had better cause. The Portuguese, however, saluted me with his customary courtesy, and I thought there was a grave twinkle in his steady eye.

“Are you in deesgrace also, friend Cole?” he inquired in his all but perfect English.

“More or less,” said I ruefully.

He gave the shrug of his country - that delicate gesture which is done almost entirely with the back - a subtlety beyond the power of British shoulders.

“The senhora is both weelful and pivish,” said he, mixing the two vowels which (with


30 of 585

of her start to my eyes; and there is the trade-wind singing in the rigging, and loosening a tress of my darling’s hair, till it flies like a tiny golden streamer in the tropic sun. There, it is out! I have called her what she was to be in my heart ever after. Yet at the time I must argue with her -


30 of 967