For Jacinta

For no very apparent reason a little flush of colour crept into Jacinta's face, and Macallister, who saw it, chuckled as he took out another sketch.

"Well," he said, reflectively, "I never met a man who could do nothing more gracefully than Mr. Austin, but I'll let ye see the rest of them, since they're in my charge to sell. Mr. Austin, who wants the money, took a sudden notion he'd go to Africa, and, if they've had a quick run, he's now humping palm oil puncheons in a stranded steamer's hold. I'm thinking it will be a big change for him."

The naval officer laughed softly. "From what I know of the tropics I fancy you are right. In fact, it's rather difficult to imagine the man I met at the bull fight doing that kind of thing at all. Salvage work is necessarily hard under any circumstances, and anywhere, but the last place I would care to attempt it in is Western Africa. What sent – him – there?"

"Ye must not ask me," and a little twinkle, for which Jacinta longed to shake him, crept into Macallister's eyes. "Now, there are clever folks who will look at a man, or maybe talk to him awhile, and then label him, thinking they know just what to expect of him. It does him no great harm, and it pleases them, until one day he does something that astonishes them in spite of his label. Then they're apt to get angry with him. A man, ye see, is, after all, not that unlike an engine. Ye cannot tell what may be going on in the inside of him, and when the result's distressing it's most often the fault of injudicious handling."

Jacinta, to whom he apparently directed his observations, contrived to regard him with a little smile, and he proceeded to extricate another sketch, a canvas this time.

"This one is different," he said.

Coulston, who apparently concurred with him, gazed at the picture with a trace of astonishment. It showed a big cargo lancha lurching out, deep-loaded, through a fringe of tumbling surf with four men straining at the ponderous oars. The wet rags they wore clung about their limbs, and there was weariness in their grim, brown faces. Bent backs and set lips had their significance, and the sketch was stamped with the suggestion of endurance and endeavour. Yet, as those who saw it felt, there was triumph in it, too, for while the rollers came seething in to hurl her back the lancha was clawing off the shore.

"It's good!" said the navy man. "It's unusually good. Those fellows are played out, and they know if they slacken down for a moment she'll roll over with them or go up on the beach. The sea's running in against her – one finds out by trying it how hard it is to pull off against a surf – but they're driving her out. Presumably, that's what you call the motive of the thing."

The tourist nodded appreciatively. "Yes," he said. "In spite of certain faults in drawing, it's well worked out. What puzzles me is how the man who did the other one came to feel it as he evidently did. One could fancy he had had a revelation, and that in some respects he was a different man when he painted this. I'll offer you five guineas for it, Mr. Macallister."

"Then," said Macallister, promptly, "ye can have it. Eight guineas for the two, if ye would like the other one. There are two or three more of them here ye might care to look at." He stopped a moment, and added, as if in explanation: "I'm anxious to do what I can for Mr. Austin. Many's the time I've stole his wine and sold his clothes."

He undid a package, and, first of all, took out a photograph of a young girl with a comely English face, which Jacinta glanced at somewhat sharply. Then she became intent when there followed several rudimentary pencil and pastel sketches of herself, until Macallister handed Coulston a picture. He turned from it to Jacinta, and looked at her with a steadiness a young woman less accustomed to masculine criticism would probably have found disconcerting.

She lay smiling at him in the canvas lounge, very pretty and very dainty, with conventional indifference expressed even in her pose. She was, he fancied, a woman who knew her world thoroughly, and had the greater influence therein because she seldom asked too much from it. Then he glanced again at her portrait almost incredulously, for it showed the little shapely head held well erect, the red lips straightened and firmly closed, and the glow of a strenuous purpose in the eyes. Stooping, he laid the picture on her knees with a little smile.

Jacinta laughed softly. "Yes," she said, "of course, I know what you mean. I am essentially modern and frivolous, and not in the least like that. Still, you see, all of us have our serious moments now and then, although it is probably fortunate they don't last long."

"Ah," said Coulston, wilfully neglecting his opportunity, "I almost fancy a light breaks in on me. One could entitle this inspiration, and it is, you know, possible to transmit it occasionally. I wonder whether it would make the idea clearer if we placed the three pictures together. Mr. Macallister will permit me?"

He set up the first sketch of the steamboat skipper against the lifeboat skids, and gazed at it critically. "Assuming that a picture contains something of its painter's ego, you will observe how the idea of petty indulgence and his appreciation of sensual comfort is impressed on one," he said. "Now we will set up the other sketch of the sailormen. There you see restraint, tense effort, abnegation – and victory – in one sense a spiritual triumph over the body. It is an interesting question how the man who painted both could have been brought to grasp what Lieutenant Onslow calls the motive of the last one; but if we might venture to place another picture between."

Jacinta raised her head sharply, and there was an ominous sparkle in her eyes. "No," she said, with quiet incisiveness, "I would sooner you didn't. There are certainly men whose hobby, now and then, runs away with them. Macallister, will you put that portrait back again?"

She handed it him face downwards, for the others had not seen it, and Lieutenant Onslow turned to the tourist.

"I don't quite understand, but I fancy Miss Brown doesn't approve of vivisection any more than I do," he said. "It really isn't decent to turn anybody inside out."

"I wonder," said Coulston, ignoring him, "if you would mind my offering to buy the three?"

He was looking steadily at her, but Jacinta contrived for a moment to catch Macallister's eye. So swift was the flashed glance that the tourist did not notice it, but Jacinta could convey a good deal with a look, and the engineer was a man of considerable intelligence.

"That one is not for sale," he said.

"No," said Onslow, who held up a strip of pasteboard and a sheet of brown paper, "I scarcely think it is. In fact, you don't appear to have noticed that there's a seal on this part of it, and instructions that this particular packet is not to be opened."

It seemed to Muriel that a trace of colour once more crept into Jacinta's face, but Macallister surveyed the wrappings the officer handed him with a grin.

"It is not that difficult to slice a seal off and stick it back again," he said. "It's also a thing Mr. Austin should have remembered. Many a garafon of wine has he seen opened."

"So you know that trick!" Onslow laughed. "I'm inclined to think it's one that has now and then been practised upon our mess."

Just then Mrs. Hatherly appeared on deck, and the group broke up. Muriel joined her aunt, Macallister, accompanied by the tourist, went down the ladder with the box of sketches under his arm, while Jacinta and Lieutenant Onslow were left alone. The latter stood with his hand on the lifeboat skids, looking down on her gravely. He was a well-favoured young man, with an honest, sun-bronzed face.

"I am," he said, "as you know, going out to take over command of a West-coast gunboat in a day or two, and it is more than probable that I shall not have an opportunity like this again. You see, Nasmyth and I have had a very good time in these islands, and we feel that we owe it largely to you. In fact, it's perfectly clear to us that things would have been very different if you hadn't taken us under your gracious protection. I just want to say that we recognise it, and feel grateful."

"Well," said Jacinta, reflectively, "I am rather glad you do. Gratitude that is worth anything carries a certain sense of obligation with it."

"Of course!" and Onslow smiled. "Only give me the chance of doing anything I can for you."

"Do you know whereabouts on the West-coast the Delgado Island lies?"

"I can readily find out."

Jacinta glanced at him sharply, and had no doubt concerning the eagerness in his face. If there was anything he could do to please her it would certainly be done.

"There is a stranded steamer somewhere up a creek behind that island, and I think the men who are trying to salve her have a good many difficulties to contend with. Among other things, I fancy the niggers are worrying them."

"Ah!" said Onslow. "Our ships are not, as a rule, permitted to take any part in commercial ventures, but there are, of course, exceptions to everything. According to my instructions, I am also to avoid all unpleasantness with the seaboard niggers unless they have been provoking the authorities. Still, I would like to ask if any of the men on board that steamer is a friend of yours?"

"One of them is Miss Gascoyne's affianced lover, and she is a very old friend indeed. However, since you are apparently unable – "

Onslow checked her with a little smile. "I'm not sure you are really willing to let me off, and if you were, I shouldn't be pleased, while I scarcely think you have answered my question very frankly, either. That, however, doesn't matter. It is permissible for the commander of a coast patrol gunboat to send a pinnace in to survey a little known creek or channel, and her crew would, of course, be guided by circumstances if they came upon a stranded steamer."

"I presume you would not care to earn Muriel's undying gratitude by being a trifle more definite?"

"No," said Onslow, with twinkling eyes. "I esteem Miss Gascoyne's good opinion, but I really couldn't go any further to win yours. As I pointed out, one would be guided by circumstances; but men on board stranded steamers have been supplied with drugs and provisions, as well as lent naval artificers to advise them as to repairs. I have even heard of a gunboat's launch carrying out their hawsers and anchors."

Jacinta rose with a little smile. "I think one could leave it with confidence to your discretion, and since it seems very likely that you will come across that steamer, I should be pleased to have your views as to the selection of a few comforts and provisions."

Onslow favoured her with them, and, as it happened, met Macallister when at last he went down the ladder.

"Ye are going out to Africa, too?" said the latter, with a grin. "She has been giving ye sailing instructions?"

Onslow looked at him grimly. "Well," he said, "what the devil has that to do with you?"

"Oh, nothing. Just nothing at all. Still, because I see ye are willing, I would have ye know that there are – two – men from Grand Canary on board yon steamer already."

Onslow smiled a trifle drily. "My dear man, I'm not altogether an ass," he said.

In the meanwhile Muriel strolled back towards Jacinta, and glanced at her with a suggestion of astonishment in her face as she sat down.

"You are different from what you were a little while ago," she said.

Jacinta laughed. "I daresay I am. I had, as a matter of fact, sunk into a state of pessimistic apathy, which naturally found expression in ill-humoured pleasantries lately, but I have been getting to work again. It has rather a bracing effect, you see. In the meanwhile, it might be advisable for you to make yourself as nice as possible to Lieutenant Onslow, who is now coming up on deck again. Go and ask him to show you a flying fish, or something."

Muriel went, for she had discovered that there was usually a sufficient reason for most of what Jacinta did, and the latter lay still in her chair.

"There is," she said, "still a fly in the amber. I wonder what he wanted with that photograph, though, after all, he didn't think it worth while carrying to Africa."

CHAPTER XXII