"I, for one, think some consideration might have been shown him," said
Elsie.
"There is no time for argument when a Chilean draws a knife, Miss
Maxwell."
"But, if his story is true--"
"There never yet was a stowaway who did not invent a plausible yarn.
Nevertheless, I believe, and Mr. Boyle agrees with me, that the man is
not lying."
They felt the ship swing round on a new course, and the rays of the
setting sun lit up the saloon table through the open starboard ports.
"Due south now, ladies!" cried Dr. Christobal cheerily. "We have
rounded Cape Cardones. We practically follow the seventy-sixth degree
until we approach Evangelistas Island. Thus far we are in the open
sea. Then we pick our way through the Straits discovered by that
daring Portuguese, Fernando de Magallanes, to whose memory I always
drink heartily once we are clear of the Cape of the Eleven Thousand
Virgins. I never pass through that gloomy defile without marveling at
his courage, and thinking that he deserved a better fate than murder at
the hands of some painted savage in the Philippines. Peace be to his
ashes!"
And the doctor lifted his glass of red wine with a quasi-masonic ritual
which lent solemnity to his discourse.
"You are a long way ahead of your toast," said Isobel.
"Just as Magellan was ahead of his times," was the rejoinder.
"Yet he was a man of leisurely habit," put in Elsie, who found Dr.
Christobal's old-world manners full of charm and repose.
"How so?" said he, puzzled, for the worthy Portuguese navigator was
notoriously a swashbuckler.
"Otherwise he never could have christened any unhappy promontory by
such a long-winded name," she explained.
"Perhaps he met a contrary wind in that region," said Christobal,
laughing. "Monsieur de Poincilit here, were he in a very bad temper,
might exclaim, 'Mille diables!' Why should not our excellent Fernando
rail against the almost inconceivable fickleness which could be
displayed by eleven times as many young ladies?"
"I came out last time on the Orellana, and I don't even remember
passing such a place," said Isobel. She was a Chilean born and bred,
but she always affected European vagueness as to the topography of
South America. Dr. Christobal knew this weakness of hers; he also
remembered her beautiful half-caste mother, from whom Isobel inherited
her flashing eyes, her purple-red lips, and a skin in which the
exquisite flush of terra-cotta on her checks merged into the delicate
pallor of forehead and neck.