CHAPTER XX.

WE START FOR HOME.

We were off the island again by nine o’clock. Greaves was wise to fill his casks; the water was sweet, the road home long, and our peculiar care was not to be forced to look in anywhere for supplies of any sort. Yet it was as depressing as a disappointment to return to the island. Is there an uglier heap of rock in the wide world? The black lava of the scowling Galapagos yields nothing more horrid. And the spirit of its dark and horrible solitude visited you the more sharply because of the crawling, stealthy life you beheld low down by the wash of the beach, remote from the inland loneliness; the creeping shape of the elephant tortoise, of the black lizard, of crabs as huge as targets, and no further motion save what’s in the air, where the ocean fowl are glancing. That island was a fit tomb for the ship which it caverned. You thought of it as a grave, of the ship as a corpse; and the ugly heap of flat split cliff and black lava climbing into spires, and front of cinderous rock corrugated by the arrest of their glowing cataracts, fell cold upon the sight, and colder yet upon the heart.

We sent a hand aloft as before to keep a sharp lookout. The island lay square in the north, and while we hung hove-to off the reefs, at any hour something large and armed might come sailing up from the horizon at the back, and heave the breast of a royal over the western or eastern point ere we could guess that there was anything within leagues and leagues of us. Yan Bol took charge of the longboat and went ashore. It was a fine morning, but the sky looked dim, like a blue eye after tears; the sun had his sting of yesterday, but not his flash. A long swell swung through the sea, but the heave was out of the north, and we lay south, the land between; it was smooth here or we could have done little in the way of watering. The corners of the land illustrated the weight of the swell; the white water burst in clouds there, and the noise of it came along with the voice of a gathering storm.

Greaves was so much better of the pain in his side that he sat at breakfast and took a chair upon the deck afterward. He called me to his cabin, while we were heading for the island, and asked me to look at his ribs. There was a little discoloration, such as might attend a bruise--no more. I pressed the bones, but he did not wince. I dug somewhat deep in the soft part just under the liver, but he uttered no sound. The pain was very nearly gone, he told me; yet he looked pale, and his eyes wanted their former light and old activity of glance.

I was busy in bringing the brig to a stand while Greaves was at breakfast, and on passing the skylight and looking down, I saw the lady Aurora seated at table with him. When he came on deck after breakfast, she followed; Jimmy placed chairs and she was about to sit, but catching sight of me she approached, bowing low, with a fine arch smile, and her hand extended. I supposed she meant merely to shake me by the hand, but on grasping my fingers she retained them, and I felt a foolish blush upon my face, as she drew me to the binnacle stand, at which she pointed, saying, “compass.” She then led me to the side, and projecting her glittering hand over the rail, said “sea.” Then, looking aloft, she laughed and shook her head, and cried:

“No sar, señor.”

“Star,” said I.

“_Si_--star--_gracias_,” she exclaimed.

“Had you not better mind your eye?” exclaimed Greaves, as we approached him. “Somebody’s told her the value of your share in the chinks below. She’s no clipper, but she’s got a devilish fine bow and run, and you’d find her bends sweetly good, I’ll warrant you, were you to careen her and clear her sides. By Isten! Fielding, she’ll be forging ahead and taking you in tow if you don’t mind your helm.”

I made no reply. I did not greatly relish Greaves’ humor. The girl’s ignorance of our tongue was an appeal to our respect. But then I was twenty-four--an age of sensibility. Greaves was an older man, and though I love his memory, I must say the sea had a little blunted some of the finer points of feeling in him.

Madam Aurora took the chair which Jimmy had placed, and she and Greaves sat together, but in silence. Some business of the brig occupied my attention. Presently Greaves told me to go below and breakfast.

“I will look after the ship,” said he.

I went below and made a good breakfast. There was a dish of terrapin; the Dutch sailor Wirtz, the burly, carroty man, with the deep roaring voice--but all our Dutchmen had deep voices--had somewhere learnt the art of cooking terrapin. He had stayed in the brig to dress this delicious meat, and Frank Hals, the cook, had gone ashore in his place in the longboat. I fared sumptuously, washing the delicate morsels down with some of the _Casada’s_ cocoa, which had been prepared for the pot by Thomas Teach, who professed to have learnt what he knew under this head in two voyages he had made to the Dutch Spice Islands.

Galloon had followed me into the cabin, and bore me company. He sat upon his chair and gazed at me affectionately when I talked to him. Often had I talked out my mind to Galloon. Often in quiet, lonely watches, during the outward passage, had I held his ears, while his fore paws rested upon my knees, and given loose to the imaginations which the prospect of the promise of realizing thirty thousand dollars raised up in me. And then, again, I loved this dog as the savior of my life. Never could I look into his affectionate, liquid, intelligent eye, but that I would think to myself, and often say aloud to him, dog as he was, a poor four-footed beast, soulless, as it is commonly supposed, of affections to be best won by kicks and curses--that he had, by saving my life, become in a sense the creator of a man, the renewer of a being deemed by his own species immortal in spirit, so that whatever I did a dog would be answerable for; the existence of all passions in me, my pleasures and hopes and griefs; nay, my marriage, should ever I marry, and the children I begot, would be all chargeable upon a poor dog, God wot! a strange thing to reflect on by one who has been made to believe, all his life, that he is only a little lower than the angels, and yet true as the blessed sunlight itself; for if it had not been for Galloon, long ago I should have been--what? the roe of a herring, perhaps, the liver of a cod--instead of a man, capable of looking back, through a long avenue of years, and of moralizing thus.

When I came on deck I found Antonio standing in front of Greaves, cap in hand, translating for him and the lady. On my appearing, Miss Aurora exclaimed quickly and eagerly to the Spaniard, who turning to me, said, squinting as he spoke:

“The señorita has met you before.”

“Where?” said I.

“At Lima, señor.”

“Never was at Lima in my life.”

He translated; she made a little dignified gesture of impatience.

“The lady says that she has met you at the house of----” and here Antonio named a Spanish merchant of Lima.

“No,” said I, looking at her and shaking my head.

“Yes,” she cried in English, and spoke rapidly to Antonio.

“She is not mistaken, _caballero_. Two thumbs are alike, but two faces never.”

“You never were at Lima?” said Greaves.

“Never,” I exclaimed, laughing.

“Let her have her way,” said Greaves. “Contrive to have visited Lima, and to have been a bosom friend of Don----,” and he named the Spanish merchant. “What does it signify? May it not mean that she is in love with you, and that her professing to have met you is a Spanish maiden’s device to cover an advance, as a soldier would say.”

Antonio continued to squint. I viewed him narrowly, and was satisfied that he had not understood the captain’s words.

“Beg the lady to continue her narrative,” said Greaves.

She addressed Antonio in a few sentences at a time. Occasionally her language was above his understanding; he would look at her stupidly, until she gave him another nod. How rich was her Spanish, how honey-sweet her utterance! It was like listening to singing. The memories which thronged her recital delicately colored with blood her pale olive cheek; her eyes moistened or sparkled as she spoke, or watched while Antonio interpreted. Most of the time her gaze was fastened upon me. It seemed as though she put me before Greaves, as though the incident of my having had charge of the boat which brought her off the island, had established me in her gratitude as her deliverer.

Her story, however, was little more than a repetition of what has already been related. Her mother had been absent twenty years from Old Spain. On the death of her husband, she sold the estate and all her interest in the business, and went to Acapulco with her daughter, on a visit to her brother, who was a priest at that place; thence she and Aurora took shipping for Cadiz.

The lady broke off at this to implore us, through Antonio, to tell her, as sailors, whether we believed her mother’s life had been preserved. Greaves answered that he considered it very probable that her mother was alive. Who was to tell that the ship had foundered? Who was to say that she had not outweathered the gale, been jury-rigged and worked by the survivors into port, the Señorita Aurora’s mother being on board?

The girl’s eyes glistened when this was translated. She smiled at Greaves and thanked him in Spanish. An expression of pleading then entered her face, and her look took a peculiar color of beauty from the wistfulness and plaintiveness of it. Why would not the captain set her ashore at Lima, that she might rejoin her mother, who, on landing--it mattered not at what port on the coast--was sure to make her way to Acapulco?

But Greaves shook his head, smiling into her eyes, which were impassioned with entreaty.

“I must go straight home,” said he. “Do not you know that there is a treasure in our hold, which obliges me to make haste to reach England? I will take care that you safely arrive at Madrid, even should it come to myself escorting you, señorita.”

She bowed, looking sadly.

“Or here,” said he, extending his hand toward me, “is a cavalier who will be honored by conducting you to Madrid.”

She slightly glanced at me, then fastened her eyes upon the deck and mused for a few moments; then addressed Antonio, who, turning to me, said--but in English, you will please understand, which I do not attempt to reproduce, that you may read without hindrance:

“The lady recollects that when she met you at Lima you spoke Spanish.”

“I was never at Lima,” I answered, coloring and then laughing.

“Depend upon it,” said Greaves, “that the fellow she met was good-looking, or recollection wouldn’t be so bright.”

“What was the occupation of the gentleman?” said I to the lady, through Antonio.

“He was an English naval officer, had been imprisoned, but had been at liberty some weeks when the señorita met him.”

“What was his name?”

“She does not remember; but you are the gentleman.”

“Be it so,” said I, laughing.

“On slenderer evidence have men been hanged,” said Greaves.

Now came a short pause. Antonio shuffled his naked feet, sometimes looking straight, sometimes squinting, impatient to get forward and lounge. The longboat had made her second trip, and lay alongside the beach. The figures of the men crawling from the grove of trees, trundling the casks among them, showed like beetles in the distance. It was about eleven o’clock. The sunlight was misty; the swell rolled with a dull flash in the brows of it; the wind hummed like clustering bees aloft, and swept the cheek as the breath and kiss of fever. The slewing of the brig, along with the sliding of the sun, pitched the glare upon the deck clear of the trysail, in whose shadow we had been conversing. I called to a man to spread the short awning. Antonio was going; the lady Aurora detained him.

“The señorita wants to know,” said the Spanish seaman, “how long the voyage to England occupies.”

“We mean to thrash our way home,” answered Greaves. “We shall not take long. Let us call it three months.”

“Blessed Virgin! Three months!” echoed the girl in Spanish.

A fine look of tragic horror enlarged her eyes. She distorted her mouth into a singular expression. The tension paled her lips and exposed her teeth.

Greaves seemed to admire her. For _my_ part, I thought her now the most beautiful and wonderful creature I had ever heard of--a lady who might either be angel or devil, you could not tell which; or she might be both. Her face defied you, for it could put on twenty looks in the course of a short conversation, thanks to her heavy eyebrows, which were full of play and character, and thanks to the long lashes of her eyelids, whose drop or lift, whose languishing falls, and arch or scornful or playful erections, changed the meaning of her glances for her as she chose, rendering them, at her will, transparently eloquent or as inscrutable as a gypsy’s gaze. She put her hand upon her dress, and Antonio interpreted.

“The lady’s gown will not last three months, and then, señor?”

“Chaw!” cried Greaves, and, pointing with something of passion to the island, he exclaimed--“Ask the lady to put the clock back till the day before yesterday is reached, and _then_!”

On this being explained a flash of temper lighted up her eyes.

“I shall be in rags,” said she, “before you reach your country.”

“We have needles and thread on board,” said Greaves coolly.

“You are men, and cannot conceive what it is to be a woman embarking on a long voyage, possessed of no more clothes than what she has on.”

“How can we comfort her?” said I.

“Can the señorita sew?” said Greaves.

Certainly she could sew.

“Then,” said Greaves, “if the señorita can sew, let her mind be at rest. I am the owner of a roll of fine duck, which is entirely at her service. There are yards enough to yield her as many dresses as she needs. Will she require stuff for trimming? Let her select a flag of two or three colors. Bunting makes excellent trimming. It is light and brine-proof.”

Antonio bungled much, and squinted fiercely in the delivery of this; yet he contrived to make the lady faintly understand the meaning of Greaves’ speech. She tapped on her knee with her fingers, and seemed to keep time with the beat of her foot to an air that she inaudibly hummed; her black eyes were downward bent, but at swift intervals the fringes lifted, and a glance of light sparkled at me or Greaves. I noticed a pouting play of mouth. In fact, her air was that of a girl who has been spoiled by indulgence since her childhood. One figured her as the goddess of the fandango, the burden of the midnight guitar, and the heroine of a score of sweethearts.

“Duck is very well for dresses, sir,” said I. “She is thinking of under-linen.”

“We are not to know anything about under-linen,” said Greaves. “She must make what she wants. She doesn’t seem grateful enough to please me. To bother me about dress now, after four days of that cinder, and the deliverance recent enough to keep most people hysterically sobbing and thanking God in fervent ejaculations!”

Antonio addressed her. I guessed he wanted to know if he could go. She spoke to him, and the man, awkwardly smiling, said:

“The señorita asks if you are Catholics?”

“Yes and no, for my part,” answered Greaves, looking at her gravely, “I am heading that way. I believe I shall hoist the Papal flag yet, but it’s not flying at present.”

“Is the capitan a Catholic?” repeated the lady.

“Ay, but not a Papist,” said Greaves.

“Are you a Catholic, señor?”

“I love God and hate the devil,” said I. “That is my religion. It is broad, and there is room for many names upon its back.”

“Is it customary for ladies, do you know, Fielding, for ladies who have just been rescued from the horrors of a volcanic island, from perils hideously increased by the association of such a yellow and by no means fangless worm as that”--dropping his head in a cool nod at Antonio--“to inquire into the religious faiths of their preservers?”

The lady Aurora spoke.

“The señorita wishes to know when you changed your religion?”

“Ah, when, indeed?” said I, laughing.

“You were a very good Catholic at Lima, señor?”

“Yes, when I was at Lima, I was a very good Catholic?” said I.

“Then you are the _caballero_ the señorita supposes?”

“Damn ye, you squinting devil, you know better!” thundered Greaves. “Jump forward. We’ve had enough of this.”

The man fled toward the forecastle, noiseless with naked feet. The lady looked frightened.

“Lima, señorita--_no_!” said I smiting my bosom with force.

She gazed at me earnestly with an expression of misgiving, then addressed me in Spanish. Greaves gathered her meaning.

“I believe she says you are not her man, if you are not a Catholic,” said he; and then pointing at me, and looking at her, he cried out, “No Catholic--no Lima--not your man, in any sense of the word. Fielding, what’s that Dutch devil Bol up to?”

I went to the side to look for the longboat. She was at that moment coming through the two points of reef. Her oars rose and fell in the distance in hairs of gold, and she seemed to tow a hair of gold in her wake as she came out of the calm breast of the harbor into the soundless heave of the ocean. I reported her approach and lay upon the rail watching her, and musing upon what had passed between the Spanish maid and us.

It was odd to think of a fine young woman, sitting on the deck of a vessel, that had but a few hours before taken her off the desolate island which was still in view, coolly inquiring into the religious beliefs of her preservers, and looking as though, if time had been given her, she would presently overhaul our consciences. To be sure, she hoped that if she found us Catholics, she would get more of her way with us, obtain pity, sympathy, enough to procure her direct conveyance to a near port. She left her chair, came close to my side, and stood looking at the boat; in a moment, pointing to it, she asked in Spanish for its name. I gave her the name, turning to look at Greaves, who was laughing softly, but with an averted face. She put more questions, pointing to the objects, and then lightly laying her fingers upon my arm, she signed that I should take her forward, glancing at Greaves as she did so, following the look on with a full stare at me, and a shake of the head eloquent as her speech. It was for all the world as though she had said in plain English, “I don’t like that man; let us leave this part of the ship.”

I made her understand as best I could, by pointing to the approaching boat, and then to the yardarm whip for slinging the casks aboard, that my duty obliged me to stop where I was. She bowed, but with a little flush, as though vexed by my refusal; indeed, in her whole instant manner, there was the irritation of your ladyship, of your exacting, well-served, much-admired, fine young madam, who is very little used to being disappointed.

I moved forward toward the gangway by two or three steps, that she might guess my work prohibited talk; and, in fact, conversation would have been impossible in a few minutes, for the longboat was fast nearing the brig, and the job of seeing the water aboard was mine; and that was not all, either. Greaves was captain; he was on deck, watching and listening. The influence of the presence of a captain is always strong upon the seaman, whether he be of the quarter-deck or of the forecastle. Habit worked like an instinct, and disquieted me. Had Greaves been below, I daresay I should have been very glad to keep the señorita at my side, if only for the enjoyment of meeting her full gaze; for the longer I looked at her eyes, the more did I wonder at their depth and life, at their transcendent powers of repulsion and solicitation, and eloquence of rapid expression; and the longer I listened to her voice, the more was I charmed by the sweetness and richness of it; and the longer I beheld her face, the more manifold grew its revelations. But its revelations of what? My pen has no art to answer that question. You gaze upon the face of the deep, and beauties steal out of it to your perception, and you know not how to define them, you know not how to indicate them. They come blending in an effect that enlarges as you look, and the sum of the steady revelation is a deepening delight and a constant growth of wonder. I hear you say, “Had a woman of Spain ever the beauty you claim or invent for this lady?” My answer is as simple as a look--I say “Yes.” The Señorita Aurora de la Cueva was a woman of Spain, and she had the beauty, and more than the beauty, I feebly attempt to describe. I care not if all the females of Old Spain are as hideous as hobgoblins and witches; they may all be bearded like the pard, thatched at the brow with horse hair, their complexions of chocolate, their figures bolsters; the lady Aurora was beautiful, her charms I have scarce language enough to hint at, much less portray. This she was, and whether you believe me or not signifies nothing.

And I did not much admire the woman when I first saw her! thought I. In fact, had I rowed her aboard another ship and never seen her again, I should never have thought of her again. Is it to end in my making a fool of myself? Does a man make a fool of himself when he falls in love? A plague upon these cheap cynic phrases which creep into the national speech, and form the mirth of boys and the wisdom of the sucklings of literature. But I am not in love yet, anyhow, thought I.

“Oars!” roared Bol, in the stern sheets of the boat. “Standt by mit der boathook. Vy der doyfil doan somebody gif us der end of a rope?”

A rope was flung. My lady Aurora walked forward, calling and beckoning to Antonio. She arrived abreast of the galley and stood there, and talked to the Spaniard, pointing about her and clearly asking for the name of things in English.

“Fielding,” cried Greaves.

“Sir,” I answered, facing about.

“She will be making love to you in your own tongue before another week is out,” he called.

“Such a voice as hers would keep anything not deaf listening as long as she liked.”

“She has a very sweet voice,” he exclaimed, “and she is a very fine woman. But should she pick up our tongue, you’ll find the devil that’s inside of her come drifting out horns first with the earliest of her speech. Talk of your fears of the crew! She’s the sort of party to carry a ship single-handed, though the vessel mounted the guns and was manned by the complement of the _Royal Sovereign_. She is learning English for some piratic motive--it may be the dollars, it may be the brig--for she don’t want to go, and I dare say she don’t mean to go round the Horn without her mother. Bol, is this the last load?”

“Der last loadt, sir.”

“Bear a hand then to whip the water aboard, and let us get away.”

It was a quarter before one by the time we had chocked and secured the longboat and were ready to start on a passage that was to carry us over many thousands of miles of salt water. The breeze had freshened; soft small clouds, like shadings in pencil, were sailing up off the edge of the sea into the misty blue overhead; the luster of the sun was still pale and brassy, and a look of wind was in the yellow of the disk-shaped spread of radiance, out of which he looked like an eye of fire in a target of gold.

“Make sail, Fielding,” called Greaves, from his chair, on which he had been sitting ever since he came on deck, though in all those hours he had not once complained of pain. “Make sail and heap it on her. Bring her head due south, and let her go.”

The braces of the yards of the main were manned, the wheel turned, the canvas filled as the fiery breath, that was now brushing the sea, and that seemed to come the hotter for the very dimness of the sunshine, gushed over the quarter. We squared away to it; and now the island slided by, opening features of its swart, melancholy, loathly rocks, which had been invisible before. The milk-white burst of surge made the base of the cliff in the wash of it black. I noticed a hovering of pale radiance upon the patch of verdure where the grove or wood stood. It was no more than a patch to our distant eye; it was like the dance of the South African silver tree. The verdure had the gleam of an emerald, and you thought of a gem on the sallow breast of death.

I was full of the business of making sail, yet could find an eye for the island as it veered away on the quarter. Greaves gazed at it intently, so did the lady Aurora as she stood at the rail, with her profile cut clear and keen as a marble bust against the sky over the horizon. The mouth of the cave yawned upon us, then narrowed, then thinned into a slice, then vanished round a shoulder of cliff.

“Pull, you toyfils! Shoomp und run!” bawled Bol, in his hurricane note, to the two Spaniards, who were loafing near the galley, lazily looking on at the work that was going forward. “Dis vhas not der islandt--dis vhas no shipwreck. Shoomp, or I make you fly mit a sharge of goonpowder in der slack of yer breeks.”

The royals were sheeted home; trysail, flying jib, staysails set; for it was a quartering wind, and there was scarce a cloth that we could throw abroad but could do serviceable work. They called this sort of sailing in our time _going along all fluking_, the weather-clew of the mainsail up and the lee-clew dully lifting its weight of blocks and hawser-like sheets and thick frame of foot and bolt-rope.

“Set all stu’n’-sails,” cried Greaves; and soon out to windward soared to their several yardarms and to their boom-ends those wide, overhanging spaces of sail, clothing the brig in surf-white cloths from the royal mast heads to the very heave of the brine, when she rolled her swinging-boom to windward.

“Pipe to dinner!” called Greaves.

The sweet, clear strains of Yan Bol’s whistle found a hundred echoes in the hollows on high. Aurora gazed upward, as though looking for the birds. The men had worked hard, and were pale with heat and sweat. They had worked with a will in making sail. Even the Dutchmen had sprang along and aloft with a bluejacket’s activity; for we were homeward bound! a cry in every marine heart magical in its inspiration of swift and eager labor. With dripping brows the men stood looking at the receding island, while Yan Bol whistled them to dinner; and when the burly Dutch boatswain let fall the pipe upon his breast to the length of its laniard, all hands, moved by feelings which made every throat one for the moment, roared out a long, wild cheer of farewell to the island, flourishing caps and arms to it, as though its heights were crowded with friends who could see and hear them.

“Look at Galloon!” cried Greaves.

The dog was on the taffrail, and every bark he sent at the island was like a loud hurrah, with the significance the noise took from the wagging of the creature’s tail and the set of the whole figure of him.

“He knows we are homeward bound,” said Greaves.

“And that the dollars are aboard,” said I.

Miss Aurora went to the dog, caressed, and talked to him. The lad Jimmy’s head showed at the galley door. Greaves hailed him to know when dinner would be ready.

“Another twenty minutes, master.”

“Heave the log, Fielding, and let’s get the pace at the start.”

All expression of pain was now passed out of his face; likewise had his natural, fresh color returned to him. The triumph of this time had kindled his eyes anew, and there were pride and content in the looks which he cast around his brig and over the rail at the island. And I think if ever there was a man who had a right to feel satisfied with himself and his work, Greaves, at this time, was he; for, truly, something more than talent had gone to the discovery of the dollars in the caverned ship. Mere accident it was that had disclosed the vessel, but it needed the genius of a great adventurer to light upon the dollars, to note all the particulars of the Spanish manifest, to hold the secret behind his teeth till he got home, to inspire such an old hunks as Bartholomew Tulp with confidence enough to shed his blood, or, in other words, to disburse his money, in the furtherance of this enterprise of recovery.

I called a couple of men aft and hove the log. What is the log? It is a reel round which are wound many fathoms of line; at the end of the line is attached a piece of wood, sometimes a canvas bag, designed to grip the water when it is hove overboard. The line is spaced into knots, and the running of it is timed by a glass of sand. This log is one of the oldest contrivances we have at sea. With it the early navigators groped their way about the world. It found them New Holland and the Indies, and both Americas. It was their longitude and often their latitude. It was their chronometer and sextant. We use it still, and cannot better it. A simple and noble old contrivance is the log. May the mariner never lose faith in it! Crutched by the log on one side, and the lead on the other, he may hobble round the globe in safety, defiant of shoals, regardless of fogs.

I hove the log, and made the speed seven knots.

“A good start!” exclaimed Greaves, rising and coming slowly to the rail, and looking over. He walked without inconvenience or pain, and stood with a thoughtful face, gazing at the satin-white sheets of foam sliding past. Madam Aurora left Galloon and came to my side, but Galloon followed her--never went there to sea a friendlier, a more affectionate dog. The men were hauling in the dripping log line and reeling it up. The lady with a smile said with a very good accent, “How do you call it?” I laughed as I pronounced the word _log_. Oh, what should it convey to the imagination of a Spanish maiden?

She understood, however, for what purpose it had been used, and with eloquent gestures inquired the speed. I held up my fingers.

“_Quien lo hubiera creído?_” cried she.

“She is not grumbling, I hope,” called Greaves from the rail, and he slowly approached us.

The lady looked for a little while very earnestly at the captain, with a world of meaning in her beautiful eyes--meaning so eloquent in _desire_ of expression, that it was pathetic to witness the arrest of speech in her gaze and face. She then with grace and dignity motioned round the sea.

“It is very wide, and the voyage before us is a long one--I understand that,” interpreted Greaves; and never did man peruse lineaments more speaking or translate glances more radiant and expressive.

She then placed the forefinger of her right hand upon her lips to signify silence or dumbness.

“Which means,” said Greaves, “that you can’t speak our tongue, and don’t like the prospect, accordingly.”

She then took her dress in her hand, putting on a most mournful countenance.

“Yaw, yaw,” cried Greaves, with a little irritation, “we have discussed that matter, madam. But there is white duck below--duck for the duck, what d’ye say, Fielding? and there are hussifs in the fok’sle.”

I believed that her dumb show was at an end. Not at all. Clasping her hands sparkling with the several rings she wore, and raising them in a posture of supplication to the level of her mouth, she upturned her face to the sky, and with an inimitable expression of entreaty, of piteous prayer rather, insomuch that her eyes seemed to swim and her lips to work, she stood while you could have counted ten.

“Sainted and purest of all the Marias, put pity into the heart of this British captain, and cause him to set me ashore, for the sea is wide and the voyage is long; and I am possessed by a dumb devil and cast among heretics; and I have but one gown; and, O Maria and ye saints! candles shall ye have in plenty, mortification will I undergo, prayers by the fathom will I recite, choice gifts will I make to Holy Mother Church, if ye will but soften the heart of the durned, slab-sided skipper who stands opposite me, interpreting my mind. There ye have it, Fielding. That’s what her gestures said, that’s what her eyes looked. But I tell you what--this sort of thing will grow tiresome presently. You must bear a hand and teach her to speak English.”

“Dinner’s on the table, master,” said Jimmy, putting his head through the companion way.

“Call Yan Bol aft to stand a lookout while we dine, Fielding,” said Greaves, “and give your arm to the lady and bring her below. She don’t like me.”