"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.
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