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FOR JACINTA
[Illustration: "DON'T YOU KNOW THAT IT IS RATHER A SERIOUS THING TO
DELAY A SPANISH MAIL-BOAT?"--Page 19]
FOR JACINTA
By HAROLD BINDLOSS
AUTHOR OF "ALTON OF SOMASCO," "THE CATTLE-BARON'S DAUGHTER,"
"THE DUST OF CONFLICT," "WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE," ETC.
[Illustration]
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
NEW YORK PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1907
BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
All rights reserved
Published January, 1908
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. JACINTA BROWN 1
II. AN OVERHEATED JOURNAL 13
III. ON THE VERANDA 26
IV. A BIG CONTRACT 37
V. THE TOMATO FINCA 49
VI. AUSTIN'S POINT OF VIEW 60
VII. AT THE BULL FIGHT 72
VIII. JEFFERSON FEELS THE STRAIN 86
IX. AUSTIN MAKES A VENTURE 98
X. JACINTA IS NOT CONTENT 111
XI. THE LAND OF THE SHADOW 121
XII. NOCTURNAL VISITORS 132
XIII. TOIL 142
XIV. JEFFERSON'S REMONSTRANCE 152
XV. STARTING THE PUMP 163
XVI. ELUSIVE GUM 174
XVII. AUSTIN GOES DOWN RIVER 183
XVIII. JACINTA BECOMES INDIGNANT 194
XIX. CONDEMNED UNHEARD 204
XX. JACINTA MAKES NO EXCUSE 215
XXI. THE PICTURES 225
XXII. FUNNEL-PAINT'S PROPOSITION 236
XXIII. FUNNEL-PAINT MOVES AGAIN 245
XXIV. AUSTIN FINDS A CLUE 256
XXV. HOVE OFF 267
XXVI. JEFFERSON FINDS THE GUM 277
XXVII. AUSTIN'S TOAST 288
XXVIII. IN COMMAND 299
XXIX. AUSTIN IS MISSING 310
XXX. JACINTA CAPITULATES 322
FOR JACINTA
CHAPTER I
JACINTA BROWN
It was about seven o'clock in the evening when sobrecargo Austin boarded
the little mail-boat _Estremedura_ as she lay rolling at anchor on the
long, moon-lit heave that worked into the roadstead of Santa Cruz,
Palma. Sobrecargo means much the same thing as purser, and Austin was an
Englishman, though the _Estremedura_ was to all intents and purposes a
Spanish steamer. She traded round the islands of the Canary archipelago
with mules and camels, tomatoes, bananas, onions, and seasick English
tourists, as fortune favoured her. Now, as the heavily sealed document
Austin carried in his pocket declared, she was to sail for Las Palmas,
Grand Canary, with the Cuban mail, by the gracious permission of the
young King of Spain.
He had trouble on getting on board of her, for there were a good many
bullocks swimming about her side waiting until the red-capped crew
should heave them on board beneath the derrick-boom by means of a rope
twisted round their horns. It probably hurt the bullocks, and now and
then one succumbed to a broken neck during the operation; but the
Castilian, who can face his losses placidly, is not, as a rule,
particularly merciful to his beast. There were also stray sheep, goats,
and donkeys, as well as olive-faced peasants with blankets strapped
about their shoulders, wandering about the after portion of the main
deck, which was supposed to be reserved for the second-class passengers,
when Austin stopped a moment by the covered hatch. A big electric light
hung from the spar-deck beams above his head, and he looked about him
with a little ironical smile.
He was a young man of average stature, and there was nothing especially
distinguished in his appearance, though he had good grey eyes, and a
pleasant bronzed face. He was somewhat lightly made, though he looked
wiry, and held himself well, and there was a certain languidness in his
smile which seemed to suggest that he was not addicted to troubling
greatly about anything. Because the Scotchman who ran the
_Estremedura_'s engines had sold his white uniform jacket with the
resplendent buttons a day or two before, he was just then attired
somewhat incongruously in a white cap with the very large and imposing
badge of the Spanish mail service clasped into the front of it, a brown
alpaca jacket, white duck trousers, and pipe-clayed shoes. The latter
two items were, however, by no means immaculate, since he had, as a
special favour to the mate, brought off certain sheep and goats in his
despatch-boat, as well as a camel tied astern of it. Spaniards and
Englishmen do not invariably agree, but they lived like brothers on
board the _Estremedura_, which, however, had its disadvantages. Austin
objected in particular to the community of property.
That evening the steamer hummed with life, and the clatter of polyglot
tongues. Parsee dealers in silver-thread embroideries, German commercial
travellers, Madeiran Portuguese, Canario hillmen, and Peninsular
Spaniards, moved amidst the straying livestock, while a little group of
Anglo-Saxons naturally sat apart upon the hatch. There were, as is
usual when Englishmen foregather in a country where wine is cheap, empty
bottles scattered about. The engineer from the sister ship and an
athletic tourist, stripped, at least as far as was permissible, were
wrestling in Cumberland fashion on the hatch, with much delicate
manA"uvring of their feet and futile clutches at each other's waists.
Macallister, who, when he felt inclined, superintended the
_Estremedura_'s machinery, alternately encouraged them sardonically and
solaced himself with one of the bottles. He was a big, gaunt man, and
just then extremely dirty, and when he saw Austin he looked up with a
mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"I have been waiting for ye anxiously," he said. "Ye may now have the
pleasure of lending me five dollars."
"I'm afraid not!" said Austin decisively. "For one thing, I haven't got
them. I very seldom have--as you ought to know."
Macallister made a little gesture of resignation. "Well," he said, "ye
have always your clothes, and if ye had known us better ye would not
have brought so many of them on board the _Estremedura_. I'm half
expecting yon Jackson o' Las Palmas, who gave us two dollars for the
last white suit, to come round for some more o' them when we get in."
Austin tried the door of his room close by, and was consoled to find it
locked, as he had left it.
"They cost me five, and I naturally never saw a peseta of the money. I
suppose you kept the Correo buttons?"
"I did not," said Macallister, unabashed. "Ye may observe Miguel, the
quartermaster, walking round in them. It was no a bad bargain--a basket
o' big grapes an' a watermelon."
Austin bore it patiently. There was, in fact, nothing to be gained by
protesting, and he knew that it was useless to expostulate with
Macallister when he spoke his own tongue, which was not an invariable
custom with him. Then the engineer turned and glanced at the wrestlers,
who were still stamping up and down the hatch with feet spread well
apart, compassionately.
"They've been at it the whole o' a half hour, an' no a fall to cheer a
body yet. One would think it was dancing they were," he said. "It wasn't
to see that I wasted a tumblerful o' anisow on them."
Now, anisado is a preparation of spirit and extract of anise seed, which
is esteemed in that country, and Austin looked hard at his comrade,
because he had a jar of it, intended for a Spanish friend, in his room.
He was a trifle uneasy, since a lock is not an insuperable obstacle to
an engineer. The latter, however, changed the subject.
"It's a kind o' pity about your clothes," he said. "Miss Jacinta Brown
is going across with us to-night, an' she was enquiring kindly after
ye."
Austin had a good deal of composure, and he often needed it, but the
shrewd Scottish eyes saw the momentary pleasure in his face. Then,
because he did not appreciate Macallister's badinage on that subject, he
went into his room and bolted the door behind him before he switched on
the light and examined the anisado jar. It seemed quite full when he
shook it, and the seal was intact, but on looking closer he saw that the
impression on the latter was not what it had been when he left it. He
was aware that a certain proportion of sea-water may be added to rum
without the average consumer noticing any great difference, but he had
suspicions that a blend of brine and anise was not likely to be
appreciated by its recipient, and he was for a moment or two consumed
with righteous indignation. This, however, passed, for he realised that
his expostulations would be heard with laughter. It was all a part of
the happy-go-lucky life he led, and nobody concerns himself unduly about
anything under the flag of Spain. The Castilian, as a rule, bears his
troubles patiently, which is, perhaps, just as well, since he rarely
sees them coming or makes any attempt to get out of the way of them.
Austin accordingly busied himself with his papers, and it was an hour
later when he went on deck. The _Estremedura_ had gone to sea by then,
and the lights of the little Spanish town blinked above the broad fringe
of surf astern. High above her the great black cordillera cut hard and
sharp against the luminous blueness of the night, and the long heave of
the Atlantic flashed, white-topped, beneath the moon ahead. She swung
over it with slanted spars and swaying funnel, while the keen
trade-breeze sang in her rigging, and now and then a flying-fish
ricocheted, gleaming, from sea-top to sea-top beneath her side. She was
very well kept above decks, a trim, yacht-like vessel, and for a while
Austin leaned over her quarter-rails, smoking a cigarette, and wondering
when Miss Jacinta Brown would come up on deck. There was a very deaf
Englishman, who insisted on conversing with him in stentorian tones in
the saloon, and he had no desire for his company. In the meanwhile, it
was pleasant to lounge there and watch the moonlight gleam upon the
tumbling seas.
There were, he admitted, a good many compensations in the life he led.
The warmth and colour of the South appealed to him, and, though they are
not particularly numerous, there are men like him who retain a somewhat
chastened affection for the sea they earn their bread upon. It is true
that he earned very little more than that on board the _Estremedura_,
and he had once had his aspirations like other men, as well as a
prospect of realising them; but when financial disaster overtook the
family firm nobody seemed anxious to secure the services of a young man
without specialised training, who had artistic and somewhat expensive
tastes, which was, perhaps, not altogether astonishing. That was how
Austin eventually came on board the _Estremedura_, and stayed there,
though there were odd hours when he took himself to task for doing so.
Still, he did not exactly know where he could go if he left her, and the
indifference of the Latins was already infecting him. Men in Spain
believe that the future is quite able to take care of itself.
By and by, however, a slim, white-clad figure appeared in the entrance
to the saloon companion, and he moved in that direction with evident
alacrity. As one result of being the _Estremedura_'s sobrecargo, he was
acquainted with everybody of importance in the archipelago, and among
them all there was nobody who figured more prominently than Miss Jacinta
Brown. She was English on both sides, though she had lived in those
islands most of her twenty-five years, and understood the Spaniards,
probably better than they understood themselves, for they are rather an
impulsive than an introspective people. She also understood her
countrymen, and ruled over them, as well as Spanish artillery officers
and Commandantes. It was not very evident how she did it, for there were
a good many Spanish women, at least, almost as pretty, and of much
better birth than she, and she apparently received no great assistance
from her father, for Pancho Brown was a merchant of an unusually solid
and unimaginative description. The wives of the English visitors,
however, did not, as a rule, like Jacinta. They said she was forward,
and it was a pity she had no mother; but when any of them received an
invitation from her it was immediately proclaimed all over the hotel.
She smiled at Austin graciously, and allowed him to place her a deck
chair beneath a big lifeboat, where it was out of the wind, after which
he procured himself another, and sat down and looked at her. Jacinta did
not seem to mind it, and most men would probably have found it difficult
to keep their eyes off her. She was little, shapely, and very dainty,
though she could, as Austin knew, on occasion be essentially dignified.
She had brown hair and eyes, with a little scintillating gleam in them,
and her face was slightly tinted with the warm Andalusian olive, though
there was only English blood in her. She was dressed in white, as usual,
with a simplicity that suggested perfect taste, while, as he watched
her, Austin wondered again exactly where her compelling attractiveness
lay. He had met women with more delicate complexions, finer features,
softer voices, and more imposing carriage; that is, women who possessed
one or two of these advantages, but he had not as yet met any one to be
compared to Jacinta, as he expressed it, in the aggregate. Then it
seemed that she read his thoughts, which was, as he had noticed, a habit
of hers.
"Yes, the dress is a new one. I am rather pleased with it, too," she
said.
Austin laughed. "If I hadn't had the pleasure of making your
acquaintance some time ago, you would have astonished me. As it is----"
"Never mind," said Jacinta. "After all, there is no great credit in
telling people of your kind what they are thinking, though I can't help
it now and then. You were wondering what anybody saw in me."
Now Austin was too wise to fancy for a moment that Jacinta was fishing
for compliments. She knew her own value too well to appreciate them
unless they were particularly artistic, and he surmised that she had
merely desired to amuse herself by his embarrassment.
"If I was, it was very unwise of me," he said. "You are Jacinta--and one
has to be content with that. You can't be analysed."
"And you?"
"I am the _Estremedura_'s sobrecargo, which is, perhaps, a significant
admission."
Jacinta nodded comprehension. "I think it is," she said. "Still, since
you considered yourself warranted in approving of my dress, what are you
doing in that jacket on a mail run?"
"As usual, there is a reason. When I was across at Arucas my comrades
laid hands upon my garments, and disposed of them at a bargain. They had
naturally squandered the money by the time I came back. I am now longing
for a few words with the man who, I understand, is coming down to
purchase some more at an equally alarming sacrifice."
Jacinta laughed, but she also looked at him with a little gleam in her
eyes. "Don't you think it's rather a pity you--are--the _Estremedura_'s
sobrecargo?"
"Well," said Austin, reflectively, "I won't pretend to misunderstand
you, but the trouble is that I don't quite see what else I could be. I
cannot dig, and I'm not sure that it would be very pleasant to go round
borrowing odd dollars from my friends, even if they were disposed to
lend them to me, which is scarcely probable. Most of them would,
naturally, tell me to look at them, and see what I might have been if
I'd had their diligence and probity. Besides, I have time to paint
little pictures which rash tourists buy occasionally, and the life one
leads here has its compensations."
The _Estremedura_'s whistle hooted just then, and as Jacinta looked
round a lordly four-masted ship, carrying everything to her royals,
swept up out of the night. She was driving down the trade-breeze a good
twelve knots an hour, and the foam flew up in cascades as her bows went
down, swirled in a broad, snowy smother along the slender streak of
rushing hull. Above it four tapered spires of sailcloth swung back
against the moonlight at every stately roll, and she showed as an
exquisite cameo cut in ebony on a ground of silver and blue. Still, it
was not the colour that formed the strength of that picture, but the
suggestion of effort and irresistible force that was stamped on it. She
drove by majestically, showing a breadth of wet plates that flashed in a
leeward roll, and Jacinta's eyes rested on the bent figure high on the
lifted poop grappling with her wheel.
"Ah!" she said. "I suppose it's sometimes brutal, but that is man's
work, isn't it?"
Austin laughed again, though there was a faint warmth in his cheek. "Of
course, I see the inference," he said. "Still, it really isn't necessary
for everybody to hold a big vessel's wheel, and I would a good deal
sooner you said something nice to me. Nobody likes to be told the truth
about themselves, you know, and I understand now why folks threw big
stones at the goat-skinned prophets long ago."
"Well," said Jacinta, "we will talk of somebody else. I wonder if you
know that Jefferson has been left a fortune, or, at least, part of one?"
"I didn't. Still, I'm glad to hear it. I like the man. In fact, he's the
straightest one I've come across in his occupation, which, by the way,
is, perhaps, somewhat of an admission, considering that he's an
American."
"I like most Americans. For one thing, they're usually in earnest."
"And you like Spaniards, who certainly aren't."
"We will waive the question. It's rather a coincidence that Jefferson
should have fallen in love about the same time."
"Do I know the lady, who is, presumably, in earnest, too? I don't like
women who have a purpose openly, though that does not apply to you. You
have usually a good many, but nobody knows anything about them until you
have accomplished them."
Jacinta ignored the compliment. "I don't think you know her, but she is
a friend of mine. I went to school with her for two years in England."
"Then, of course, she's nice."
"That," said Jacinta, "is naturally a matter of opinion. She is,
however, not in the least like me."
"In that case it's difficult to see how she can be nice at all."
Jacinta smiled somewhat sardonically. "Well," she said, "Muriel is
bigger than I am, and more solid--in every way--as well as quiet and
precise. Being the daughter of the clergyman of a forlorn little place
in England, she has, of course, had advantages which have been denied to
me. There are people who have to undertake their own training, or do
without any, you know. She very seldom says anything she does not mean,
and always knows exactly what she is going to do."
"I'm not sure that sounds particularly attractive."
Jacinta lifted her head and looked at him. "Still, she is worth--oh,
ever so much more--than a good many such frivolous people as you or I.
You will see her yourself to-morrow. She is coming across with us to Las
Palmas, and, of course, if you would like to please me----"
"That goes without saying. To-morrow we will endeavour to turn this ship
upside down. It usually has to be done when we have the honour of
carrying a lady from any part of provincial England."
"I really don't want very much," and Jacinta smiled, at him. "Just the
big forward room for her, and the seat next me at the top of your table.
The nicest things have a way of getting there. Then she is fond of
fruit--and if you could get any of the very big Moscatel, and some of
that membrillo jelly. A few bunches of roses would look nice at our end
of the table, too."
"Well," said Austin, with a little whimsical gesture of resignation,
"there is, as you know, a Spanish Commandante and his wife in that
forward room, but I suppose we shall have to turn them out. The other
things will naturally follow, but I'm afraid Major-domo Antonio will
call us dreadful names to-morrow."
Jacinta rose. "You are as nice as I expected you would be," she said.
"Now it is getting chilly, and I have a letter to write."
She smiled at him and went forward, walking, though she was English,
with a curious buoyant gracefulness as Spanish women do, while Austin
sat still and considered the position. He was quite aware that he would
have trouble with the Spanish Commandante as well as his Major-domo on
the morrow, but that was, after all, of no great importance. When
Jacinta wanted anything she usually obtained it, and it was not a little
to be counted among her friends, since she frequently contrived to do a
good deal for them. There were men as well as women in those islands who
owed more than they were aware of to Jacinta Brown.
Austin sighed as he remembered it, for he was a penniless sobrecargo,
and she, in those islands, at least, a lady of station. It must be
sufficient for him to do what little he could to please her, and he had,
in fact, once or twice done a good deal. He took life easily, but there
was in him a vein of chivalry, which for the most part, however, found
somewhat whimsical expression. Then he recollected that he had still
certain documents to attend to, and going down again locked himself into
his room.