Kit Musgrave's Luck. Harold Bindloss

said with a twinkle. "All the same, when I get to Africa I'll have long enough to play up to my job. At Las Palmas I'm not important. When you want a frolic, go where you're not known."

      Kit did not want a frolic. He was thoughtful and rather daunted. All his old landmarks were gone; he was in a new country where people did not use the rules he had known at Liverpool. Besides, he was thinking about Betty. For all that, when the Spanish boatman rowed him across the harbor to a lava mole he roused himself. The patron declared that although the fare was fixed in pesetas English passengers paid with shillings. It was, however, not for nothing Kit sprang from sternly frugal stock. He stated in his best Castilian that the peseta was worth ninepence and he would pay with Spanish money or would not pay at all. The patron's violent arguments did not move him, but when he heard a laugh he looked up.

      Two ladies occupied the pavement at the top of the steps. One was little, dressed in white, with fine lace on her fashionable clothes, and looked dignified. The other was young and wore a dress of corn-yellow. Her eyes were brown and luminous, her hair was nearly black, and her rather olive skin had something of a peach's bloom. Her type of beauty was new to Kit, but when he saw she remarked his glance he turned to the gesticulating boatman.

      Mrs. Austin was an important lady at Las Palmas, where her husband, and her father, Don Pancho Brown, carried on a merchant business. People said Jacinta Austin ruled both. Olivia, her sister, had not long returned from an English school.

      Señor Don Erminio Martinez, captain of a small Spanish mail steamer, engaged the ladies in talk, because Olivia was beautiful and he waited for his boat. Don Erminio was big, brown-skinned and athletic. He wore shabby English clothes and a small English cap, and looked something like a bullfighter. On the whole, he was a trustful, genial ruffian, although the Barcelona anarchists were his political models. He used a little uncouth French and English.

      Mrs. Austin noted her sister's glance at the boat. The tall young man was obviously English, and had come to take a post; he was raw and did not wear the tourist's stamp. Mrs. Austin knew men and there was something honest and thoughtful about him that she approved. All the same, she did not want Olivia to approve.

      "Book Castilian; I think the accent's Lancashire," the girl remarked. "I wonder where he's going; African shipping office: bananas, or coal?"

      "It's not important," Mrs. Austin rejoined.

      "Oh, well, unless he's a hermit, we are bound to meet him, and he's fresh blood anyway. One gets very bored by the banana and coaling men. Still I think he's their type."

      "The type's plain, but I doubt if he's for the coaling wharf; the young man looks honest," said Mrs. Austin, and turning to the captain, added: "I expect he will join the correillo."

      Correillo is not classical Castilian, but the captain knew she meant a small mail steamer and spread out his hands.

      "Aha! Another animal. He come to me. All animales the Yngleses of Don Arturo. Verdad. People without shame and education——"

      "I am English, my friend," Mrs. Austin rejoined.

      "One forgets; the thing looks impossible," said Don Erminio, with a bow. "You have a charm and sympathy. But the others! With teeth and neck like the camel, and the air commanding. They come on board my steamer. 'I am Ynglesa. All the ship for me.' But another animal of a sobrecargo! Señora, I am your servant. I go and tear my hair."

      He went off, and Olivia laughed. "It's strange, but people don't like us, and at the beginning I expect the young man will have some trouble on board Campeador. All the same, Don Erminio's really a good sort. Well, it looks as if the dispute about the fare had stopped. He's beaten the patron."

      She stepped back, for Kit came up the steps behind a boatman who carried his tin box. Considine followed, and at the end of the mole the boatman called a tartana. Kit got into the little trap, and Considine, pushing the driver from his seat, seized the reins. The horse kicked, the tartana rocked, and they started for Las Palmas in a cloud of dust.

      "At home, we're a sober lot," Mrs. Austin remarked. "In the South, we're joyfully irresponsible. How do you account for it?"

      "I don't account for it," said Olivia. "There's no use in bothering about things like that. Besides, the young man looks remarkably sober."

CHAPTER II

       OTHER RULES

       Table of Contents

      After a collision with a steam tram, the tartana reached Las Palmas and Considine got down at a wine shop. He refused to pay for the damage to the trap, and wishing Kit good luck, vanished among the barrels in the dark shop. The tartanero drove Kit to the steamship office, and sitting on the doorstep declared he would not go away until his just claim was met. Kit, somewhat embarrassed, was shown into the manager's room and received by a little, fastidiously neat Spanish gentleman. The driver's mournful voice pierced the lava walls, and when Kit narrated the grounds for his complaint, Don Ramon shrugged.

      "It is not important; when the tourists are about, such disputes are numerous," he said in careful English, and gave a clerk some orders.

      The tartanero's clamour stopped and Don Ramon resumed: "We will send a note to the purser, and if your countryman does not miss his ship, the thing is finished. Many do miss their ships and there is trouble for us. I have much admiration for the English, but they make disturbances."

      "We are not all like that," Kit objected.

      "You are not like that in England; I was at the Company's office," Don Ramon agreed. "All was in stern order, but in this country you have other rules. Well, it is not important. To-night you join your steamer; I will tell you your duties."

      He did so with kind politeness, and Kit liked the man then and afterwards. By and by Don Ramon sent him to a Spanish hotel, and for a time he wrote letters to his mother and Betty behind a bougainvillea that climbed from the flagged patio to a balcony. The creeper's splendid purple shone against the yellow wall and on the opposite balcony old bronze rails twinkled. The shade was cool, and all was quiet but for the rumble of the Atlantic surf. While Kit wrote his frank, boyish letters, he thought about Betty with shy tenderness. In a sense she had refused him, but his normal mood was calm and he had not known passion yet. He wrote to Betty very much as he wrote to his mother.

      By and by he put up his writing case and went off to get some stamps at a baker's shop. In Spanish countries one cannot, as a rule, buy stamps at a post office. Then he looked at his watch, and seeing it was two o'clock, walked across the town. Don Ramon had stated that he need not go on board before midnight. The streets were strangely quiet and for the most part nobody was about; Kit understood the citizens went to sleep in the afternoon. He saw nothing romantic. Las Palmas rather looked business-like and modern than picturesque. The houses had straight, square fronts and the roofs were flat. Only the white belt of surf and background of broken volcanic mountains relieved the utilitarian ugliness.

      The wine shops had no call for Kit, but he noted the splashed floors, pungent smells, and swarms of flies. A girl on a balcony near the cathedral dropped a red oleander and another smiled, but Kit did not turn his head. He sprang from sober, puritanical stock, and his code was austere; one earned one's pay and studied in order to earn more; one shunned indulgence and trained one's body. Kit had trained his at the gymnasium and a cheap swimming club. In summer he sailed races on board cheap little boats. Although his horizon was not wide, his health and nerve were good.

      He followed the carretera that runs south from the town. In Spain, a road is often a bridle-track a mule can hardly climb, but the government carretera is wide and level. In the distance was Telde, where oranges grow, and Kit set off in the dust and scorching heat. The Trade-breeze blew behind him; on his left hand the Atlantic broke in shining foam against black lava reefs; on his right, across the thin belt of cultivation, dark rocks, melted by volcanic fire, rose like a giant wall.

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