You cannot imagine how that man Ventana persecuted me. The mere
suggestion of any one's paying me compliments and trying to be
fascinating is so repellent that I cringe at the thought. And even our
sailor-like captain will think it necessary to play the society clown,
I suppose, seeing that we are young and passably good-looking."
Isobel Baring raised her head from the cushions.
"Ventana was a determined wooer, then? What did he do?" she asked.
"He--he pestered me with his attentions. Oh, I should have liked to
flog him with a whip!"
"He was always that sort of person--too serious," and the head dropped
again.
The steward returned. He was a half-caste; his English was to the
point.
"De captin say he busy, he no come," was his message.
Elsie's display of irritation vanished in a merry laugh. Isobel
bounced up from the depths of the chair; her dark eyes blazed
wrathfully.
"Tell him--" she began.
Then she mastered her annoyance sufficiently to ascertain what it was
that Captain Courtenay had actually said, and she received a courteous
explanation in Spanish that the commander could not leave the
chart-house until the _Kansas_ had rounded the low-lying, red-hued Cape
Caraumilla, which still barred the ship's path to the south--the first
stage of the long voyage from Valparaiso to London.
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