Part 15 (1/2)

Jacinta sighed whimsically, perhaps to hide what she felt.

”Then I'm afraid we shall not see him, which is a pity, because I've been thinking over the nice things I meant to say to him, and now they're all wasted,” she said. ”You will tell him that we came to say good-bye to him, won't you, and that I'm just a little vexed he never called to tell us anything about his expedition.”

Macallister grinned sardonically, and though Jacinta was usually a very self-possessed young woman, she appeared to find his gaze a trifle disconcerting.

”Well,” he said, ”I know all about it. He has sold everything he had, and he borrowed 40. One way or another he has another 60 of his own.”

Jacinta looked up sharply. ”He has no more than that?”

”It's not likely,” and Macallister watched her with a faint twinkle in his eyes. ”I do not know why he would not have the 200 Mr. Brown offered him. Maybe ye do.”

There was a just perceptible trace of colour in Jacinta's cheek. ”I hardly see how you could expect me to when I never heard of it until this moment,” she said. ”Would 100 be enough for Mr. Austin?”

”I'm thinking it would. No for everybody under the same circ.u.mstances, but enough for him. There are folks in these islands who have only seen the outside of Mr. Austin, which, ye may observe, is in one sense quite a natural thing.”

He stopped a moment, and smiled upon her genially. ”It's not his fault that he's no quite so well favoured as I am. What would ye expect of an Englishman? Still, there are men aboard here who have seen what's underneath--I mean the other side of him--at nights when he brought the dispatch off through the surf, and once--though that was not his business--when I was sick, an' they let water down in the starboard boiler.”

”Still,” said Jacinta, ”he would naturally have to have so many things.”

”He has four good men, a little box o' drugs, and a case o' dynamite.

Farquhar's going on to Australia with mining stores, and he gave it him.”

It seemed absurdly insufficient, and Jacinta struggled with an almost hysterical inclination to laugh. It was, she realised, a very big thing Austin had undertaken, and his equipment consisted of a case of dynamite and a box of drugs, which, on his own confession, he knew very little about. Still, she saw that Macallister, who, she fancied, ought to know, rated manhood far higher than material. It was Muriel who broke the silence.

”But they will want a doctor,” she said, with a little tremour in her voice.

Macallister shook his head. ”Ye would not get one to go there for 500, and he would be no use if he did,” he said. ”Ye will remember that malaria fever does not stay on one long. It goes away when it has shaken the strength out o' ye--and now and then comes back again--while by the time Austin gets there Mr. Jefferson will be----”

He stopped with some abruptness, but though she s.h.i.+vered, Muriel looked at him with steady eyes.

”Ah!” she said, ”you mean he will either be better, or that no doctor could cure him then?”

Macallister made her a little inclination, and it was done with a grave deference that Jacinta had scarcely expected from him.

”Just that,” he said. ”I'm thinking ye are one of the women a man can tell the truth to. It is a pity there are not more o' them. It is no a healthy country Mr. Austin is going to, but I have been five years on the coast o' it, and ye see me here.”

”I wonder,” said Jacinta, ”whether you, who know all about s.h.i.+ps and engines, did not feel tempted to go with Mr. Austin?”

The engineer smiled curiously. ”Tempted!” he said. ”It was like trying to be teetotal with a whisky bottle in the rack above one's bunk; but I am a married man, with a wife who has a weakness for buying dining-room suites.”

”Dining-room suites! What have they to do with it?”

”Just everything,” and Macallister sighed. ”She will only have the biggest ones the doors will let in, and she has furnished a good many dining-rooms altogether. Ye will mind that we lived here and there and everywhere, while she's back in England now. Ye would not meet a better woman, but on 20 a month ye cannot buy unlimited red-velvet chairs and sideboards with looking-gla.s.ses at the back o' them.”

Jacinta laughed as she rose. ”You will tell Mr. Austin we are sorry we did not see him.”

”I will,” and Macallister stood up, too. ”Perhaps ye mean it this time, and I'm a little sorry for him myself. There are men who get sent off with bands and speeches and dinners to do a smaller thing, but Mr.

Austin he just slips away with his box o' dynamite and his few sailormen.”

He stopped and looked hard at her a moment before he turned to Muriel.