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.




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