and pushing the captain back, lifted his rod and struck. Don Erminio saw and shouted, but turned to the cavern and his pole jarred on Kit's. The weed tossed, the water got disturbed and thick, and Kit saw indistinctly three or four waving arms. It looked as if the thing was coming out, and he struck in savage panic at the spot he thought it occupied. Then Don Erminio leaped on to a dry ledge and pulled Kit up. When they looked back an indistinct, spotted horror writhed about the mouth of the cave. For a few moments Kit fought against a sense of nausea and the throbbing in his ears got worse.

"Buen mozo!" said the captain, beating his shoulder. "One has enough; the big pulpo is the devil. Vamos! In English, we get out."

While they pulled their boat to the rocks a man some distance off crossed the reef, and waved a white jacket. It looked as if he signalled and Kit saw the ketch he had noted was nearer land, but thought her too far off for the crew to see. The man, however, saw the boat, for he began to scramble across the rocks, shouting to Don Erminio.

"The ketch is Señor Jefferson's and they do not want her to make the port, where she must pay some dues," the captain said to Kit. "She is to go on to Africa, but the fellow says his boat is damaged and he cannot carry the message. Me, I think the wind is too strong for him. However, Señor Jefferson is very much a gentleman and the thing is possible."

Kit looked at the sea and doubted. The wind was fresh and outside the shelter of the rocks the combers were white and big, but Don Erminio could handle a small sailing boat. Kit signed agreement and the captain turned to the fisherman.

"Go home, mackerel-eater, and say two sailors have taken on your job."

They got on board, and while the captain rowed Kit reefed the latine sail. The boat plunged and spray began to blow about. When the sail was hoisted Kit got on the windward gunwale and the captain took the helm. The barquillo was small and did not carry much ballast, and the reefed sail pressed her, but in order to reach the ketch she must be driven to windward boldly. The others saw her coming for they hove their vessel to some distance off. Kit knew they durst not run far into the rocky bay.

The long yard began to bend and foam leaped about the gunwale. The barquillo was fast, and the latine sail took her well to windward, but a small boat going to windward is generally wet. When she lurched obliquely across the rollers the spray blew in clouds from her weather bow, and now and then their tops broke on board. Kit durst not get down to throw out the water; his weight was needed for a counterbalance on her lifted side, and he presently imagined she could not stand much more. Don Erminio's clothes and face were wet, but he met the big, curling seas with cool confidence, and somehow the boat went across.

When Kit could look ahead he saw the ketch was not far off. Her mainsail was lowered and, with jib and mizzen set, she swung her forefoot out of the foam and sank until her rail was hidden. It was plain the boat could not reach her on one tack, and by and by Don Erminio waved his cap.

"Let them do something. Now they must come to us," he said.

The ketch's helm went up, she swung round before the wind, and when she luffed the boat was close under her lee. Don Erminio and the patron shouted, a letter was thrown across, the ketch hoisted her mainsail, and Kit slacked the latine sheet. Going back, the wind was fair and they sped, with bows out of the water, across the long seas, while a wedge of foam stood up above the depressed stern. When they landed behind a reef it was nearly dark and Don Erminio studied Kit with a grin.

"Señor Jefferson is very much a gentleman and the letter is important," he said. "If you go by the triana and do not stop near the lights, nobody will see you. I must take the fish to my señora before she buys some meat."

Kit did not want to go. For one thing, his thin, wet clothes stuck to his body, he wore rawhide sandals, and could not find one sock. Yet he would rather like to meet Jefferson, who no doubt expected the letter. He started for the town and after a time stopped at a house in a quiet street. Somebody opened an iron gate in a narrow arch and Kit crossed the patio. He saw the stars shine over the court and shadowy bougainvilleas trail from the balconies. A fountain splashed in the gloom, and he smelt flowers. Then Jefferson came from a lighted room and took him in. He gave Kit a quick glance and noted his wet clothes, but did not look surprised. To look surprised was not Jefferson's habit.

"You have saved me some port dues and an awkward delay," he said when he had read the letter. "Will you take a drink?"

Kit refused politely and Jefferson resumed: "My wife can't receive you; she's at Palma, and there's something about which I ought to put Austin wise. Will you come along? I expect you know Mrs. Austin?"

"Perhaps I can claim to know Miss Brown?" Kit replied and then indicated his clothes.

"You're near my height and I can fix you; I didn't mean to let you go off like that," said Jefferson smiling.

Kit wanted to go and when he had put on a white suit of Jefferson's they started. Mrs. Austin's house was modern and occupied a natural terrace on the hill behind the town. A veranda ran along the front, and Kit saw a group of people in basket chairs. When Jefferson presented him Mrs. Austin's smile was kind and Olivia gave him her hand. Presently Kit sat down in a corner and looked about.

The veranda was wide and Mrs. Austin used it for a drawing-room. English and Spaniards owned her influence, she meddled benevolently with other's affairs, and presided over something like a salon of the old French school. At one end of the veranda a lamp stood on a bronze pillar, and bright beams shone out from the rooms behind, but Kit's corner was in the gloom and he was satisfied, since he rather doubted the fit of Jefferson's clothes. In front, one saw the clustered lights of the town and the white belt of surf that ran back to the shadowy Isleta. The sea sparkled in the moon's track, and then melted into the blue dark behind which was the African coast.

Kit studied his hosts. Mrs. Austin was slender and small. Her skin was olive and he noted some white in her hair. She was very graceful, but her glance was rather thoughtful than commanding. Austin loafed in his easy-chair. He was handsome, but looked languid—his hands were white and finely-shaped, his glance was careless. Kit could hardly picture him the hero of Macallister's romantic tale. In fact, Austin and Jacinta rather disappointed Kit.

On the whole, it was easier to picture Jefferson doing something big. He was thin, and although he was quiet, looked resolute and, so to speak, rough-hewn. Kit thought his was the Abraham Lincoln type. The others, however, were not really important when Olivia was about. She wore black and amber; a Spanish dress of diaphanous material and lace. Her olive skin was faintly touched, like a peach, by red. Kit thought her strangely beautiful and got a hint of pride and conscious power. By and by she crossed the floor and joined him.

"Have you gone for another ride?" she asked.

"Not yet," he said. "We have been at sea and one ride is enough for some time."

"Do you mean, you were shaken by your fall? If so, I'm sorry."

"I don't mean the fall. Going up the barranco to the hills shook me worse. I think you know it was my first adventure on horseback. Anyhow, you saw its inglorious close."

"But I rather thought you enjoyed adventures," Olivia replied with a twinkle. "Shortly before you arrived I was at a shop in the triana, and you crossed the front of the window."

Kit coloured, for he had seen his reflection in Jefferson's dressing glass; he imagined Olivia knew his shoes pinched and the clothes he wore were not his. Her quiet amusement jarred, but he reflected that clothes were not really important.

"My last adventure was on board a boat not long since," he said. "However, I do know a little about a boat."

"Mr. Musgrave certainly does know," Jefferson remarked. "He went off to meet Cayman in a fresh breeze that scared the fellow I sent."

"Now you ought to be satisfied!" said Olivia.

"I'm not satisfied. I didn't expect Mr. Jefferson to back my statement."

"Then you didn't want to persuade me you can manage a boat?"

"Not at all," said Kit. "I wanted to state that when you stick to things you know, you're not ridiculous. When I met you at the maize field I was ridiculous, because it was pretty obvious I couldn't manage a horse. In fact, I feel I ought to apologise."

"I wonder. You declared you were logical as far as you knew, and when I thought about it I agreed. You imagined the channel wasn't safe and saw I was obstinate. In consequence, you resolved to ride the horse across. On the whole, I think you were nice!"

"Are you disputing?" Mrs. Austin asked.

"Oh, no," said Olivia. "I am trying to persuade Mr. Musgrave he was rather noble. Not long since he rode my horse across a spot he didn't think safe for me."

"Then I reckon his nerve is pretty good!" Jefferson remarked.

Austin laughed, Mrs. Austin said nothing, but looked interested, and the blood came to Kit's skin. He almost thought Olivia shabby. Anyhow, he had had enough. If he stopped, he might look like a fool again, and he declared he must write out some cargo lists. Mrs. Austin told him he might come back, and after a glance at Olivia he turned to Jefferson.

"Thank you for the clothes," he said in rather a loud voice. "I'll send them home to-morrow."

He went off and Mrs. Austin said: "I don't altogether see——"

"It isn't very obvious," Olivia replied. "However, I imagine Mr. Musgrave has some grounds for thinking I ought to understand." She smiled and resumed: "Well, one gets rather tired of the banana men, and although Mr. Musgrave has some drawbacks I think he's good stuff. What do you think, Jake?"

"I reckon you know," said Jefferson, who looked at Mrs. Austin. "You see, I brought the young fellow."

"Oh, well," said Olivia, "we will admit that is something, but perhaps it's not important. Mr. Musgrave has engaged to return your clothes. If you had trusted anybody else on board his ship, I expect you would not have got them back. The correilleros keep all they get."

CHAPTER VI
THE INJURED PASSENGER

The red sunset shone behind Lanzarote's broken hills, and the Trade-wind had, for an hour or two, dropped to a light breeze. Campeador's boat, under jib and spritsail, was beating up the coast. Don Erminio held the tiller; Kit sat on the gunwale and smoked and looked about. Between sea and mountains ran an empty plain, crossed by lava ridges and covered by sand that had blown, for sixty miles, from the Sahara. In the distance, the little whitewashed port of Arrecife glimmered against the dark sea. The landscape was clean-cut and arid. Kit thought it looked like pictures of Palestine.

Rabbits and vividly-coloured fish occupied the bottom of the boat, for Don Erminio was a keen sportsman and made his sport pay. As a rule, his other ventures were not profitable, and he had taken Kit along the coast to look at a new tomato farm, in which he had bought shares. They found a rude wall, enclosing a belt of sand in which Kit imagined nothing could be forced to grow, and the captain stormed about the knavery of the people who had persuaded him to speculate, until he saw a goat. Now, however, he was resigned and philosophical.

"Business is not for sailors, who are honest people," he remarked in English. "You have seen the finca de tomate. Buen' ejemplo!"

Kit had seen, and sympathised with the captain.

"Did you invest much money?" he asked.

"Fifty-dollar. Money of my señora, and when I arrive at my house she make escandolo. When they start the finca there is a feast, mucho talk and drinky. Me I say, 'Viva la industria. Take my fifty-dollar.' Hombre, when I calculate the vermouth fifty-dollar buy!"

Kit said it was hard luck and tried not to smile, for the captain's speculations were something of a joke at Las Palmas.

"Other time I buy the mule cart," Don Erminio resumed. "I say, if the merchant want his cargo, he must use my cart. The plan is good, I buy more cart and get rich quick. Vaya! The cart is on the mole, two good mule in front. Comes the locomotura, pushing the concrete block. Mal rayo! The driver not look, and the mule is in the sea. I am no more commerciante; I am anarchist!"

Kit thought he understood the accident, for the mole at Las Palmas is narrow and the concrete blocks, carried on rails to its end, are large. The captain paused and coughed.

"Don Pedro savvy much; he buy whisky," he went on. "Now I have seen the finca mi t'roat is like the lime pit."

Kit's throat did not bother him. He had inherited an ascetic vein and, in a country where wine is cheap, he was abstemious. For all that, he was hungry and he looked ahead to see if the little port got nearer. He hoped the breeze would not freshen much before they arrived. Then he heard blocks rattle and looked astern. A schooner had gone about behind them and was overtaking the boat. Her forefoot swung out of the smooth swell, and a thin streak of foam marked her waterline; her high sails were black against the sunset. As she came up she swerved, a jib was hauled aback to stop her, and her after-canvas flapped.

"La Malagueña," said Don Erminio. "Now we get a drink!"

When the schooner forged past somebody threw a rope, Kit pulled down the boat's mast, and in a few minutes he and Don Erminio got on board. She was a beautifully-modelled vessel, belonging to the fruit-carrying fleet, but Kit understood an English merchant had recently chartered her. When he jumped down from the bulwarks, Wolf, the merchant, crossed the deck.

"If you'll come below and smoke, we'll tow your boat," he said and addressed Don Erminio in good Castilian. "Hallo, my friend! How do things go?"

"They do not go well," said the other. "I have seen the tomato farm."

Wolf laughed and took them to the small stern cabin, where he got out two or three bottles, some figs, and cigars. Kit took a copita of sweet, white muscatel and studied his host. Wolf was dark-skinned and wore white clothes, Canary rawhide slippers and a Spanish sash, but his English was good. Although he was fat, his movements and glance were quick.

"We'll put you on board your steamer when we anchor off the town," he said presently.

"Then, you're not going in?" said Kit.

"I think not. Arrecife is an awkward port to make in the dark. If the wind holds light, we'll anchor and wait for daybreak."

"The wind she freshen," said Don Erminio. "I know the reefs like a fish. I pilot you."

A steward had lighted the swivelled lamp and Kit occupied a locker behind the small swing table. Don Erminio and Wolf were opposite and Kit thought the captain's offer embarrassed the merchant. He, however, smiled and said they would wait. They could not land cargo until the morning, the casino was dull, and to win three or four pesetas was not exciting. Then he turned to Kit.

"Since you sail for Las Palmas soon, I'll give you a passenger. I expect you know we are trying to start a trade with the tribes on the Sahara coast. One of my men got hurt, and if he goes with you, the doctor will look after him to-morrow. I'd like you to send on a note I'll give you as soon as you arrive and keep the man on board until a boat comes. Then perhaps you needn't register him in your passenger lists. He's not a Spanish subject and we don't want the commandancia officers to make inquiries about the accident."

"The officers are animals. Me, I know them!" Don Erminio remarked.

"Sometimes they bother one," Wolf agreed. "However, I'll pay the sobrecargo for a first-class berth."

Don Erminio spread out his hands indignantly. "No, señor! A friend of yours is a friend of mine. There is no use in being captain if one's friends must pay."

"Oh, well," Wolf said, smiling. "I expect the sobrecargo is accountable for the passengers."

He put down an envelope and some money. Kit counted the coins and pushed back three or four.

"You have given me too much."

Wolf looked at Don Erminio, and Kit thought he slightly lifted his brows. Don Erminio shrugged, and Wolf leaned forward to pick up the money. Kit did not know if he got it, for the schooner lurched and the floor slanted. One heard the water rush along her side and a noise on deck. Loose canvas banged, ropes and blocks rattled, and it was plain the breeze had not kept light. As a rule, the boisterous north-easter freshens after dark.

Don Erminio jumped for the ladder and a few moments afterwards Kit got on deck. All was dark and showers of spray blew about, but he saw the schooner was now lying-to, and the crew had partly lowered the big mainsail. The indistinct figures hanging on to the long boom were trying down a reef. Presently they rehoisted the sail and when the schooner started, foam boiled about her lee bulwarks and all forward was lost in a cloud of spray. Kit looked aft and saw Campeador's boat, lifted half her length out of water, at the end of the towrope.

They made two tacks and then hove the schooner to with the lights of the little town abeam. The crew pulled up Campeador's boat, and Kit, balancing on the schooner's rail, waited for a minute before he jumped. Long, white-topped combers ran in the dark, the schooner rolled, lifting her wet side out of the foam. Sometimes the boat bumped her planks and sometimes swung away on the backwash. At length Kit jumped, and held her off while Don Erminio, rather unsteadily, came down a rope. Then two men appeared at the gangway, carrying another. The boat swung towards the vessel, Kit, bracing himself to bear a load, reached up, and next moment the man fell upon him.

A rope splashed, he stepped the little mast and hoisted the jib. Don Erminio seized the tiller, the schooner vanished, and the boat headed for Arrecife. The passenger lay in her bottom and did not move. By and by Campeador's lights tossed in the dark ahead, for there was no moon and the gloom was thickened by spray and blowing sand. The steamer rolled savagely and Kit knew if they missed her, it would be awkward to make the shallow, surf-swept port. One could not trust the captain's pilotage; Wolf had been generous with his liquor.

Riding on a comber's crest, they sped past Campeador's stern and Kit saw her side, pierced by lights, lengthen out. He jumped for the mast and dropped sail while Don Erminio shoved down the helm. The boat ran on towards the illuminated square of the gangway under the saloon-deck, and a rope came down. Then Kit, pulling out the mast, held her off with the hook and the steamer rolled her bilge out of the water. Gangway and ladder went up, her side looked like a high, slanted wall; and then she rolled back and buried the ladder in swirling foam.

Indistinct figures cut against the light and scrambled down the ladder. Kit let the boat swing in, and somebody seized the passenger and dragged him out of the boat. Next moment Kit was on the platform at the bottom of the ladder with the water about his knees, helping the others, who pulled their load through the gangway. The officers' mess-room was opposite, and carrying in the man they put him on the locker cushions. He looked young, but his eyes were shut, he breathed heavily, and a dirty bandage covered the lower part of his face. When they entered Macallister got up.

"Wha's this? Where did ye get him?"

"His name's Scot and we brought him from Wolf's schooner. He's hurt."

"Maybe; the bandage indicates it," said Macallister, who studied the man. "For a' that, I alloo he's drunk."

Kit was surprised and rather indignant, but Macallister grinned.

"I'm telling ye, and I ought to ken."

"Verdad!" said the captain. "Don Pedro savvy much. Me, I savvy something too. Es cierto. The animal is drunk."

The ship was crowded by emigrants for Cuba and when they had put a pillow under Scot's head, Kit went for his dispatch box and got to work. At midnight he returned to the mess-room and found Scot sitting up with his back against the bulkhead. His eyes were dull and his pose was slack, but he awkwardly sucked up some liquor through a maize stalk. Macallister sat opposite, looking sympathetic.

"Is that stuff good for him?" Kit asked.

"D'ye ken what the stuff is?" Macallister rejoined.

Kit admitted that he did not and remembered that the other sometimes doctored the captain from the ship's medicine-chest. When Don Erminio had friends on board his throat was generally bad.

"Anyhow," Kit added, "I only see one glass."

"He can hear ye, although he canna talk," Macallister resumed.

"Where were you when you got hurt?" Kit asked.

Scot moved his hand over his shoulder and Kit thought he meant to indicate the African coast.

"How did you get hurt?"

The other felt in his pocket and taking out a piece of lead dropped it on the table. Kit saw it was a bullet and the end was flattened.

"Hit a bone," Macallister remarked.

"But how did they get the bullet out? Wolf has not a doctor on board."

Macallister smiled scornfully. "When ye have gone to sea langer ye'll ken a sailor's talents. For a' that, ye'll no trust the captain if the boat carries an engineer. But I'm modest and will not boast."

Campeador, steaming before the big rollers, plunged violently. One heard the measured beat of engines and roar of broken seas. The mess-table slanted and Kit picked up the bullet, which rolled about and struck the ledge. He wanted to ask Scot something, but Macallister waved his hand.

"Dinna bother the puir fellow. Away and count your tickets!"

Kit went and got a bath, and was afterwards occupied until Campeador steamed into the Port of Light, when he sent off Wolf's note. Some time afterwards a boat with a Portuguese runner from a big hotel came alongside and they put Scot on board. In the evening Kit went to ask for him, but the clerk declared Scot had not arrived, and he doubted if their runner had gone to meet the correillo. Muleteers and camel-drivers from Arrecife did not stop at fashionable hotels. Kit was forced to be satisfied, but he thought the thing was strange.

CHAPTER VII
THE BULLET

All the basket chairs on Mrs. Austin's veranda were occupied and two or three young men leaned against the posts. Mrs. Austin used no formality. People came and went when they liked. Jacinta had a smile for all; to some she talked in a low voice and with some she joked. She knew things her guests hid from everybody else, and held a clue to numerous intrigues. The others revolved about her; Jacinta, so to speak, occupied the middle of the stage.

Austin, as usual, was satisfied to leave his wife alone. The evening reception was her business, and if she needed his help he would know. In the meantime, he talked to Jefferson and Kit. Kit was half conscious that he owed his hostess much. His clothes were better and the colours did not clash. He had dropped one or two mannerisms Mrs. Austin quietly discouraged, and had begun to take for models her husband and Jefferson. Jefferson was thin and hard and often quiet, although his smile was friendly. Austin was urbane and looked languid, but Kit now imagined he was not. In fact, both had a calm and balance Kit admired. They had risked and done much, but they did not talk down to him; to feel they weighed his remarks was flattering.

Notwithstanding this, he was rather annoyed by the young man who talked to Olivia. The fellow had returned from England and was telling her about cricket and tennis matches and London restaurants. Olivia looked interested, and Kit was jealous. His cricket was elementary and he knew nothing about tennis, but he thought Olivia ought to see Nasmyth was a fool. For one thing, he wore Spanish alpaca clothes, a black Spanish hat and a red sash, and looked like a brigand from the opera. Kit instinctively hated a theatrical pose, and wished Olivia had seen the fellow crumple up after a few minutes' dispute with Macallister about some coal.

He was not in love with Olivia; this was, of course, ridiculous. She did not move him, as Betty had moved him, to a shy tenderness that was mainly protective. When he was with Olivia he was romantic and ambitious; she inspired him with vague resolves to make his mark and use his talents. Her charm was strong, but Kit knew his drawbacks.

By and by Jefferson asked: "Did you see Wolf's schooner when you were on the Lanzarote coast?"

"Why, yes," said Kit. "We went on board one evening and brought back a hurt man."

He stopped for a moment. Wolf had asked him not to enter Scot on the list of passengers, but then he had not asked him not to talk about it. Besides, the thing was puzzling, and Kit was curious. He narrated their getting Scot on board and sending him off with the hotel runner at Las Palmas. When he stopped he thought Austin looked thoughtful.

"Do you know Wolf?" Austin asked.

"I do not," said Kit. "I hadn't met him before. He was polite, but, of course, he knew my post."

"You mean, he reckoned you were not worth cultivating?" Jefferson remarked. "Sometimes a mail-boat's sobrecargo is a useful friend."

"I don't expect Wolf has much use for me. He's trading in North-west Africa, is he not? What does he get?"

"The Sahara's not all desert. There are oases, and wadys where water runs. The Berber tribes have goods to trade and some of the stuff that comes out of the hinterland is valuable. In fact, the caravan roads may presently go west to the Atlantic and not north to Algiers."

"What sort of fellows are the tribesmen?"

"Physically, they're magnificent; I reckon it's the proper word. Six feet tall, muscular and hard as rawhide. We don't know much about their morals, but they're fearless, proud, and distrust strangers. Anyhow, they're a pretty tough crowd to get up against."

"Have you got up against them?" Kit asked.

Jefferson smiled. "We have had disputes. I reckon you know Austin and I send the Cayman across now and then. Sometimes she brings back sheep and barley and sometimes other goods. The trouble is the Spanish crew are not keen about anchoring on the Sahara coast; they know the Moros. But the fellows are not Moors, but Berbers of a sort. The true Berber is rather short and light; these folk are big and dark."

"Whose is the country?"

"The Berbers'?" Austin replied with some dryness. "Nominally, the Rio de Oro belt belongs to Spain. France claims the hinterland, the coast south of Rio de Oro and some territory north. However, did you look up the fellow Scot?"

"I tried. He was not at the hotel, and when I went to the house where Wolf's note was sent, the old Spaniard I saw knew nothing about him."

"Where is the house?" Austin asked.

Kit told him and he looked at Jefferson, who knitted his brows.

"Oh, well," said Austin. "Do you know how Scot got hurt?"

Kit took out the bullet. "He couldn't talk, but when we asked about his injury he put this on the table. The boat was rolling and I thought the thing would jump off."

Jefferson examined the bullet and gave it to Austin, who said nothing for a few moments and then lighted a cigarette.

"Strange and perhaps significant!" Austin remarked.

"Why is it strange? We know the man was shot," said Kit.

"The Berbers use long, smooth-bore, muzzle-loading guns; beautiful guns, with inlaid stocks, probably made long since in Persia and India. I don't know how they get them, but these people are not savages. They have a pretty good trading system and caravan roads. This bullet was fired from a modern rifle; a Mauser, I think. Do you want it?"

Kit said he did not and Austin glanced at Mrs. Austin, who presently beckoned Jefferson. He went off, and Kit pondered. On the surface, the others had been frank, but he doubted if they had told him all they knew. Then it was perhaps strange Mrs. Austin had signed to Jefferson.

"Looks as if the bullet interested you," Kit ventured.

"That is so," Austin admitted with a smile. "We imagined we knew the range of the Berbers' smooth guns. Since they make very good shooting, we found this useful; but a modern rifle is another thing. In fact, I begin to see——"

Kit was intrigued by the hint of romantic adventure, but Austin stopped and got up, for Olivia advanced. Sitting down by Kit, she opened her fan.

"Since you come to see us, I expect you're not bored," she said.

"Not at all," said Kit. "I feel I owe Mrs. Austin much for leave to come. All's so new to me."

"The people? Well, I suppose we're rather a mixed lot."

"I didn't altogether mean the people, although they are new. At Liverpool, my friends were of a type; the industrious clerk's type. We had our rules; you must be sober and punctual, you must look important, and your aim was to get on. At Las Palmas, you're not a type but individuals, doing what you like. Still I think the new surroundings count for more. After the shabby streets, the rows of little mean houses, to come to this——"

He indicated the dark volcanic mountains whose broken tops cut the serene sky, the Atlantic sparkling in the moon's track, and the twinkling lights along the belt of surf. When he stopped he heard the sea and the Cazadores' band playing in the alameda. The smell of heliotrope came from the dusty garden.

"All is really beautiful, anyhow at night, when you can't see the port," Olivia agreed. "It looks as if you felt its charm, but I think you resist. Some people don't trust beauty!"

"In a sense, to come South was like coming out of a dark room when the sun is bright. I'm, so to speak, dazzled and can't see which way to go."

"You're not emancipated yet," Olivia rejoined. "In Spain, we don't bother where we go, so long as the road is easy and the sun does shine. However, we won't philosophise. You did look bored not long since."

Kit had not imagined Olivia had noted his annoyance when she talked to the young man in the theatrical clothes, but he was beginning to know her.

"Don't you think I was justified?" he asked.

She laughed. "The charm of the South's insidious. When you arrived you were a Puritan; something of Jefferson's stamp. Well, he doesn't flatter one, but one trusts him."

"I think him and Austin fine," Kit declared. "They're quiet and Austin's humorous, but you feel what they say goes. Then you know their politeness is sincere. But since Jefferson's American, why does he live at Las Palmas?"

"I'll tell you his story. He was mate of an American sailing ship, some time since when sailing ships were numerous. She was wrecked and when she was sinking the crew got at some liquor and tried to kill their officers. I believe they did kill one or two, and then Jefferson got control."

"You can picture his getting control," Kit remarked. "But this doesn't account for——"

"The survivors' story was tragic and Jefferson lost his post. He came to Las Palmas and went to the coaling wharf. In the meantime, he had met on board a steamer the girl he married."

"Ah!" said Kit. "Calm nights in the tropics, with the moon on the sea! The girl was romantic and liked adventure?"

"Not at all! Muriel Gascoyne was conventional; the daughter of a remarkably disagreeable clergyman, who came out to stop the marriage, but arrived too late. Macallister had something to do with that. He delayed the correillo when Gascoyne was crossing from Teneriffe. Then Jefferson got a small legacy and bought the wreck of the Cumbria. Austin went to help him and when they floated the ship, married my sister. The doctors said Mrs. Jefferson could not stand a northern climate and Jefferson stopped at Las Palmas; he and Austin had earned rather a large sum by their salvage undertaking. I think that's all, but the story's romantic. Doesn't it fire your ambition?"

"To begin with, I don't expect a legacy," Kit remarked. "Then I'm not like Austin."

Olivia smiled and shut her fan. "No, you are something like Jefferson. He married a clergyman's daughter! Well, I imagine Jacinta wants me."

She went off and Kit's heart beat. Olivia thrilled him, but he was not a fool. For one thing, he knew she knew he was not her sort; then wrecks that poor adventurers could float were not numerous. All the same, when he talked to Olivia he was carried away, and wondered whether he could not by some bold exploit mend his fortune. He frowned and lighted a fresh cigarette.

Soon afterwards Wolf came up the steps. With his dark skin, soft black sombrero and black silk belt, he looked like a Spaniard; his urbanity was rather Spanish than English. When he stopped by Mrs. Austin, Kit somehow imagined she was not pleased, but she laughed and they talked for a few minutes. Then Wolf joined another group and afterwards pulled a chair opposite Kit's.

"I must thank you for landing Scot. Looks as if you used some tact. Your getting him quietly was an advantage."

"A hotel runner brought his boat, but when I went to look him up the clerk knew nothing about him," Kit replied.

Wolf smiled. "A dollar carries some weight with a hotel tout, and I didn't want to put the Port captain's men on the track. Since Scot landed in the hotel boat, they'd take it for granted he was a sick English tourist, and unless we're engaged in business, the Spanish officials don't bother us."

Kit rather doubted if Wolf was English, as his remark implied, and reflected that he had not much grounds for trusting him. For one thing, when he paid Scot's passage he put down a larger sum than was required, and Kit, thinking about it afterwards, imagined the fellow expected him to keep the money. Then Macallister declared Scot was drunk, and Kit had noted that he was strangely dull. To some extent, however, Wolf's frankness banished his doubts.

"Is Scot getting better?" he asked.

"He's not making much progress. In fact, since the town is hot just now, we have sent him away."

Kit noted that he did not state where Scot had gone, but perhaps this was not important, and he wanted to be just.

"Are you satisfied with your post on board the correillo?" Wolf resumed.

"In a way," said Kit "I like my job, but the pay is small."

Wolf looked thoughtful. "Perhaps you ought to stop until you know the country and the Spanish merchants, but I might help you by and by. We'll talk about it again."

He crossed the floor and by and by Kit got up. Mrs. Austin gave him her hand and Olivia went with him to the steps.

"Is Mr. Wolf a friend of yours?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Kit. "I think he's friendly."

Olivia knitted her brows. "Jacinta receives him, but sometimes I wonder—— Anyhow, I imagine she approves you and you might find her a useful friend. People come to her when they can't see their way."

She let him go, and Kit returned to his ship, wondering whether her remarks indicated that he ought to consult Mrs. Austin before he made friends with Wolf.

CHAPTER VIII
A SWIMMING MATCH

A light breeze touched the long swell that splashed about the coaling mole, for the range that runs down the middle of Teneriffe cut off the Trade-wind. The sun was near the mountain tops and cool shadow touched Santa Cruz. The houses on the hillside had faded to grey, but the lower town shone dazzlingly white, and the sea was like wrinkled silver. At the end of another mole, across the flatly-curving bay, a beach of black sand and a green house with balconies marked the citizens' bathing place. The correillo rode at anchor near the mole's seaward end, and an African mail boat rolled upon the sparkling swell between her and the coaling station.

Kit, standing in the shade of a truck, pulled off his clothes and glanced at the water. The strong light pierced the smooth undulations and he saw the stones three or four fathoms down. A young clerk from a merchant house, half undressed, sat upon a lava block, and three or four others were stripping in the shadow of a neighbouring truck. One bantered Macallister, who wore a towel and talked at large.

"I was a swimmer before ye were born," the engineer rejoined. "Weel, I alloo ye're soople and a bonny pink, but ye're saft. When I get in the water, I'll let ye see!"

"You're not really going in?" remarked another, and a lad seized Macallister's arm.

"Put on your clothes, Mac. We'll let you off your bet."

"Ye're generous, but it's possible ye canna pay. Though I'd feel shame to rob ye, I never made a bet I didna try to win," Macallister replied and, stretching his arms above his head, balanced on his toes. "Thirty years sin' ye would not have seen me go, but the cares o' the world have worn me, no' to talk aboot keeping steam wi' short-weight coal."

Kit turned to his companion. "Perhaps it's curious, but I haven't seen Macallister in the water. Since he started the match, I suppose he can swim?"

"You can't argue like that about Don Pedro," said the other. "Anyhow, I think Nelson doubts; he tried to stop him."

Kit glanced with some curiosity at the young man who had meddled. Crossing the plaza on the evening before, he stopped in front of a hotel and heard somebody singing. Perhaps it was because the song was English and, heard among the tall, white Spanish houses, had an extra charm, but Kit was moved by the music and thought the voice very fine. Entering the hotel, he found Macallister in the group about the piano, and when the engineer admitted that Nelson's song was good, but declared he, himself, could beat any Englishman, singing, riding, or swimming, the match was arranged.

"Nelson's at the coaling sheds, I think?" Kit remarked.

"That is so," agreed the other. "Don Arturo heard him sing in a church choir at home and gave him the coaling job."

"Because he can sing?"

The other laughed. "Doesn't look very logical, but Don Arturo's reasoning isn't always obvious. You don't know why he likes you and this has some advantages."

Kit threw off his shirt, and when he walked to the edge of the mole in his thin swimming suit, the other gave him an approving glance. His head was well poised on his sunburned neck, his figure was tall, finely-lined, and muscular. He looked hard and athletic but he was tired, for it was not long since he had laboured with Don Erminio across the high rocks of Gomera to look for suppositious wild goats.

"The sun's hot and I wish they'd send us off, but I don't see the launch to take our clothes across," he said.

"That's Nelson's job and Nelson forgets. They tell you in the sheds he sometimes forgets how many bags of coal go to a ton, which leads to complications, since they don't fix the weight by scale and beam. But Don Juan is coming. Get ready to start."

A man carrying a watch jumped on a truck, shouted a warning, and began to count. White figures leaped from the wall, and for a moment Kit turned his head. He saw Macallister advance to the edge of the mole and the Campeador's mate seize him from behind. There was a struggle and the mate and Macallister fell, but next moment Kit heard his number and threw himself forward in a long flat plunge. He came up on top of a roller, and shaking the water from his eyes, saw the African boat and Campeador cut the dazzling sky. Then a long green slope rose in front.

He swung out his left arm and dropped his hand in front of his head. His head went under with the impetus he got, and when he came up he saw Santa Cruz glimmer pearly-grey. The shadow had crept across the town and was moving out to sea. Kit did not see the others; when one uses the overhand stroke one does not see much, and for the most part he was down in the hollow of the trough. He made the best possible speed he could, but after a time found the effort hard. Kit was not a mountaineer, and climbing across broken lava for eight or nine hours is strenuous work. Besides, the water was colder than he had thought, and when he swung up on a long undulation he stopped and looked about.

The sun had gone and the sea was dark. Between him and the beach a small white object broke the surface and vanished; farther back, he saw a dot like a swimmer's head. He was too far out: the bathing house looked a long way off, he could not see the launch. Then he sank into the hollow and the view was lost.

Kit changed his stroke and swam on his chest. He must economise his strength, because he doubted if he could reach the sandy beach, and to land on the reefs would be awkward. In fact, it began to look as if he was not altogether swimming for sport. Perhaps he ought to steer for the correillo, but she was some distance off. By and by he heard a faint shout and paddled easily until a man overtook him.

"Hallo, Nelson!" he said. "Are you trying to get past?"

"Not at all," gasped the other. "I've had enough. Saw you were going away and made a spurt."

Kit, swimming slowly, could talk without much effort, and asked: "Where's Macallister?"

"On the mole; wish I was! Where are you heading?"

"I thought about the correillo."

Nelson blew the water from his sinking lips. "Too far. I'm going to the African boat."

"We have got no clothes."

"It's not important. Let's get out of the water."

"Clothes are important," Kit rejoined. "I expect she has a crowd of tourists on board and don't see myself walking about the saloon-deck in a bathing suit."

"Get on and stop talking," Nelson spluttered.

"Now I'm going easy, I can talk all right."

"Don't!" growled Nelson. "You'll have to help me before long."

Kit got level with him. "Brace up, go slow, and keep stroke with me."

They went on; sometimes seeing for a few moments the slanted hull and white deck-houses of the African boat, sometimes nothing but sky and heaving water. Still the ship was getting near, and by and by her whistle shrieked.

"Wants the water-barge," said Nelson. "She can't start yet."

Kit was relieved to know this. The steamer had finished coaling, and if she started before they reached her, it would be awkward. After a few minutes he lifted his head and looked about. The liner, rolling on the long swell, was now close in front. He saw her wet plates shine as she lifted them from the sea and the groups of passengers about her rail. Some had glasses and he thought they were watching him and his companion. The vessel was obviously taking home the last of the winter tourists, and Kit frowned when he noted women's dresses. It did not look as if he could get on board quietly. All the same, he must get on board, because he could go no farther.

He encouraged Nelson, and passing her high bow, they swam along her side. The ladder was aft and all the passengers on the saloon-deck came to the rail. Kit seized the ladder and when he had pulled Nelson on to the platform hesitated. No shore boats were about and he could not swim to the beach.

"Embarrassing, but let's get up," gasped Nelson.

Kit set his mouth and went up. A steward who wore neat uniform met him at the top.

"Have you got a ticket, sir?"

"I have not," said Kit; "do I look like a passenger?"

"Ship's cleared, sir. All visitors sent off. We're only waiting for the water-boat."

Kit made an effort for control. To get savage would not help and the fellow had no doubt been ordered to let nobody come on board. For all that a number of amused passengers were watching the dispute. The thing was ridiculous, and he was cold. He thought he knew one of the passengers and tried to signal, but the fellow went behind a boat. Although an iron ladder a few yards off led to the well-deck, the steward resolutely blocked the way. Then a very smart mate crossed the deck.

"Why have you come on board? What do you want?" he asked.

"Clothes, to begin with," said Kit. "Anyhow, we have got on board and we're going to stop until we get a boat."

The whistle shrieked and drowned the other's reply. He turned, Nelson pushed Kit, and they ran for the ladder. Plunging down, they reached an alleyway and Nelson laughed.

"I don't expect the fellow will come after us; a liner's mate has got to be dignified. If you want help when things are awkward, try the engineer."

They went up the alleyway and met a short, thin man, wearing a stained blue jacket and greasy trousers. He stopped and studied them, without surprise.

"Weel?" he said. "Are ye going to a fancy ball?"

"We want to borrow some clothes; dungarees, overalls, anything you've got," said Kit. "We had to give up a swimming match and couldn't reach my ship, astern of you."

"The little Spanish mailboat? Ye're with Macallister?"

"Of course. He got up the match, although I think he didn't start."

"It's verra possible," said the other dryly. "Mack canna swim. But if ye are friends o' his, I must get ye clothes."

Kit thanked him, and then, looking at the man thoughtfully, added that he doubted if the things would fit.

"I wasna meaning to lend ye my clothes," the engineer replied. "If ye're no fastidious, the second's aboot your size. Since he's occupied below, I dinna think he'll mind."

He took them into the mess-room, gave them some white clothes, and went off, remarking: "Ye'll be ready to go ashore with the water-boat. When they've filled my tanks we start."

"He won't start for some time," said Nelson. "You see, until we were on the mole, I forgot to tell Felix they wanted water. Jardine sent the coal, but the water's my job."

"You seem to forget rather easily," Kit remarked.

"Oh, well," said Nelson, "Don Arturo gave me the post because I can sing." He paused and added apologetically: "I really can sing, you know."

Kit laughed. He thought he liked Nelson. "Where do you think the others went?"

"There's a sandy spot near the barranco and I expect they crawled out. Of course, the distance was too long, but Macallister insisted we should go right across."

"Yet the engineer declared he can't swim."

"He can't swim; I have gone in with him at the bathing beach. All the same, I don't think this would bother Mack. If your mate had not meddled, he'd have started."

"But the thing's ridiculous!" Kit exclaimed. "If you can't swim and jump into deep water, you drown."

"Unless somebody pulls you out. Anyhow, Mack is like that, and I forget things; Don Arturo's men are a fantastic lot. A number of us have talents that might be useful somewhere else, and, so far as I can see, a number have none, but we keep the business going and beat Spaniards, French and Germans at jobs they've studied. I don't know if it's good luck or unconscious ability. However, we'll go on deck and look for the water-boat."

They went up the ladder and saw a tug steaming for the ship with a barge in tow. A few minutes afterwards the passenger Kit thought he knew crossed the deck.

"Mr. Scot?" said Kit, looking at him hard.

"I am Scot," said the other. "Met you on board the correillo. Come to the smoking-room and let's get a drink."

The smoking-room was unoccupied and they sat down in a corner. Kit thought Scot had not wanted to meet him, and was curious. The fellow talked awkwardly and the side of his face was marked by a red scar.

"You picked up my bullet," he said.

"I did," Kit admitted. "Meant to give it you back, but I forgot. Do you want the thing?"

"I'd like to know what you did with it."

"Austin got the bullet. I gave it him one evening when we were talking about Africa."

"You gave it Austin!" Scot exclaimed. "After all, perhaps, it doesn't matter. I have had enough and am not going back."

"How did you get hurt?"

"For one thing, I'd put on a cloth jacket—the evenings are pretty cold—and dark serge doesn't melt into a background of stones and sand. I imagined the tribe knew me."

"Perhaps a stranger fired the shot."

"There are no strangers about the Wady Azar. I carried an automatic pistol, but I reckoned the other fellows knew it wouldn't pay to shoot. In fact, I don't yet see why I was shot."

"The bullet was not from a smooth-bore, but a rifle," said Kit.

Scot gave him a keen glance and smiled. "Oh, well, I've had enough of Africa. Suppose we talk about something else."

Nelson and Scot talked about London until the tug's whistle blew and they ran to the gangway. The ladder was hauled up, but Kit and Nelson went down a rope to the water-boat, and as she sheered off the engineer came to the steamer's rail.

"Ye'll mind aboot the clothes when we come back," he shouted.

CHAPTER IX
KIT GIVES HIS CONFIDENCE

Campeador, bound for Teneriffe, rolled with a languid swing across the shining swell. Her slanted masts and yellow funnel flashed; her boats and deck were dazzling white, and Kit, coming out of his dark office, looked about him with half-shut eyes. When he joined the correillo he had not expected to find the Spanish crew kept her clean, but she was as smart as an English mail-boat, and Kit admitted that some of his British prejudices were not altogether justified. Now, however, she was not steaming at her proper speed. The throb of engines harmonised in a measured rhythm with the roar at the bows, but the beat was slow. Kit turned and saw Macallister watching him with a grin.

"Ye look glum," said the engineer.

"It's possible. We are late again, and I don't see how I'm to finish my business at Santa Cruz before we start for Orotava. Have your muleteer firemen got too much rum? Or did you forget to chalk the clock?"

Macallister smiled. "Ye're hipped. I'm thinking Olivia wasna kind; but ye have not much notion o' amusing a bonny lass. They're no' all satisfied to be looked at. Man, when I was young—— But ye needna tell me ye didna go til Mrs. Austin's. I saw ye, stealing off, with your new silk belt and your shoes fresh chalked."

"Miss Brown has nothing to do with the boat's arriving late."

"I mind a trip when her sister had much to do with our arriving verra late indeed. Gascoyne, Mrs. Jefferson's father, was on board, going to stop the wedding, and Jacinta gave me a bit hint, but that's anither tale. The trouble is, when ye're short o' fuel ye cannot keep steam. I allood I kenned a' the tricks o' the coaling trade, but a lad with the looks and voice o' a cherub let me down two hundred-weight a ton. Weel, I might have kenned, after the innocent set on Juan to hold me so I couldna win the swimming match."

"You're near the limit, Mack," Kit remarked and went off.

He was disturbed, but Campeador's slowness did not account for all. Before she sailed a letter arrived from his mother, who stated in a postscript that Betty did not look well. The girl felt the cold of an unusually bleak spring and worked too hard. Mrs. Musgrave understood the doctor thought she ought to go South, but Betty, of course, could not.

Kit walked up and down the deck and pondered. Betty had refused him and he had resigned himself to let her go. In fact, he had begun to think he had not really loved her much. Now, however, to know she was ill, hurt. He wanted to help, but it was impossible.

Then he remembered that Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Jefferson were on board. Perhaps he ought to see if they were comfortable; besides, to talk to them might banish his moodiness. He found them sitting to lee of the deck-house, and leaned against the rail opposite. Beneath him, in the moving shadow of the ship, the water was a wonderful blue; farther back, the long undulations, touched here and there by white, melted into the shining plain of the Atlantic. In the distance, Teneriffe's high range was streaked by silver mist, from which projected a glittering cone.

Mrs. Austin held a book and rings sparkled on her hand. Mrs. Austin was fond of rings. Kit knew she was the daughter of a merchant who began his business career by selling sailors cheap tobacco, but he thought her like an old French marquise; a marquise with a salon where plots were made.

Mrs. Jefferson was not like that. She was not fashionable and one felt her gentle calm. Somehow Kit knew the calm was inherited; one could not altogether get it by cultivation. She had quiet eyes, her sympathetic voice moved him. Now and then he was rather afraid of Mrs. Austin; he loved Mrs. Jefferson. He owned it strange he should enjoy the society of ladies like these.

In the meantime, Mrs. Austin studied Kit. Although he was very raw when he arrived, he was, so to speak, toning down. She had taught him something. Mrs. Austin had educated a number of raw young men, but since it looked as if Olivia were interested in his progress, she wondered whether she was rash to meddle with Kit. For one thing, he was rather handsome; he carried himself well, and his figure was good. He was honest, and his frank look had some charm. Then he had begun to choose his clothes properly; Mrs. Austin admitted she had given him some hints. Now, however, he was obviously disturbed and she had grounds for curiosity. She knew she could persuade him to give her his confidence and she did so with a cleverness Kit did not note. By and by he gave her impulsively his mother's letter.

"I'm bothered about the thing," he said.

Mrs. Austin passed on the letter to Mrs. Jefferson. On the whole, she was conscious of some satisfaction, because she thought Mrs. Musgrave's use of the postscript significant.

"One doesn't like to hear one's relations are ill," she remarked in a sympathetic voice.

For a moment or two Kit hesitated. Mrs. Austin was Olivia's sister and he had not meant to talk about Betty. Sometimes he did talk when he ought to be quiet.

"Betty is not a relation, but I'm bothered about her being ill," he said and indicated the snowy peak, silver mist and shining Atlantic. "I feel shabby, as if the thing's not just. You see, I've got so much and Betty, who needs all I've got more, is shivering in the cold. You don't know Liverpool when the east winds blow in spring."

"I know other English, and some American, towns in winter," said Mrs. Jefferson. "When my husband found I could not stand the cold, he brought me back to the Canaries. I think I can sympathise with Betty."

"Not altogether," Kit rejoined. "When you are tired, you can rest; Betty can't. You have not to go to an office at nine o'clock, knowing that if you're ill for a week or two you may lose your job. You are not forced to stop until nine o'clock in the evening, without extra pay, when trade is good."

"Are office girls paid nothing extra for extra work?"

"All I know are not," said Kit. "Perhaps five pounds at Christmas, if the house is remarkably prosperous; but I don't think Betty minded this. You feel the dreariness most; the poor food you eat in the middle of a crowd; the fight for the tram-cars when it rains, and the long walk through muddy streets when you can't get on board. I expect a girl hates to sit all day in wet clothes. Besides, it isn't good. Then Betty's office is dark, and she writes entries in a book until her eyes ache. The thing's, so to speak, hopeless. You feel you've got to go on like that for ever——"

He paused and his look was very gentle when he resumed: "Betty bore it cheerfully. She has pluck, but I knew she was tired, and now she's ill!"

"Was she going to marry you?" Mrs. Austin asked.

"No," said Kit, blushing like a girl. "When I got my post I wanted her to promise she would marry me when I came back, but she refused."

"This was just before you sailed?" Mrs. Austin remarked thoughtfully.

"Of course. Until Don Arturo sent for me, I knew it might be long before I could support a wife. Betty knew, but she went about with me. Sometimes we went to small concerts and sometimes, on Saturday afternoons, across the river. On the Cheshire side you can get away from the streets. There's a wood one can reach from a station, and primroses and hyacinths grow in the dead leaves. Betty was happy among the flowers; she loves things like that. She used to watch the thin birch sprays swing across the white trunks. I didn't know they were birches until she told me, but I sometimes thought her eyes were like the hyacinths. However, I've talked a lot and I'm boring you."

"We are not bored," said Mrs. Jefferson, and Mrs. Austin mused.

Kit's voice was very gentle; it looked as if he had not known passion, and Mrs. Austin thought Betty had qualities. One could picture a girl whose life was dreary using all her charm to get a lover; but Betty obviously had not. She had refused Kit, although nothing he had said indicated that she was calculating and ambitious. Well, one sometimes met a girl whose thought was not for herself.

"After all, a sobrecargo's pay on board the correillo is not large," she said.

"That is so," Kit agreed. "But one has so much besides; the sea, the sunshine, friends I could not have got at Liverpool. One feels confident; there are better jobs, and perhaps one is not forced to be poor always. Anyhow, Betty didn't bother about the pay; she can go without things, but when I tried to persuade her she was firm. Well, I think it's done with, she won't marry me. All the same, if I could bring her out to rest and get strong in the sun——"

He stopped, with some embarrassment, and resumed: "I have bored you and must get the captain to sign the manifests."

He went off and Mrs. Austin looked at Mrs. Jefferson.

"Well?" she said.

"I like him," said Mrs. Jefferson. "I think I'd like the girl. One feels he drew her better than he knew."

"Yet he's not her lover."

"He doesn't know he is her lover, but it's important that when he thinks about her being ill he's strongly moved. To know she might get well here but he can't help, hurts. I'm sorry she can't come."

"I don't know that it's impossible," Mrs. Austin replied.

Mrs. Jefferson gave her a thoughtful glance. Jacinta was generous and often helped people, but Mrs. Jefferson imagined she had an object now.

"You don't know her and I expect she's independent."

"For all that, I don't imagine she would refuse a good post, and a post where the work is light might be got. We'll talk about it again."

When Campeador arrived at Santa Cruz, Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Jefferson drove across the island to Orotava and Kit went round with the ship. Orotava is open to the Atlantic and landing is sometimes awkward, but onions were cheap and the company had engaged to load a barque for Cuba. Kit sent off a quantity on board the cargo launches and then went to the agent's office to pay for the goods. In Spanish countries, business is not transacted with much speed and when he started for the harbour it was dark. He wore deck-shoes and thin white clothes, and his pockets bulged with documents. At the marina he met Mrs. Austin, Olivia, and Jefferson.

"We came down after dinner to see the surf; it's rather grand to-night," Olivia remarked. "I suppose you are going on board?"

Kit said he was going. He carried the ship's papers, and she could not sail until he arrived. Then he asked Jefferson: "Have you seen my boat?"

"They ran her up when the sea began to break. I reckon you'll have some trouble to get off."

This was obvious. At Orotava the surf is not quiet long, and while Kit was engaged at the agent's the rollers had got high and steep. For a moment or two he looked up the famous horseshoe valley. Mist floated about the shoulders of the giant Peak, but the mist was still, and lights high up on the shadowy slopes did not twinkle. The illumination about the big hotel on the cliff was steady. One got no hint of wind; the night was calm and hot. For all that, the Atlantic was disturbed, and the crash of breakers rolled about the little town. The air throbbed with the measured roar.

Kit looked seawards. Two short moles enclosed a break in the lava rocks, but their ends were lost in phosphorescent foam, and a white turmoil marked the gap between. Now and then most part of a wall vanished and a yeasty flood ran far up the beach. Kit saw a group of indistinct figures standing about a boat and left the party.

"Can one get a boat off?" Mrs. Austin asked Jefferson.

"It's risky. Musgrave means to try. The danger spot is where the rollers break on the shallows at the harbour mouth. Beyond that, they're smooth."

After a few minutes Kit returned and Jefferson said, "Well?"

Kit laughed. "They're not keen about going, but the promise of a bottle of caña carries some weight and old Miguel is a useful man at the steering oar. Anyhow, I've got to try. Keeping up steam costs something, and a barque at Palma waits for the onions."

"D'you reckon a sobrecargo's pay covers the risk?" Jefferson asked.

They stood near a lighted wine shop and Kit gave him a puzzled look. "Perhaps we ought to get paid for an extra awkward job, but in a sense, the pay has nothing to do with it. When you sign on, you engage to do what's required. But you ought to see——"

Jefferson saw and his eyes twinkled. Kit was embarrassed, because he had remembered the others and thought he was talking like a prig. All the same, the young fellow was staunch.

"Miguel will come to the steps for me," Kit resumed, and they went with him along the wall. A quarter of a mile off, the correillo's lights tossed in the dark.

The boat was a thirty-foot cargo launch, rowed double banked by sturdy fishermen, but swinging about on the white turmoil, she looked small. Sometime when a thundering roller broke across the mole she vanished. To get on board was awkward, but when she stopped opposite some steps Kit ran forward and stood, stiffly posed, at the top.

"Ahora, señor!" somebody shouted.

Kit jumped. The others saw his white figure plunge and vanish. A crash, half drowned by the roar of the sea, indicated that he had got on board, and the boat went out on the backwash that rolled down the harbour like an angry flood. There was no moon, but one could see her dark hull against the phosphorescent foam. The men were pulling hard; their bodies swung and fiery splashes marked the big oars' path. At the mouth of the harbour she lurched up, almost perpendicular, over a white sea, plunged, and melted into the dark.

"They have got out," said Olivia. "It was very well done!"

"Then we'll go back to the hotel," Mrs. Austin remarked, rather coolly. "You are wearing your dinner dress and the spray is thick!"

"I'm not going yet," Olivia declared.

Mrs. Austin knew her sister and waited, although she was annoyed. One could not blame Kit for doing what he ought, but the thing was unlucky. After a minute or two, Jefferson jumped on a lava block and Olivia cried out. Just outside the harbour a long dark object rolled about in the foam. The object was like a boat, but it was obviously not the proper side up.

"She may clear the head of the mole," said Jefferson, and he and Olivia plunged into the spray.

Mrs. Austin hesitated and was too late. A sea washed across the wall, the others had vanished, and she durst not go alone. Men began to run about and she saw the boat was coming back extraordinarily fast. She was upside down, but two or three white objects clung to her, and swimmers' heads dotted the frothing surge that carried her along. Jefferson and Olivia ran back and Mrs. Austin went with them to the beach. The boat struck the lava and was pulled up. A group of dripping men pushed through the crowd and Jefferson stopped the patron.

"Have you all got back?" he asked.

"All but Señor Musgrave," said the other, "We held on to the boat; he went on."

"He went on!" Olivia broke in. "Do you mean swimming? Where did he go?"

"To the ship, señorita. He shouted he must get on board."

The man went off and Jefferson remarked: "I reckon Musgrave will make it. The surf-belt's narrow and there's nothing to bother him after he gets through. If he'd come back, he might have washed past the harbour and hit the rocks. I'll wait at the agent's office and see if the correillo starts."

"I'll stop with you," said Olivia firmly.

They waited for half an hour and then Campeador's whistle pierced the roar of the surf. Her lights began to move and Jefferson said, "She's steaming off. Musgrave has made it!"

Olivia thrilled, but said nothing. Mrs. Austin said they had better go back to the hotel and pondered while they climbed the steep path to the cliff. Kit had tried to get on board because he thought he must; he had not, consciously, wanted to persuade Olivia he had pluck. All the same, he had done a bold thing, with an object that justified his rashness, and Olivia had seen the risk he ran. Mrs. Austin however was rather sorry she had suggested their going to the mole.

CHAPTER X
MRS. AUSTIN MAKES SOME PLANS

Mrs. Austin's veranda was not as crowded as usual. For one thing, a steamer that touched at Las Palmas regularly had arrived from the Argentine and her captain was giving a ball, to which Mrs. Austin had resolved she would not go. Captain Farquhar's friends were numerous but rather mixed; his feasts were not marked by the strict observance of conventional rules, and at Las Palmas Jacinta Austin was something of a great lady. When Kit came up the steps she gave him a gracious smile.

"I'm flattered because you have not, like the others, deserted me," she said.

"You are kind to hint you would note if I came or not," Kit replied. "However, I must own I don't dance."

"Then, if you did dance, you would have gone to Captain Farquhar's ball?"

Kit smiled. "I think not. To begin with, I'd sooner come here, and I went on board Carsegarry when she called on her outward run. Captain Farquhar's kind, but I had enough. In another sense, so had Macallister and Don Erminio."

"You would be nicer if you knew where to stop," Mrs. Austin remarked.

"If you'll let me stop now for half an hour, I'll be satisfied," said Kit.

"Satisfied?" said Mrs. Austin. "Oh, well, I know you're frank. Frankness has advantages, but perhaps it's not always necessary."

She noted that his glance wandered to Olivia, and she began to talk about something else. He was not going to join Olivia, but while she talked she studied Kit. He was an honest, sober young fellow, and had recently begun to make allowances for others, and had learned to laugh. In the meantime, however, she thought his laugh was forced.

"If you are not amused, you needn't make an effort to be polite," she said. "When you arrived I knew you were moody."

"Then I'm duller than I thought," Kit rejoined. "You oughtn't to have known. On your veranda one's bothers vanish."

"Why were you bothered?"

"I got another letter and Betty's worse," said Kit. "My mother states she has been warned she must give up her post. Her work's too hard; she must get the sun and fresh air. I feel I ought to help, but it's impossible. Thinking about this, I've begun to see my job on board the correillo leads nowhere. Perhaps they'll let me stop when my engagement's up, but there's no promotion."

Mrs. Austin knew the Spanish manager was satisfied and meant him to stop.

"All the same, you like your job?" she said.

"For the most part, but one gets some jars. Recently we have been buying onions. A ship is going to Cuba, the freight is low, and Havana merchants give a good price for onions, but the peons who grow them in the mountains know nothing about this. They have got a big crop that nobody wants to buy and the price has fallen to a very small sum. The poor folks are a remarkably frugal, industrious lot."

"I don't know a country with finer peasants," Mrs. Austin agreed. "Still, if they're willing to sell you the onions, why should you not buy?"

"We are buying too cheap."

Mrs. Austin turned to Jefferson. "Mr. Musgrave puzzles me. He grumbles because he's buying onions too cheap."

"Let him state his case," said Jefferson.

"I'll try. Our plan's like this," said Kit. "At daybreak Campeador steams up to a beach from which cargo can be shipped. Don Erminio and I get horses and go off to the hills, where nobody knows about the steamer. Don Erminio stops at a village wine shop and plays the guitar while I talk to the peons. They're an unsophisticated lot with the manners of fine gentlemen, and live on maize, bananas, and goat's milk cheese. Yet, for all their poverty, I must eat membrillo jelly and drink a cup of wine before we get to business. They have stacks of onions, and at Havana onions are short, but the peons don't know and my job's to buy their crop very cheap. The worst is, the fellows are grateful and try to make us a feast. If they got half the sum their goods are worth, they'd be rich. It's rather like robbing a trustful child."

"I am a merchant's daughter and doubt if I ought to sympathise," said Mrs. Austin. "To buy at the lowest price the seller will take is a sound business plan. Were you not a business man at Liverpool?"

"At Liverpool nobody I knew made a profit of a hundred per cent," Kit rejoined. "The thing's not honest; besides, one feels it's not sound."

Jefferson laughed. "On the whole, I reckon Musgrave's justified. You can fool people once or twice; you can't fool them all the time. When they find you out, they charge you double or sell to another."

Kit looked at Olivia. She was talking to two or three young men and the position of their chairs would make it awkward for him to join the group. Moreover, he imagined Mrs. Austin had not meant him to do so. By and by he looked at his watch.

"I must go. It's later than I thought, and I've got to stop at the Carsegarry."

"You said you were not going to the ball."

"I'm not going to dance. We sail at ten o'clock and I must get Macallister and Don Erminio on board."

"Then I allow you have undertaken something of a job," Jefferson remarked.

"That is so," Kit agreed. "The last time I went for them I got rather damaged and they tore my clothes. Don Erminio's excitable and Macallister is big. All the same, somebody must go. Don Ramon at the office is patient, but I've known him firm. After all, he's accountable, and we carry the Spanish mail."

He went off and Mrs. Austin laughed. "Kit's naïve, but I like him. He's a good sort."

Olivia sent off the young men and stopped for a moment by her sister's chair.

"Kit Musgrave is a very good sort, but his luck is to get a knock-about part."

"One's luck turns," said Jefferson. "If Musgrave gets another part, I reckon he'll play up."

Olivia went into the house and Mrs. Austin said to Jefferson: "If Harry has finished his writing, bring him to me."

When Jefferson went for Austin she knitted her brows. Kit was obviously attracted by Olivia and Mrs. Austin did not approve, although in other ways she meant to be his friend. She had married a poor man, and rousing him to use his talent, had helped him to get rich; but she doubted if Kit had much talent. Moreover, she had qualities Olivia had not, and Kit was not like Harry.

Mrs. Austin did not know about Olivia. She thought her sister saw Kit's drawbacks, but the tourists only stopped for a few months in the winter, and for the most part, the coaling and banana men were dull. In fact, Mrs. Austin resolved to run no risk.

When Jefferson returned with Austin she said, "You work too long, Harry. You began this morning as soon as you got up."

"I'm forced to work," Austin replied. "Since Jake and I started the African business I'm pretty closely occupied. For one thing, he won't write the English letters, and my Spanish clerks can't."

"Viñoles speaks good English."

"That is so," Austin said with a smile. "You speak good Castilian, but to write a foreign language is another thing. In fact, I remember a note of yours that embarrassed a sober Spanish gentleman. Anyhow, Viñoles' method of addressing an English merchant house is, Señor Don Bought of Thomas Dash."

"What about engaging an English clerk?"

Austin shook his head. "The experiment's risky. When the pay's not large, you must get them young and don't know your luck until they arrive. Some come out for adventure—I imagine these are worst—and some come to loaf. If Musgrave wanted another job, I might engage him."

"I think not," said Mrs. Austin firmly. "Why not try an English business girl? She wouldn't lose her pay at the casino and borrow from you. She wouldn't make disturbances at cock-fights."

"It might work," Austin replied. "In fact, I begin to see where I'm being gently led. I expect you know a candidate, but she mustn't be pretty. Modern business has nothing to do with romance."

"The girl I thought about is a friend of Musgrave's."

"Ah!" said Austin, with a twinkle, "the plot thickens!"

"Now you're ridiculous!" Mrs. Austin rejoined. "Anyhow, my plan has some advantages."

She indicated the advantages and enlarged upon Betty's business talents, about which Kit had not said much. When Mrs. Austin felt her cause was good she was not fastidious. Moreover, she knew her husband and Jefferson, and felt she was on firm ground when she drew a moving picture of Betty's struggle against failing health and poverty. It counted for much that Muriel Jefferson could not stand the winter in the North. When she stopped Jefferson glanced at Austin.

"Perhaps we might risk it. Muriel would look after the girl."

Austin agreed and Mrs. Austin let them go. Her plans had worked, but she was not altogether selfish. She liked to help people and thought Betty needed help. In the meantime, however, Kit must not know; she would write to Mrs. Musgrave, for when Kit gave her the letter she had noted where his mother lived. Mrs. Austin's habit was to note things like that. So far, the scheme went well, but she had not gone far enough. After all, Betty had refused Kit and the correillo stopped at Las Palmas for three or four days every two weeks. Betty would be occupied by her business duties, but Olivia had none. Mrs. Austin admitted that her supposition about the girl's grounds for refusing Kit might not be accurate, and imagined a longer voyage for Kit was indicated. By and by Wolf entered the veranda and she saw a plan. Yet she hesitated. She had no logical grounds for doubting Wolf, but she did doubt him.

"Mr. Scot, whom you sent home after his injury, has not come back," she said presently.

Wolf said he did not think Scot would come back, and waited.

"Are you not embarrassed without him?"

"To some extent," Wolf replied. "I can't, however, go to England, and to engage a young man you haven't seen is risky. Then I don't know a coaling clerk I'd care to hire."

"But you do want help?"

Wolf agreed and Mrs. Austin looked thoughtful.

"Perhaps it's lucky, because I'd like to get Mr. Musgrave a good post. I expect you know I'm a meddler and managing people's affairs is my habit."

"I know you are kind and a number of people owe you much," Wolf replied.

Mrs. Austin gave him a gracious smile. "Well, I really think Mr. Musgrave is the man you want. He's honest and resolute, and although I don't know if he's very clever, he's not a fool."

Wolf thought his luck was good. He did want a resolute young man, but did not want him clever, and had for some time thought about Kit. Then he had an object for satisfying Mrs. Austin, who did not disown her debts.

"Well," he said, "I imagine I could give Musgrave a post he'd be willing to take. In fact, when my schooner comes back from Africa I'll probably send for him——"

He stopped and Mrs. Austin waited with quiet amusement. She knew Wolf did nothing for nothing.

"Señor Ramirez arrived from Madrid a few days since," he resumed. "I understand Don Arturo comes from Liverpool by the next boat. I would like to meet them."

"But this ought not to be difficult."

"In a way, not at all difficult. One can go to a public function and, if one is lucky, talk for a few minutes to the honoured guest, who forgets one immediately afterwards. There is not much use in this; but to meet an important man at a friend's house is another thing."

Mrs. Austin pondered. Ramirez was a Spanish officer of high rank and came to the Canaries now and then on the government's business. Don Arturo had invested much money in the islands and West Africa. Austin knew both gentlemen and Wolf wanted to meet them at her house. It looked as if he knew Ramirez was going to dine with Austin. On the whole, Mrs. Austin did not want to indulge him, and imagined Austin would not approve. Yet Wolf had promised to give Kit a post.

"Why do you want to meet Señor Ramirez?" she asked.

"I rather think it's obvious. The Spaniards are jealous about the Rio de Oro belt, and I am a foreigner. There are rules about trading with the Berbers that stand in my way. A quiet talk to Ramirez might help me much, and I imagine he would be interested."

Jacinta saw something must be risked, and after all Ramirez knew men. He would not take Wolf's honesty for granted because he was her friend.

"Very well," she said. "Señor Ramirez will dine with us one evening, and I will tell you when the time is fixed. I don't know about Don Arturo yet."

"You are very kind," said Wolf. "I had meant to send for Musgrave, but now I feel I must use an extra effort to give him a good post."

He went off and soon afterwards Mrs. Austin told Austin, who frowned.

"I don't know if I altogether approved the fellow's coming to the veranda, but this didn't imply much; his coming to dinner does."

"He promised he'd give Kit a post," Mrs. Austin replied.

Austin looked at her rather hard.

"You might have helped Musgrave at a cheaper cost. However, one doesn't cheat Ramirez easily and so long as you are satisfied——"

"Do you imagine Wolf will try to cheat him?"

"It's possible," said Austin dryly.

Mrs. Austin laughed. "Anyhow, Ramirez is just and won't make you accountable. Besides, if he is cheated, Wolf is cleverer than I think."

CHAPTER XI
THE PLANS WORK

Dinner was over, the night was hot, and Mrs. Austin had taken her party to the veranda. Wolf had gone; he declared he could not put off another engagement, but Mrs. Austin wondered. The fellow was clever and knew when to stop. A man like that did not go farther than was necessary and risk losing ground he had won. All the same, Mrs. Austin was satisfied. She had paid her debt, and although she had hesitated about asking Wolf, she now felt her doing so was justified. He had interested her famous guests; the dinner party had gone well.

Señor Ramirez occupied a chair by a table that carried some fine glass copitas from which one drinks the scented liquors used in Spain. His family was old and distinguished, and his post important. He was thin, dark-skinned and marked by an urbane dignity. As a rule, he looked languid, but sometimes his glance was keen.

Don Arturo sat opposite. He was strongly built and getting fat. Although his hair and eyes were very black, he was essentially British. He had known poverty, but now controlled large commercial undertakings and steamship lines. Don Arturo was loved and hated. Some found him strangely generous, and some thought him hard and careless about the tools he used and broke. He made bold plans, and had opened wide belts in Africa to British trade.

Mrs. Jefferson, Austin, and two or three others occupied the background. They were, so to speak, the chorus, and in the meantime not important. Austin knew when to let his wife play the leading part.

"When I was honoured by your opening your house to me I knew my entertainment would be good, but I must own it was better than I thought," Ramirez presently remarked.

"Ah," said Mrs. Austin, "I hesitated. You have public duties; I doubted if you could come."

"Duties are always numerous and pleasures strangely few. Besides, at Las Palmas, you command. But if one is allowed to talk about your other guest——"

"Señor Wolf wanted to meet you. I hope you were not bored."

Ramirez smiled. "Some people want to meet me and some do not, but I was not bored at all. Your friend is an interesting man; he told me much about which I must think. You have known him long?"

"Not long," said Mrs. Austin. She wanted to hint that she did not altogether make herself accountable for her guest, and resumed: "Still, at Las Palmas, we are foreigners, and since he is English——"

"Then you imagine Señor Wolf is English?"

"I have imagined so," said Mrs. Austin with some surprise. "However, his skin is rather dark."

"Darker than mine, for example?" Ramirez rejoined with a twinkle. "Well, the colour of one's skin is not important. In Spain there are descendants of the Visi-Goths whose colors is white and pink. One must rather study mental characteristics."

"Then you think Wolf's mentality is foreign?" said Don Arturo.

"It is not English. One notes a touch of subtlety, an understanding of one's thoughts, a keen intelligence——"

Don Arturo laughed and Mrs. Austin waved her fan.

"But, señor, I am patriotic. Are we very dull?"

"My lady, your grounds for patriotic pride are good. Your people have qualities. Let me state an example. In these islands our peons are frugal, sober, and industrious; a fine race. Our merchants are intellectual and cultivated. In mathematics, philosophy, and argument I think no brains are better than ours. It is possible we got much from the Moors——"

"My coaling and banana clerks are not philosophical, and I doubt if many are cultivated," Don Arturo remarked.

Ramirez spread out his hands. "You use my argument! I admit you have qualities. These raw English lads do things we cannot. They load in a night bananas we cannot load in two days, they get the best fruit, they use our fishermen and labourers to coal your ships. The profit and all that is good in Grand Canary goes to you. At the hill villages where the peons went to bed at dark, your mule carts arrive with cheap candles and oil. The shops are full of English clothes and tools. When the peon finds he needs your goods he grows things to sell. Sometimes we are jealous, but we trust you."

"It looks as if you trusted Wolf, although you imagine he is not English," Don Arturo said dryly.

"He is the señora's guest," said Ramirez, bowing to Mrs. Austin.

"Ah," said Mrs. Austin, "this does not carry much weight! I am not a clever politician, and perhaps my judgment is not very sound."

"All the same, I did trust Señor Wolf. He wanted some concessions; a little slackening of our rules about trading on the African coast."

"Your rules are rather numerous," Don Arturo remarked.

"It is so, my friend. Our possessions in Africa are small and the Moors of Rio de Oro are fierce and troublesome, but I think that belt of Atlantic coast will some time be worth much. Valuable goods cross the Sahara from the West Soudan, and when we have made harbours, caravans that now go to Morocco and Algiers will arrive. Well, perhaps we are cautious. We have greedy neighbours, and when one has not got much, one keeps what one has."

Don Arturo looked thoughtful. "West Africa's my field, and I don't know the North, but now France has got all the hinterland, I sometimes think the dispute about the Atlantic coast may be reopened. I imagine the Spanish Government is not a friend of Islam."

"When we are not anarchists we are staunch Catholics," Ramirez agreed. "Well, in North Africa the sun and the tribesmen's blood are hot. A strange, wild country, where the agreements diplomatists make do not go. But this is not important. I think the señora's talented friend interested you."

"I promised to charter him a steamer," said Don Arturo dryly.

"A Spanish steamer?"

"She is now an English cargo-boat of two thousand tons. I do not know if Wolf will hoist the Spanish flag. Perhaps this might be allowed."

Ramirez's eyes twinkled. "It is possible. We are poor and cannot pay our officers much. But two thousand tons? To carry a few sheep!"

"I understand Wolf will send her to Mojador and Saffi for maize and beans."

"Oh, well," said Ramirez, "we will talk about something else." He turned to Mrs. Austin. "My lady, you have seen our politeness is not as deep as people think, but you will make allowances. When one meets a famous English merchant, and a man of talent who knows the Rio de Oro, like Señor Wolf——"

"Although he is not English," Mrs. Austin remarked, but Ramirez smiled and turned to the others, who played up.

After a time the guests went off and Mrs. Austin said to her husband. "Somehow I feel I've meddled with a bigger thing than I knew. In fact, I rather wish I had not."

"Your object's good," said Austin. "You have got Kit a job. I suppose this was all you wanted?"

Mrs. Austin smiled. "I didn't want to help Wolf, and if I have helped, it's because one gets nothing unless one pays. However, we'll let it go."

When Kit returned to Las Palmas he found a note from Wolf, and in the evening went to a house in an old quarter of the town. The street was narrow, quiet and dark, but the moon touched one side with misty light. Kit heard the throbbing rumble of the surf, and coming from the noisy steam tram and the lights of the main street, he got a hint of mystery in the quietness and gloom. The houses had flat tops and looked like forts. Their straight fronts were pierced by a few narrow slits and a low arch. The slits were high up and barred. Kit thought that part of the city looked as if it had not been built by Europeans; it rather belonged to Egypt or Algiers. There was something romantic but sinister about it.

He knocked at a door and an old man took him across a patio where a ray of moonlight fell. The man showed him into a room furnished like an office, and Kit waited and looked about. There was no window, but an arch opened on to a passage with dark wooden pillars supporting a balcony. A few maps occupied the wall, and Kit began to study one of the Rio de Oro belt. Maps drew him; they called one to countries one had not seen, and this map pictured a wild land white men did not know much about. For all that, Kit thought it good. Green rings marked the oases, blue threads the wadys where water sometimes runs, and the red lines were the tracks by which loaded camels came from the Soudan. The marks, however, were not numerous, and Kit mused about the blank spaces.

Then he turned with a start and saw Wolf. He had not heard the fellow come in, and noted that he wore slippers of soft red leather. His shirt and trousers were white, but he wore a red silk sash and a Fez cap.

"My map interests you?" he said. "Well, I doubt if the Spanish government owns one as good. I expect to have noted that for the most part it is not printed?"

Kit had noted that the caravan roads and wadys were drawn by a pen.

"I was studying the unmarked spaces," he replied.

Wolf smiled and indicated a chair. "The explorer's instinct; there's something about the unknown that pulls. All the same, more is known about the country than some people think, and in one sense, it is not a desert. Then the people are not savages, although their rules are the rules the Arabs brought a thousand years since. They spring from famous stocks; Carthaginian, Roman; Saracen adventurers who pushed across the Atlas range and vanished. The country's intriguing, but to know it one must be resolute."

"I suppose the tribes are Mohammedans?" Kit remarked.

Wolf gave him some scented wine and a cigarette with a curious taste, and while he smoked Kit heard the measured beat of the surf. Somebody on a neighbouring roof played a guitar and the music was strange and melancholy.

"Some of the tribes are fanatics," Wolf replied. "Islam was born in the desert and its driving force comes from the wilds. When the prophets were made caliphs they lost their real power. The Turk has got slack and meddles with forbidden things, but the faith lives and has spread far recently. Its missionaries, however, do not come from Constantinople. Lean John Baptists appear in the desert and found fierce, reforming sects. One has grounds for imagining their job is something like this."

"Ah," said Kit. "Do they expect a new Mohammed?"

"I think they expect a new prophet," Wolf said quietly. "Not a political caliph, but a man from the wilds who will re-enforce the ancient Arab laws. They have waited for him long and have sometimes been cheated. Their habit is to wait. It is possible they will be cheated again."

Kit was young, and romance and mystery appealed. "Well," he said, "I'd like to see something of North-west Africa."

"Then the chance is yours. I am sending a steamer to the Morocco coast and want a man I can trust to meet the Jew merchants and put on board the maize and beans I've bought. Then she'll steam south to pick up goods at Rio de Oro, and my agent must go inland with an interpreter to meet the tribesmen. If you like, you can go."

Kit's eyes sparkled. "I'll take the post," he said, and then stopped and frowned. "I forgot," he resumed. "My engagement with the correos runs for some time."

"This is not much of an obstacle. I am chartering the steamer from the company and expect Don Ramon will let you off."

"If Don Ramon is willing, there is no obstacle," Kit declared, and when Wolf told him about his pay and duties his resolve was keener. He would use a power and responsibility he had not yet known and be richer than he had thought.

"Very well," said Wolf. "When you come back from Palma you had better see Don Ramon. In the meantime, I'll get things in trim."

Kit went down the street with a light step. The old Spanish house, the map, and Wolf's talk had fired his imagination. Adventure called. In a week or two he was going to see the desert and try his powers.

PART II
RESPONSIBILITY

CHAPTER I
OLIVIA'S EXPERIMENT

When the correillo returned from Palma and Kit went to the company's office he was bothered by doubts. Don Ramon, the Spanish manager, had been kind, and Kit felt shabby. He had engaged to serve the company for twelve months and doubted if his asking the other to release him was justified. For all that he wanted to go to Africa.

He was shown into the private office, and Don Ramon, after indicating a chair, occupied himself for a few minutes with the papers on his desk. Kit's embarrassment was obvious, and the manager was amused.

"I have studied your notes about business at the ports Compeador touched on her new round," he said presently. "Some of your suggestions are useful. I expect you wanted to talk to me about this?"

"Not altogether," Kit replied.

"Then, perhaps, you meant to talk about painting the passengers' rooms?"

"No," said Kit. "The rooms need painting, but I really meant to ask you to let me off my engagement. I have heard about another post."

Don Ramon studied him quietly for a few moments. Kit's glance was direct, but the blood had come to his skin. The Spaniard was very subtle and knew something about young Englishmen; he rather approved Kit.

"A better post?" he said.

"It is better, but I'm not altogether influenced by this," Kit replied awkwardly. "I haven't much scope on board Campeador. One likes to feel one is responsible and doing something worth while."

"Ah," said Don Ramon, "a number of your countrymen arrive at this office with the resolve to do as little as possible. However, I imagined you were satisfied on board."

"In a way I am satisfied. The captain and engineer are my friends, I like the company's agents, and your clerks make things easy. In fact, if you think I ought to stop, I will stop."

"You imply that you are willing to give up the better post unless we agree to your leaving us?"

"Of course!" said Kit. "I won't urge you to agree."

Don Ramon smiled. "After all, your joining Mr. Wolf has some advantages, particularly since the steamer he has chartered is ours, and I don't know that it is necessary for you to break your engagement with us. If it is not broken, you could go back to Campeador after the other boat's return, and, in the meantime, will get your pay. I expect Mr. Wolf did not state how long he wanted you."

"He did not," said Kit and pondered.

Perhaps it was strange, but he had not stipulated that he must be employed for a fixed time. He ought to have stipulated. Then he was surprised because Don Ramon knew his object for wanting to go. Don Ramon was clever and his remarks hardly indicated much confidence in Wolf.

"You are generous," Kit resumed. "However, I doubt if I can honestly work for you and Wolf. You see, the office now and then buys corn at the Moorish ports."

"I think I see," Don Ramon replied with a twinkle. "You imply that so long as you take Wolf's pay you are his man, and we must not expect you to study his business for our benefit? Well, we do not expect this, and you will find Wolf's business is, for the most part, transacted at a neighbourhood we leave alone. All the same, the chartered steamer is valuable, and although we have asked for some guarantees, we would like a company's servant on board. Don Erminio and Macallister will join the ship."

Kit's hesitation vanished. His luck was strangely good, and he thanked Don Ramon, who presently sent him off. While his double engagement lasted he would be rich, and when he returned to the correillo he wrote to his mother, asking her to make some plan for helping Betty. For example, Betty might take a holiday and, if Mrs. Musgrave used proper tact, need not know Kit had borne the cost. He wanted Betty to get a holiday that would brace her up. Yet it was obvious he was not in love.

His reflections were disturbed. A fowl, cackling in wild alarm, came down the ventilator shaft that pierced the ceiling of his small room. It struck the rack above the folding washstand, and Kit's hairbrush and a box of brass buttons fell. The buttons rolled about the floor and under his berth. Then the fowl swept his desk with fluttering wings and the inkpot overturned. Kit frowned and put his letter in the envelope. His friends on board liked a rude joke, and a fowl had come down the shaft before. Kit had thought he had spoiled the joke by painting the inside of the bowl-head on deck, but the paint did not long keep wet. He tried to catch the fowl, with the object of putting it in Macallister's bed, and finding he could not, opened the door, and drove it out. Soon afterward Macallister came in and indicated the stained desk.

"She's no' rolling, but it looks as if ye couldna' keep your inkpot right-side-up," he said. "Weel, I've kenned Garcia's sherry account for stranger things than yon."

"I've known it account for your losing your boots," Kit rejoined.

Macallister grinned. "The night was balmy. I was tired and my feet were sair. Ye'll mind I scalded them, saving the ship when the boiler tubes burst——"

"I was not on board," said Kit. "Anyhow, Don Erminio states Felix, your stoker, stopped the tubes. But you certainly lost your boots."

"How was I to ken the Spaniards would rob me while I slumbered? And I have my doubts. Mills o' the Estremedura was tacking along the mole, and they're no' a' gentlemen aboard yon boat. But we'll let it go. Ye dinna ken what auld Peter has done for ye?"

"My notion is, you have done enough," Kit remarked. "It's some time since the mate and you sold my clothes when I was ashore, but you haven't paid me yet."

"If my luck is good, ye will be paid, and ye have not heard my news. The company is chartering the old Mossamedes and ye're to gang to Africa on board. I got ye the job."

"Go on," said Kit dryly. "I expect it's a romantic tale."

Macallister lighted his pipe and put his coaly boots on the locker cushions.

"It was like this. Don Ramon called me to the office. 'We have chartered Mossamedes for a run to the Morocco coast,' says he. 'Captain Erminio is no' much o' a navigator and the mate's eyes are no' very good, but if ye're in the engine-room, I'll ken all's weel. Then we need a sobrecargo. Whom would ye like?'

"'Maybe Mr. Musgrave would suit,' says I. 'He's slow and dour, but for a crabbit Englishman, he has some parts. Besides, when he gangs ashore the lassies will not bother him. He's no' the sort to charm a fastidious e'e. If ye send Mr. Musgrave, ye'll not go far wrang.'"

"Did you argue in Scots or Castilian?" Kit inquired.

"In Edinburgh Scots; better English than ye use. What for would I use Castilian?"

"I see one important obstacle," said Kit. "When a man who has long been chief-engineer on board a Spanish ship is forced to paint the pressure gauge and chalk the clock, in order to let his firemen know what steam must be raised——"

"There's no' a shabby hotel tout who canna speak six languages," Macallister rejoined. "Don Arturo and I use English. Since I dinna convairse with foreigners, what for would I learn their language? If they want to talk to me, they must use mine."

He went off and Kit laughed. He owned that his conventional notion of the grim, parsimonious Scot was strangely inaccurate. The Scots he knew in the Canaries were marked by freakish humour and rash generosity. They were kind with the kindness of a benevolent Puck. In fact, all the correilleros were to some extent like that, a reckless, irresponsible lot, but Kit had known men with virtues shabbier than the sailors' faults.

A week afterwards, he got up one evening from his revolving chair in the Mossamedes' saloon. She was going to sea at daybreak, and Don Erminio had brought his friends on board. All the chairs were occupied, and cigarette smoke drifted about the green trailers of a sweet-potato that grew across the beams. The empty bottles were numerous, and at the end of the table Don Erminio made a speech. Kit heard something about animals and anarchists, and noted that the wine dripped from the glass in the captain's hand. At the other end of the table Macallister sang.

Kit had had enough. He thought he had done all politeness required, and the noisy revels jarred. It was a relief to go on deck and breathe the cool night breeze. Mossamedes was a larger boat than the correillo. Riding near the harbour mouth, her masts and funnel swung languidly, and her lights threw trembling reflections on the black water. A long deckhouse ran aft from the captain's room and pilot house at the bridge, and a row of stanchions carried its top level with the rail. Luminous smoke rolled from the funnel; one heard the clank of shovels and hiss of steam. In the background were glimmering surf, lights that twinkled in clusters against dark rocks, and then a gap where the Atlantic rolled back to Africa.

When he ordered his boat Kit's heart beat. His last duty before the vessel sailed was to get some documents from the commandancia, and then he was going to Mrs. Austin's. Mrs. Austin was not at home, but Olivia received him on the veranda.

"Harry and Jacinta will not be very long," she said.

"I'm sorry," said Kit. "I can't stop, but I wanted to say good-bye, and thank your sister."

"Then you waited for some time. Didn't you know Jacinta was going to the Metropole?"

"Not altogether," Kit replied with some awkwardness. "I think I knew she might go, but the captain was giving a party and I couldn't get off."

Olivia smiled. She knew her charm, and Kit was rather obvious.

"When his guests started I was at the mole and I expect the port-guards will get some amusement when they come back," she said. "But why do you want to thank Jacinta?"

"I imagine she had something to do with my getting the new post."

Olivia gave him a keen glance and was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, "It's possible! You feel you ought to thank her?"

"Of course," said Kit and pondered. It looked as if Olivia were angry, and this was puzzling.

"The post is good," he resumed. "I could get no farther on board the correillo and my work was not important. On the bigger boat I'll have some responsibility. Wolf is not going with her and gives me control. You see——"

"I think I do see," Olivia interrupted with a touch of scornful impatience. "You imagine you are going to force people to own your talents? This, of course, is enough for you, and you see nothing else. You imagine Jacinta knew your ambition and wanted to help?"

"I'm satisfied she did want to help, and she has helped. Mrs. Austin's kind."

Olivia laughed. Kit was very dull, but Jacinta's firm rule was sometimes galling. Olivia saw her object and wanted to baffle her. Besides, she doubted Wolf and knew Austin did not like him.

"Kit," she said, "suppose I asked you to do something for me?"

"Try!" he said, rather tensely, and waited.

"Then don't go to Africa. Stop at Las Palmas."

Kit's heart beat. Olivia had come nearer him; if he moved his hand he would touch her. Her voice had a strange, soft note, and she fixed her eyes on his. For a moment he hesitated and then braced himself to resist. It was not for nothing he sprang from Puritan stock.

"But this is not for you, and I am forced to go. Mossamedes sails in the morning, and Wolf cannot get another man. Besides, the company ordered me on board, and I have the ship's papers. I can't break my engagement when the boat is ready to start."

Olivia gave him a glance that fired his blood, and then turned her head. At the beginning she had meant to baffle Jacinta, but she had another object now. Kit's stubbornness was a challenge, and if she could not move him, she must own her charm was weak. Vanity accounted for something, but not for all. His resistance moved her to passion.

"Is it a drawback that the thing I ask is rather for your sake than mine?" she said, looking up. "Would you sooner I didn't care if you ran a risk or not?"

Kit used stern control. Olivia was very alluring, and he noted the tremble in her voice. He was strongly tempted, but although he thrilled he was not a fool. She did not belong to his circle; he was poor and her sister, with careless kindness, had tried to help him. By and by perhaps, if he got a good post—— He pulled himself up. If he meant to be honest and justify Mrs. Austin's kindness, he must stick to his job. Besides, if there was a way at all, this was the way that led to Olivia.

"I think you know I'd like you to care," he said and paused. To talk like this was dangerous. "But why do you want me to stop?" he resumed with an effort for calm.

"Are you very dull, Kit?" Olivia asked quietly.

Kit coloured and got up. After all, he was human and knew he could not hold out long. He thrilled and his hands shook as he turned his soft hat. Mrs. Austin trusted him, and since he could not see another plan, he must run away.

"If my luck is good and I get promotion, I won't refuse another time. Now, because your sister got me the post, I must stick to it and go on board."

Olivia gave him a cool, level glance. "Oh, well! I know your obstinacy; you baffled me before." Then her look got softer and she added: "But be cautious Kit! I don't like Wolf."

She let him go and when he went down the steps he frowned. He had tried to take the proper line, but he was young and wondered whether his scruples were extravagant.

CHAPTER II
THE FIRST VOYAGE

To some extent, Kit's first voyage on board Mossamedes was disappointing, and he felt as if he had been cheated. Nothing romantic marked the run; the boat was large, her roll was slow and regular, and while her big engines pushed her north against the Trade-breeze, one could without much balancing walk the deck. On board Campeador one could not. Her sharp plunges sent one staggering about, and one must dodge the spray that swept her like a hailstorm when the white surges burst against her forecastle. The spray and violent motion had some drawbacks, but Kit got a sense of man's struggle with the sea.

On the whole, he thought the Morocco coast dreary. The towns were like the Spanish towns, dazzlingly white on the water-front, but meaner and dirtier. In fact, to walk about the narrow streets in the dark was rash, and Kit was satisfied by his first experiment. The hot, foul-smelling cafes by the harbour had no charm for him, and he lost himself in a network of alleys between straight walls. The alleys were very dark; sometimes an indistinct figure stole past, and sometimes he saw a yellow gleam in a high and narrow window. This was all, and it was a relief to get back to the beach and feel the fresh Trade-breeze.

As a rule, they moored Mossamedes some distance from the beach, and she rode uneasily, rolling on the long swell while her cable jarred against the stem. Boats came off with her cargo of beans, barley and maize, and Kit, watching the dust-clouds roll along the parched coast, wondered where the produce grew. When he asked Yusuf, Wolf's agent, the Jew vaguely indicated the hinterland. He was, he said, a merchant, and the merchants stopped in the towns. The Moors of the back country were strange people, and one left them alone. Notwithstanding this, Yusuf was obviously a good business man, for the quantity of grain he sent on board was large and when Mossamedes weighed anchor, Kit thought Wolf would find her first voyage profitable.

Getting off was not easy. She had swung, and her cable, sweeping the bottom, had fouled the anchor. They hove all on board in a horrible tangle, and for hours the barefooted crew were occupied in dragging the ponderous links about. In the meantime Mossamedes steamed slowly south, with a yellow smear on her port hand that stood for the coast. The shallows run far to sea, and the charts are not remarkably good. Yusuf had sent her to load sheep at the mouth of a wady, but stated that she might wait some days before the animals arrived.

Miguel, the old quartermaster, steered her in. He had long sailed on board a fishing schooner and knew the shoals, for where the African coast-shelf drops to the deep Atlantic, fish are numerous. Fish, lightly salted and dried in the sun, make the Spanish baccalao, and the peons, whose main food it is, are sometimes touched by leprosy. Miguel never wore boots and stockings, although when he went home on feast days he carried raw-hide sandals. Kit rather doubted if he put the sandals on. His clothes were strangely patched, and he could not read, but his manners were the manners of a Spanish grandee. He was something of a mystic and believed in miracles. He told Kit the Moors were cruel and treacherous, but his saint was king of angels, and he was not afraid. The mate was a Catalan Freethinker, and believed in nothing he could not touch and see. Since he wore spectacles, his vision was limited.

When they reached the spot agreed upon, Miguel went to the bridge, and they rigged the deep-sea lead and stopped the ship. Miguel, posed like a Greek statue, stood on top of the pilot-house; his thin clothes wind-pressed against his body, and his white hair blown about his red cap. There were no shore marks, and Don Erminio's reckoning was not always accurate. Across a belt of blue sea one saw a brown and yellow streak. Its outline was vague and broken; only the colour was distinct.

"The Punta!" said Miguel. "The barranco is a league south. A bad place, captain, and the people are without shame."

Kit knew barranco in Castilian and wady in Arabic mean a stony hollow where water sometimes flows. He looked for an anchorage, but saw none. In places, the belt of blue was broken by patches of pale green, and farther on, by glistening white lines. These marked ridges on the coast-shelf and shallow spots where the long rollers broke. The wind was fresh but blew obliquely off the coast.

"How much water?" Don Erminio asked, and when Miguel answered, signed to a man on the forecastle.

"Veremos. We will see," he said.

The lead plunged, the line ran aft, and stopping swung upright at the poop. Two men began to haul and one shouted the depth.

"Half a brazo too much. It is very good," the captain remarked.

Then the screw began to throb and Mossamedes, going half-speed, forged ahead. Sometimes she crossed green belts and sometimes went round patches where the water was yellow and the swell curled as if the Atlantic waves ran up an inclined bottom. Kit thought Miguel did not hesitate; his lined face was imperturbable, and he directed the helmsman with a firm movement of his hand. Yet it was obvious they crept round banks where a ship like Mossamedes would not float. When Miguel nodded and the captain rang his telegraph, all felt some relief.

"Fondo!" the captain shouted and the anchor leaped from the forecastle.

The splash was drowned by the roar of running cable that presently stopped with a jar. She brought up, swung to the wind, and there was a strange quietness on board.

"We are arrived," said Don Erminio. "If Miguel's saint does not guard him until the sheep come, I do not think we will get to sea again. In the meantime, we will catch fish and make baccalao for my señora."

In the morning they launched a boat and rowed to the coast. The point was low and stony, and farther along the hammered beach a shallow hollow ran down to the sand. In the background one saw a sandy waste dotted by thick-stalked euphorbia. One could land by jumping overboard into the surf while the others held off the boat, and Don Erminio shot a partridge and got some bait. Then they went back to the steamer, and for three days Kit and the captain fished.

Shoals surrounded the basin where Mossamedes rode two miles from land. From her deck it looked as if she were at sea, for the banks that sheltered her were only marked by lines of foam. Although she rolled, the motion was not violent, and Kit got a sense of space and freedom. He liked the lonely anchorage better than a noisy port. In the morning they hoisted the boat's lugsail, and following the edge of the sands, stopped where fish were numerous. A disturbed swell crossed the shoals, and spray blew about. Sometimes when the boat sank in the trough they could not see the ship, but the fresh breeze tempered the heat and drove along a thin haze that softened the light. Kit caught strange, deep-bodied fish with square heads, and was content.

One day, however, the breeze backed North and the boat could not leave the ship. It blew hard, and big, hollow-fronted seas rolled along the coast. In the distance, their ragged crests cut the sky, and the horizon was indented like the edge of a saw. In the foreground they crashed upon the shoals, and all about Mossamedes one saw spouting foam. Brown dust-clouds tossed behind the yellow streak that marked the coast, and the sky was darkened as if by smoke. Macallister was ready to start his engines, but the lead-line that crossed the steamer's rail ran straight down. Although she plunged, her anchor held.

Kit, sitting behind the deckhouse, smoked and mused. He saw that since he arrived at Las Palmas he had taken greedily all his new life offered; sports he could not enjoy before, the society of cultivated people, fresh excitements and emotional thrills. Now, however, a reaction had begun; he must pause and try to see where he was going.

To begin with, he thought he had not neglected his duties. It looked as if Don Ramon at the office approved him, and if they got the sheep on board, Wolf ought to be satisfied. Mossamedes carried a paying cargo, and Kit had kept the cost of shipment low. He was making good, and now he had been given some responsibility, found he could, without much effort, carry his load. In a sense, however, this was not important; he really meant to think about Olivia. Olivia had carried him away and after a half-hearted struggle he had let himself go. She had beauty, pluck, and a cultivation higher than his. Sometimes she was gracious, and when they jarred he thought she found the jars amusing. She laughed at him afterwards and he did not mind. He would sooner she laughed than let him alone. He could not think about her without a disturbing thrill.

Yet the thing was ridiculous! Olivia was rich and extravagant, but he was poor; and not like Austin, who had married her sister. But suppose he somehow made his mark? If Don Arturo, for example, gave him a good post? Kit lighted a fresh cigarette and frowned, for he began to see his doubts would not be banished then. After all, he was not Olivia's sort. He understood half-consciously that for him her charm was mainly physical, and he had tried to resist. He had an inherited distrust for all that appealed to his senses. With Olivia he would get excitement, shocks and thrills. He would live at high tension, and she would take him far; but his vein was sober, and perhaps he would not want to go. Yet he was flesh and blood, and her beauty called.

The others left him alone, and when a cloud of spray, sweeping over the deck-house, drove him aft, he looked for another quiet spot. The sea was getting worse, and spindrift blew across the turmoil like a fog. Mossamedes rolled until her scuppers dipped, and when she swung to the savage gusts the jar of her cable pierced the rumble of the sea. The water in her bilges splashed, and a ragged plume of smoke, blown flat from her funnel, indicated that Macallister kept keen watch. For all that, the anchor held, and Kit, sheltering behind the after wheel-house, thought about Betty.

Betty was his sort. She understood him, although he did not always understand her. She did not ask much and would not urge one far; Betty's plan was to brighten the spot she occupied. Kit had doubted its wisdom, but he began to see it had some advantages. Yet if Betty did not urge, now he thought about it, he had felt her gently lead and had known her way was better than his. He did not see all she saw, but sometimes he was dull. Betty was calm and kind and did not think about herself. She had, however, refused him, and he had let her go. All the same, he was glad he could help her, and if his mother had used some tact——

The swinging stern lifted, and the iron deck throbbed. The foam was torn in a frothy patch; Kit saw the screw spin, and the throbbing stopped. Macallister had turned his engines to satisfy himself they were ready to start. On the surface he was careless and irresponsible, but when the strain came one could trust old Mack.

On the whole, the break in his disturbing thoughts was a relief to Kit. His philosophy was rude, and he did not understand that he was moved by two antagonistic forces. One was altogether of the flesh; the other was not. He did, however, see that his business on board Mossamedes was with her cargo, and he began to speculate about the sheep. If the animals did not arrive soon, they ought not to stop. The anchorage was dangerous, and Mossamedes was the company's boat. He got up and went off to talk to Don Erminio.

In the night the wind veered to the north-east and got lighter, and soon after daybreak a streak of smoke blew along the beach. Juan, the mate, hove out a thirty-foot cargo launch, and Kit went down the rope with Miguel, the interpreter, and some sailors. A flock of sheep occupied the wady and five or six men, mounted on tall camels, moved the animals to the beach. The shepherds were big men, but their bodies and for the most part their dark faces, were covered by blue and white cloth. Kit's job, however, was to count the flock and see all were got on board. He let the interpreter talk and helped Miguel.

They dropped an anchor and the boat rode in the shallow surf a few yards from the beach. When a large roller ran in they hauled her off and waited; and then, letting her drift back, jumped over and picked up as many sheep as possible before another roller broke. The work was exhausting and sometimes men and sheep washed about in the surf. When they pulled off, the boat held much water and now and then the sea-tops splashed on board. Alongside Mossamedes, the sheep were thrown into a tub, swung out by a derrick when for a few moments she stopped rolling. The tub went up and came down empty, but after the most part of the flock was on board one plunged out through the gangway and the others followed. Don Erminio stormed, and Miguel with stolid patience steered the heavy launch in chase of the animals.

She went back and brought off a number of loads, but when the last was on board Kit's muscles were sore, and his burned skin smarted with salt. He had, however, got all the flock, and when he went below to bathe in fresh water the screw began to throb. Miguel climbed to the top of the pilot-house and Mossamedes steamed out slowly between the shoals.

CHAPTER III
KIT'S SURPRISE

Soon after his arrival at Las Palmas, Kit started for Jefferson's office. He had passed an hour with Wolf, who declared himself altogether satisfied about the voyage and gave Kit some compliments. Kit's mood was cheerful; his employer's frank praise was encouraging, and he felt he was making good. Besides, Wolf would not want him again until next day and, if he were lucky, he might find Olivia at home. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and as a rule Mrs. Austin's visitors did not arrive before the evening. On the voyage he had begun to see his haunting Mrs. Austin's veranda was rash, but as he got nearer Las Palmas his good resolutions melted.

Nevertheless he must first see Jefferson. When they steamed along the Morocco coast they met the Cayman. She hove to and signalled, the steamer's engines stopped, and a message was shouted through a megaphone. Since Kit was keen to get to Mrs. Austin's to carry the message was rather a bore, but he admitted that Jefferson ought to know what his captain wanted.

In Spanish towns a merchant's office generally occupies the ground floor of his house, and Kit liked Jefferson's. The narrow street was very hot, and the reflections from the white walls hurt his eyes. To enter the tunnel, guarded by a fine iron gate, and cross the shady patio was a relief. In the middle, a little fountain splashed, the walls were lemon-yellow and a splendid purple bougainvillea trailed about the pillars that carried a balcony. The dark spaces behind the posts looked like cloisters. In front big heliotrope bushes occupied green tubs.

As he crossed the patio Kit met Jefferson going to the gate.

"Hallo!" said Jefferson. "Got back all right? Sorry I can't stop. I've fixed it to meet a customer at the Metropole."

Kit told him about their meeting the Cayman and pulled out a folded paper. "I made a note——"

"Thanks! I must order the truck the captain wants," said Jefferson, who did not take the paper. "The port doctor allowed you had loaded up the boat and brought a good flock of sheep. What did you trade for them?"

"We landed no goods; I imagined the sheep would be paid for afterwards. Looks as if Wolf had an agreement with somebody in the interior."

"It's not usual. Nobody trusts us like that," Jefferson remarked in a thoughtful voice. "You carried an interpreter. Did you talk to the Berbers?"

"Not at all," said Kit. "You see——"

He stopped. Jefferson was his friend, but after all he was to some extent his employer's antagonist. The other noted his pause.

"Oh, well, I reckon Wolf knows his job, but I'd watch out for those fellows. They're a pretty hard crowd. Anyhow, I must get along. Do you mind giving my English clerk the note?"

He smiled as if something amused him, and went off, and Kit crossed the flags. At the arch that opened on Jefferson's office, he stopped abruptly and wondered whether his imagination had cheated him.

A few yards off Betty sat in front of a writing-table. Her head was bent; Kit saw her face in profile against the coloured wall and noted the clean, flowing line. After a moment or two she looked up and Kit's heart beat. His advance was impetuous, and when she gave him her hand he pulled himself up with an effort. When he last saw Betty in the shabby street at Liverpool, he had kissed her. It was strange and disturbing, but he had come near to kissing her again. Betty, however, was very calm and her hand was cool and steady.

"Why Kit! You looked startled!" she said.

"I'm very much surprised," he admitted. "You see, I thought you were at Liverpool."

"At Liverpool? Then you didn't think I'd gone for a holiday to the South Coast?"

Kit was embarrassed. It looked as if his mother had not used much tact, but Betty's smile was gentle.

"Sometimes you're rather nice, Kit, but all the same you ought to see I couldn't go."

"We won't talk about it," Kit replied. "When I came in you didn't look at all—surprised."

Betty gave him a calm glance, but he thought she had noted his hesitation. Surprised was not altogether what he had meant.

"I was not," she said. "I knew you were on board a ship that had just arrived. Then I heard you talking to Mr. Jefferson."

He pulled up a chair and studied her while she neatly folded some documents. Betty was thin, but if she had been ill, she was obviously getting better. A faint colour had come to her skin, and her eyes were bright. At Liverpool she had worn very plain, dark clothes, because they were economical; now her dress was white and she had pretty grey shoes. In fact, Betty was prettier than he had thought. Perhaps her escape from monotonous labour and the dark Liverpool office accounted for much, but she was not the tired girl he had known.

Kit looked about the room. There was not much furniture, and all was made of Canary pine that polishes a soft brown. The wall was yellow, and blue curtains hung across the arch; Kit knew they were needed to keep out the morning sun. A rug was on the floor, and it was like the curtains, the dull blue one saw in Morocco. Betty had fastened a spray of heliotrope in her white dress.

"Do you like my room?" she asked.

"It's just right. The strange thing is, I hadn't noticed this before; I don't think—Jefferson bothered about his office. Anyhow the room was his."

"Now it's mine. Mrs. Jefferson gave me the rug. I think it came from Africa. She said you were a friend of hers. Isn't she nice?"

"She is a very good sort," Kit agreed. "I'm glad you have got an office like this; the dark stuffy hole at Liverpool wasn't fit for you. I haven't asked if you're getting better, because I can see. Somehow you are another girl."

Betty said nothing, but rather thought Kit another man. He looked stronger and his skin was brown. Then something about his voice and carriage indicated quiet confidence. At Liverpool when Kit was resolute he was, so to speak, aggressive, as if he wanted others to remark his firmness. Now his glance was calm, his nervous jerkiness had gone. All the same, she thought he had not got fresh qualities but developed those he had. Betty knew Kit.

"But where do you live?" he resumed. "In a Spanish town it's awkward——"

"I live with Mrs. Jefferson. Before I came we agreed on this. She's very nice and takes me about; sometimes for a drive to the mountains and sometimes in the sailing boat. When I remember my other post, I feel as if I'd got out of prison."

Kit was satisfied. To know Betty was happy was much; she deserved the best. Then she gave him a thoughtful glance.

"It's strange you didn't know I was coming. Mr. Jefferson wrote to me a month since."

"Jefferson wrote?"

"Of course. He stated he wanted somebody to answer his English letters and undertake general office work, and he understood from you I might take the post."

"I certainly did not tell Jefferson anything like this," said Kit. "I gave Mrs. Austin my mother's letter, in which she said you were ill and must leave the office. But Mrs. Jefferson was with Mrs. Austin, and perhaps they talked about it afterwards."

"Then, giving me the post was Mrs. Austin's plan?" Betty remarked and Kit thought her voice was rather hard.

"I expect it was," he agreed. "Mrs. Austin does things like that. I imagine she persuaded Wolf to send me on board Mossamedes."

Betty studied him. She did not think he saw the light he had given her. Sometimes Kit was dull.

"Don't you like Mrs. Austin?" he asked.

"I like Mrs. Jefferson better," Betty replied. She stopped and noting that Kit was puzzled, resumed: "She is kind. So is Mr. Jefferson. When he comes into his office he throws away his cigar. He asks me—Won't I write a note for him and count up the bills. He doesn't think because I'm paid it doesn't matter how he talks. But why did you give Mrs. Austin your mother's letter?"

"Now I think about it, I don't altogether know. She's sympathetic and I was bothered because you were ill. I imagine she saw I was bothered."

"Were you bothered very much?"

"Of course," said Kit. "You were breaking down, and must stop at Liverpool in the rain and cold; I had the sea and sun. Sometimes I was savage because I couldn't help."

"Then you didn't think Mrs. Austin might persuade her husband to give me a post at Las Palmas?"

"I did not. I gave her the letter, that's all. Mrs. Austin likes helping people, and Austin and Jefferson wanted an English clerk. I expect this accounts for their engaging you."

Betty doubted. For one thing, she had met Olivia and two or three young men from the coaling wharfs, who had tried to amuse her by humorous gossip about the English people at Las Palmas. Then Mrs. Austin had sent Kit on board Wolf's steamer, which made longer voyages than the correillo, and had persuaded Jefferson to engage her for his clerk. Betty thought Mrs. Austin's object was plain, but wondered much what Kit had said to her. Since she could not find out, she began to talk about Liverpool, and Kit presently narrated his adventures on the African coast.

Nobody disturbed them and the shady room was cool. The smell of heliotrope floated in; one heard the fountain splash and the languid rumble of the surf. Betty leaned back in her revolving chair and Kit lighted a cigarette.

Jefferson was occupied for some time at the Metropole, but when he crossed the patio he slackened speed in front of the arch. He was a sober merchant, but it was not very long since he was a romantic sailor, and the picture that met his glance had some charm. His pretty clerk rested her cheek in her hollowed hand; her pose was unconsciously graceful, and she studied Kit with thoughtful eyes. Kit talked and his face wore a strangely satisfied smile; Jefferson imagined he did not know his cigarette had gone out. His thin figure was athletic, he looked keen and virile. Jefferson approved them both. They had not his wife's and Austin's cultivation, but they were honest, red-blooded people. In fact, they were good stuff.

For all that he was puzzled; he had not thought Musgrave a philanderer. Besides his office was not a drawing-room and he advanced rather noisily. Kit pulled out his watch and got up with a start, but Betty did not plunge into her proper occupation. Betty was generally marked by an attractive calm; then she knew her employer.

"I expect you gave Miss Jordan the note about the stores for Cayman?" Jefferson said to Kit.

Kit took out the paper. "Sorry, but I did not. I must get on board. Perhaps I ought to have gone before."

"You can go now. Come back for supper, if you like," Jefferson replied with a twinkle and put down some documents. "If you can give me a few minutes, Miss Jordan——"

When Betty got to work at her typewriter he went to Mrs. Jefferson's drawing-room.

"I have asked young Musgrave to supper and reckon he'll come," he said.

"Don't you know if he is coming?" Mrs. Jefferson rejoined.

"He didn't state his plans. I imagine he was rattled when I fired him out. It had probably dawned on him he'd been loafing about my office most part of the afternoon."

"You knew he was a friend of Miss Jordan's," Mrs. Jefferson remarked.

"I knew Jacinta Austin was pretty smart, but it begins to look as if she was smarter than I thought."

Mrs. Jefferson smiled. "Oh, well, you have got a good clerk and Kit has got a post he likes."

"But what about Olivia?"

"I don't think you need be disturbed about Olivia," said Mrs. Jefferson, dryly. "Anyhow, you mustn't meddle. Your touch is not light."

"That is so," Jefferson agreed. "Jacinta's touch is surely light; she can pull three or four wires at once, without your knowing how she's occupied. For all that, I've a notion she'll some time snarl the wires in a nasty tangle. Can't you give her a hint she's got to leave my clerk and Kit alone?"

"I doubt. The thing is puzzling. You see, Betty refused Kit," Mrs. Jefferson remarked in a thoughtful voice. "However, I think two of the leading actors in the comedy know what they want. The others do not."

"It rather looks as if three didn't know."

"I think my calculation's accurate. However, I see no useful part for us. Ours is to look on and smile when the play's amusing."

"If Jacinta hurts Miss Jordan, I won't smile," Jefferson rejoined. "I'm fond of the girl, because in a way she's like you."

"Sometimes you're very nice," said Mrs. Jefferson, and went off to talk to the Spanish cook in the kitchen that had, when Jefferson got the house, adjoined the stable.

CHAPTER IV
WOLF GIVES A FEAST

Kit returned for comida, which in Spanish countries is the second proper meal. At Jefferson's it was served about five o'clock, and when Kit arrived Mrs. Jefferson indicated a chair opposite Betty's at the table in a big cool room.

"Now we can begin," she said and Jefferson clapped his hands for the major-domo. In old Spanish houses there are no bells, and one uses customs the Moors brought long since from the East.

"If I'm late, I'm sorry," Kit replied. "I had to call at the Commandancia and they kept me longer than I thought."

"I expect the ayutante was getting his comida," Jefferson remarked. "Anyhow, you didn't hold up our meal. Miss Jordan hadn't finished some letters I wanted sent off by the Castle boat."

"That's some relief," Kit said to Mrs. Jefferson. "Although I hurried, I was afraid——"

"To wait for one's dinner is not much relief," Jefferson rejoined. "Then, since you know the Spanish rules, my notion is you ought to have got on a hustle earlier."

Mrs. Jefferson gave him a quiet glance and he began to move some plates. Betty did not look up, but Kit thought she was not at all embarrassed.

"I forgot about the ayutante's comida. In fact——" he said, and stopped. It was strange, but he had forgotten he had meant to go to Mrs. Austin's.

"Give me the hot plates," said Mrs. Jefferson, and when Jefferson did so one slipped and rattled.

"Perhaps it's lucky my touch is not light," he remarked. "If it had been lighter, I'd have broken some crockery."

Kit imagined there was a joke, but since the joke was not obvious he studied Betty. She now wore a thin black dress, made in the Spanish fashion with black lace at the short sleeves and neck. Her skin was very white and smooth and Kit thought she looked as if she had always worn a dinner dress.

The room was spacious. Mrs. Jefferson's china and silver were good. A bowl of splendid roses occupied the middle of the table, and although they had no smell, the little tierra roses, half hidden by the others, were seductively sweet. Decanters of red and yellow wine shone among coloured fruit, and in front of Betty a cluster of white Muscatel grapes glimmered against dark vine leaves.

One got a hint of taste and cultivation, and Kit remembered that for a time after his arrival he had felt raw and awkward at houses like his host's. At Liverpool Betty had worn rather shabby clothes, and often when he met her going home from the office her boots were wet and muddy. Now she looked as if she belonged to Mrs. Jefferson's circle. Kit did not know if this was strange or not; he began to think he had not really known Betty.

All the same, he was conscious of keen satisfaction. Betty had fronted poverty and smiled, but her smile was no longer forced. She had escaped, like Cinderella, from dreary servitude, and Kit was very glad, although he doubted if his analogy were good. Cinderella was splendidly conspicuous when she went to the ball, but Betty was not. Her charm was her gracious quietness; she did not stand out from her background, she harmonised with it. Kit thought her like the Muscatels that glimmered with pearly tints among the leaves.

"I guess you are thinking about Wolf's cargo," Jefferson remarked.

"Not at all," said Kit. "I was thinking about Liverpool. And Muscatel grapes."

He imagined Betty's glance rested on him for a moment and was gone, but Jefferson looked amused.

"Don't you get things mixed? When we towed out on board the old Orinoco in the sooty fog, Liverpool wasn't much like a vineyard. However, I allow the Muscatel's a pretty good fruit. Doesn't catch your eye like the red grapes, but when you put the colorado in the press the wine has a bite and some is mighty sour. The white wine's sweet and fragrant. All the same, you don't get the proper bouquet until the grapes are in the press. What d'you think about my philosophy, Miss Jordan?"

"Sometimes the press hurts," Betty remarked quietly.

"It hurts all the time," said Jefferson and his thin face got grave. "You know this when you have felt the screws. Well, I guess it's done with, but when I hear them sing their Latin psalm In exitu, I understand. Some of us have been in Egypt——"

"Now you are mixing things! You were not in Egypt," Mrs. Jefferson rejoined, and Kit thought she meant to banish her husband's sombre mood.

"Anyhow, Egypt's in Africa and considerably cooler than the swamp where the Cumbria lay. Then I reckon Harry Austin and I made some bricks without much straw."

"Jacinta helped. She has helped a number of people."

"Mrs. Austin has helped me," Kit agreed and looked at Betty. It was strange, but he imagined she did not own her debt to Mrs. Austin.

Soon afterwards it got dark and they went to the flat roof. There was no moon, but the stars were bright and the sky was clear. The soft land-breeze had begun to blow and stirred the mist that rolled down the dark rocks behind the town. Lights twinkled along the sweep of bay and two that swung across a lower group marked Mossamedes rolling at the harbour mouth. Footsteps and broken talk echoed along the narrow street; one heard guitars and somebody began to sing the Africana.

Kit was strangely content. Betty was getting strong again, and he thought her happy; he, himself, had a post he liked, and all went well. His ambitions were not important; he was not moved, as he was moved at Mrs. Austin's, to efforts that would force people to own his talents. In fact, he recovered something of the tranquillity that had marked the afternoons when Betty and he gathered primroses in the woods.

Jefferson talked about the strain and suffering on board the sailing ships. He pictured a battered wooden vessel, stripped to her topsails and staysails and kept afloat by the windmill pump, beating round Cape Horn while her exhausted crew got mutinous, and food got short. The story harmonised with the languid rumble of the surf, for Jefferson's voice was quiet, as if he talked about things that were done with. Man had come out of bondage and steam was his deliverer.

Kit did not want to talk; he was satisfied to be near Betty and Mrs. Jefferson. It was plain that they were friends, and he thought them alike. Neither urged her rules on one, but one felt the rules were good. One could do nothing shabby when one had been with them.

In the morning, Kit went to Wolf's office with some documents. Perhaps it was the contrast between his employer and his recent hosts, but somehow Wolf jarred. Kit began to feel vague doubts about the fellow. Nevertheless, he admitted that Wolf's approval was flattering, and they planned a dinner to be given on board Mossamedes.

The dinner was not like the captain's feast. It was served with much ceremony, and the guests were important people, for the most part Spanish merchants and government officers. All the chairs at the long tables in the saloon were occupied, and Don Erminio, sitting at the end of one, did not look comfortable. The captain liked old English clothes, but now wore his tight, blue correo uniform. Moreover, since Don Ramon, the company's manager, was not far off, and his neighbors were Commandancia officials, he could not talk about animals and anarchists.

Kit's chair was next to Jefferson's and opposite Austin's, and he was satisfied to look on. He was rather interested by the captain of a French gunboat that had recently anchored behind the mole. Captain Revillon did not talk, but he looked about thoughtfully, and Kit imagined he knew Castilian.

The giver of the loyal toast was a high official, who said the Spanish crown stood for justice and steady progress. One lost much by rash experiments, and to modify cautiously old traditions was a better plan. A country's prosperity was built upon the efforts of all its citizens, and men must know the reward of their labour was theirs. Just laws were needed and the loyal Canarios knew the Spanish laws were good. But this was not all. Effort must be made for cultivation and commerce. Although the islanders were industrious, much of the soil was barren and sometimes food was short. Spain owned a belt of Africa with fertile oases where corn was grown and flocks were fed. The country was richer than people thought; it must be developed and extended until it made up for the territories Spain had lost. This was why he wished the new venture, launched under the Spanish flag, good luck.

There was a shout and a rattle of glasses, but Kit thought the little French captain pondered.

"Since France claims the back country, I expect Revillon wonders how they're going to extend the Rio de Oro," Jefferson remarked.

Don Ramon, urbane and smiling, got up. The islanders must live by trade, he said. They were a virile race of sailors and small farmers, but since modern ships and machines cost much, they could not refuse foreign help. With English help they had made much progress and might go farther. They had built up Cuba and now Cuba was gone they must build up their African colony. The Mossamedes, flying the Spanish flag, was opening a new, rich field. Don Ramon was proud he had some part in sending her out.

"He has struck the same note," Austin observed. "In a way it's the note one would strike, but somehow I imagine Wolf has used the tuning fork. When you make a speech to order, you rather like a hint about the line you ought to take. However, the fellow is going to talk."

Kit afterwards thought Wolf's speech clever. To begin with, he indicated the richness of the Rio de Oro belt and its hinterland. His venture was small, but when he had opened the way, Spanish effort would make the African oases another Cuba. He paused and turned to the high official, who smiled as if he agreed. Then Wolf hinted at a community of interest and talked as if his gains would be his guests'. Kit felt that a stranger might imagine the merchants were shareholders and the others had given the undertaking official patronage.

"Looks as if we were all in it," Jefferson commented. "On the whole, I'm satisfied our house is not. I'd rather like to know what Revillon thinks."

"Revillon's thoughts are not very obvious. Since he has stopped at Las Palmas before, I expect he knows our friends are patriotic sentimentalists," Austin replied.

Soon afterwards Kit went on deck. Wolf did not want him and the saloon was hot. Leaning against the rails, he looked across the harbour, and his glance rested on the French gunboat. She was a small, two-masted vessel, of a type that was getting out of date but was used by French and British for police duty on the African coast. Sometimes she touched at Las Palmas for coal, and Kit understood she cruised from Morocco to Senegal. She was not fast, and he thought her rather deep for use in shallow water. When he was on board the correillo he had seen her hauled up on the beach after grounding. Hearing a step he turned and saw Wolf.

"I came up for a few minutes to get away from Revillon; the fellow's rather curious about your voyage," said Wolf. "Besides, I want to talk to you. Let's go into the captain's room."

The captain's room was on the boat-deck below the bridge. One reached it by a ladder, and nobody was about. Wolf turned on the electric light and gave Kit a cigarette.

"I haven't told you much about your cargo for this run, but I had some grounds for not doing so."

"The cargo's ready to put on board," said Kit.

"Not all," Wolf replied meaningly. "Yusuf, my agent in Morocco, will supply or tell you where to get the rest. You will carry out his orders, unless, of course, you resolve to turn down the job."

"Then, we are to carry goods the Spaniards would not allow us to land?"

Wolf smiled. "Now you, perhaps, see why I gave the feast. My guests, so to speak, have given my venture the government's sanction. In Spain it pays to have official friends, and a tactful present carries weight. The officers are not as fastidious as yours——"

He stopped and Kit wondered whether he had said yours unconsciously. Kit had thought Wolf claimed to be English, but there was a hint of a sneer in his voice.

"What are we to carry?" he asked.

"Cartridges! If you don't like the job, I think I can get another man."

Kit imagined all traffic with native Africans in breach-loading guns and ammunition was forbidden. Moreover, it was obvious the Spanish government would not approve Wolf's supplying the Berber tribes with cartridges. This, however, was the government's business, and Kit was young. Romantic smuggling had some charm; but he hesitated.

"Why do the Berbers want the cartridges?" he asked.

Wolf shrugged. "I don't know their plans. They're a turbulent, independent lot, and sometimes quarrel with their neighbours who are supposed to belong to France. I expect they have a dispute with another tribe in the back country about an oasis, or perhaps the control of a caravan road. Anyhow, I'm sending a small quantity of ammunition, because I want to keep a good customer. Well, I won't persuade you. Are you going?"

"I'll risk it," said Kit, rather doubtfully. "Does the captain know?"

"Of course," said Wolf, smiling. "Don Erminio's not scrupulous and sees a chance of earning something besides his pay. All the same, he understands that while he is navigator you are my representative. But I mustn't leave the others long."

He went off and Kit smoked a fresh cigarette. The adventure had some charm, but he was not altogether satisfied. He had, however, agreed to go, and presently he banished his doubts.

CHAPTER V
WOLF'S OFFER

Jefferson sat in the shade of the bougainvillea and pondered some letters. Austin lounged in a basket-chair opposite and read the Diario. They had combined their business as far as possible, but Pancho Brown would not agree to a formal amalgamation. All was quiet. One heard the fountain splash and Betty's typewriter rattle. Sometimes a voice came from the room where Jefferson's Spanish clerks were occupied, but this was all.

Presently Austin put down the newspaper.

"The tomato crop was light and the vines are doing badly. It's ominous that the Palma import houses are cutting down their orders."

"Martinez allowed he wanted to get out of the deal in chemical fertilisers. Trade is looking sick," Jefferson agreed.

"When I joined Pancho Brown I used to study the accounts and congratulate myself when I saw our credits going up," Austin remarked with a smile. "To feel I could write a cheque for a good sum was something very new. Now I'm bothered because we have money at the bank. I don't see how it's going to be usefully employed."

"You want to keep money moving. Well, I met Wolf a day or two since, and he hinted he knew about a deal. I wasn't keen, but he said he might come around and see us. I rather expect him."

"You don't trust the fellow?"

"Sure thing! Reckon it's instinctive. I like straightforward folks. Wolf's a mystery man."

Austin looked up and laughed. "He's coming."

Wolf crossed the flags, and when he stopped by the bougainvillea his face was red. He was fat and his thin, black alpaca jacket looked very tight.

"Sun's fierce. Will you take a drink?" said Jefferson, and clapping his hands for a servant, ordered Cerveza.

As a rule, in hot countries, cautious white men do not drink much beer, but Wolf drained his glass of pale yellow liquor with obvious satisfaction.

"The Glasgow stuff is good," he said. "In fact, for British lager, it's very nearly right."

"Where d'you reckon to get it exactly right? Chicago or Munich?" Jefferson inquired.

Wolf laughed. "It's good at both cities. At Munich there's a garten. But I'm not going to bore you by talking about lager."

Betty's typewriter stopped. The light in the patio was strong and to sit in her dark office and study the group outside was like watching a play on an illuminated stage. The curtains at the arch narrowed her view, and the figures of the actors, sharply distinct, occupied the opening. Betty's sense of the dramatic was keen, and she had remarked that Wolf sat down where a beam shone over his shoulder. Then when Jefferson talked about Chicago and Munich she thought he tried to study Wolf's face, but could not. Wolf had hesitated for a moment before he admitted that he knew the cities. Betty rested her face in her hand and resolved to watch. For one thing, Wolf was Kit's employer.

"Trade is slack," Wolf resumed. "The Spanish merchants see they can't ship much produce and are cutting their orders. I don't know if you feel the slump, but my African speculation promises well. The trouble is, I can't finance it properly, and if you would like to come in——"

"Pancho Brown is old-fashioned and not keen about new undertakings," Austin replied cautiously. "Do you expect to get larger lots of sheep?"

"It's possible, but I thought about buying camels. I reckon I can get them for a low price, paid in trade goods, and I expect you know what they are worth just now."

Austin pondered. The single-humped camel is used in the Canaries, particularly in the dry Eastern islands, and the animals cost much. All the same, Austin knew his partner doubted.

"Where do your customers get the camels?" Jefferson asked.

"I frankly don't know. The Berbers are not the people to give you their confidence. It's possible they steal the camels. Anyhow, they state they can get them."

"Well, if you are short of money, we might perhaps supply the goods you want and take the camels at a price agreed."

"I can get credit for the trade-goods and sell the camels to Spanish buyers as soon as they arrive. In fact, I see no particular advantage in your plan."

"Then, what is your proposition?"

"Something like this: I want you to join me in the speculation and take your share of the profit and the risk. There is some risk. The business is going to be bigger than I thought, and my capital is not large. I want partners who will help me seize all the chances that come along and will back me if I get up against an obstacle."

Austin lighted a cigarette and Betty imagined he weighed the plan, but Jefferson did not. Wolf drank some beer and when he put down his glass Betty thought the glance he gave the others was keen. He looked cunning, and she thought if she were Austin she would let his offer go. After a few moments Jefferson looked up.

"Harry and I will talk about it and send you a note. Will you take another drink?"

Wolf drained his glass and went off. When he had gone Jefferson turned to Austin and smiled.

"I reckon nothing's doing!"

"Then why did you promise to talk about it?"

"I am talking about it," Jefferson rejoined. "I didn't want Wolf to imagine I'd resolved to turn down his proposition."

"After all, I don't think he meant to cheat us."

"Not in a sense. He knows you're not a fool and Don Pancho's very keen."

"Then what does he want?" Austin asked.

"I don't know; I'm curious. Anyhow, he doesn't want me, although if you and Don Pancho joined, he reckoned I'd come in. I'm not a British merchant; I'm an American."

"But what has this to do with it?"

"I allow I don't altogether see. Anyhow, Wolf's a German." Austin looked puzzled and Jefferson smiled. "You don't get me yet? The fellow has cultivated out his accent and claims he's English. That's important, because he got his English in the United States and doesn't claim he's American. When I talked about Chicago and Munich I made an experiment."

"He admitted he knew the cities."

"That is so. He saw I was on his track and he mustn't bluff. If I'd met Wolf in the United States, I mightn't have been prejudiced, but I met him at Grand Canary, starting a trade with Spanish Africa. I reckon the Spaniards are sore about Morocco. At the grab-game, France and Britain scooped the pool; Germany and Spain got stung. Anyhow, I've no use for taking a part in world politics, and when Musgrave has gone a voyage or two in Mossamedes I'll try to get him off the ship."

"I wonder whether you know Jacinta sent him on board?"

Jefferson smiled. "Does Jacinta trust Wolf? Talk to her about the deal, and if she approves I'll come in."

"Very well," said Austin, and they started for the town.

When Jefferson returned to his office a clerk brought in a note. "From Don Enrique, sir."

Jefferson opened the envelope and laughed, for the note ran: "Nothing doing in camels. Jacinta does not approve."

"Sometimes a woman's judgment is sound, Miss Jordan," he remarked. "Mrs. Austin doesn't know all I know, but she gets where I get, and I think she got there first."

"It is strange," Betty said quietly.

"One doesn't know when you're amused and when you're not," Jefferson rejoined. "However, I want you to send Wolf a note."