When day followed day without any sign of hostility, not a man on
board, save Suarez and Tollemache, paid much real heed to the shoreward
peril. Walker, with his hammers and cold chisels, his screw-jacks and
wrenches, was the center of interest. And Walker's swarthy visage wore
a permanent grin, which presaged well for the fulfilment of his
promise. Elsie devoted herself to the hospital. She was thus brought
more in contact with Christobal than with any of the others. Nor did
he make this close acquaintance irksome to her. Always suave and
charming in manner, he exerted himself to be entertaining. Though she
knew full well that if the Kansas reached the open sea again he would
ask her to marry him, he was evidently content to deny himself the
privileges of courtship until a proper time and season.
She was far too wise to appear to avoid Courtenay. Indeed, she was
studiously agreeable to him when they met. She adopted the safe role
of good-fellowship, flattering herself that her own folly would shrink
to nothingness under the hourly castigation thus inflicted. During
this period, Mr. Boyle's changeable characteristics puzzled and amused
her. As he grew stronger, and took part in the active life of the
ship, so did his sudden excess of talkativeness disappear. Once she
happened to overhear his remarks to a couple of Chileans who were told
to swab off the decks. Obviously, they had scamped their work, and
Boyle expostulated. Then she grasped the essential element in Boyle's
composition. He was capable only of a single idea. When he was chief
officer he ceased to be an ordinary man; the corollary was, of course,
that he ceased to use ordinary language.
She was in her cabin, and dared not come out while the tornado raged.
She did not know that Tollemache was listening, too, until she heard
him ask: "Did you ever meet any fellow who could swear harder than you, Boyle?"
"Yes, once," was the curt answer.
"He must have been a rotter. What did he say?"
"Huh! just the regulation patter, but he used a megaphone, so I gave
him best. . . ."
But, so far as Elsie was concerned, Boyle's fund of reminiscence had
dried up.
After the midday meal on Christmas day--a sumptuous repast, for the due
preparation of which Elsie had come to the Chilean cook's assistance in
the matter of the plum-pudding--Suarez suddenly reported that a new
column of smoke was rising from Guanaco Hill, a crag dominating the
eastern side of the bay. The hill owed its name, he explained, to a
large cave, in which a legendary herd of llama was said to have its
abode. Probably there had never been any llama on the island, but the
Indians were frightened of the cave, with its galloping ghosts, and
would not enter it. He was unable to attribute any special
significance to the signal on that particular place. During the five
years with the Alaculof tribe he had never seen a fire lit there
before. That, in itself, was a fact sinister and alarming.