Page:'Twixt land and sea - tales (IA twixtlandseatale00conr).pdf/192

 straight at me. “You will help to keep him quiet, won’t you?”

“Of course, we must keep him quiet,” I declared, understanding very well the nature of her anxiety. “He’s such a lunatic, too, when he’s roused.”

“He is!” she assented, in a soft tone; for it was our joke to speak of Jasper abusively. “But I have tamed him a bit. He’s quite a good boy now.”

“He would squash Heemskirk like a blackbeetle all the same,” I remarked.

“Rather!” she murmured. “And that wouldn’t do,” she added quickly. “Imagine the state poor papa would get into. Besides, I mean to be mistress of the dear brig and sail about these seas, not go off wandering ten thousand miles away from here.”

“The sooner you are on board to look after the man and the brig the better,” I said seriously. “They need you to steady them both a bit. I don’t think Jasper will ever get sobered down till he has carried you off from this island. You don’t see him when he is away from you, as I do. He’s in a state of perpetual elation which almost frightens me.”

At this she smiled again, and then looked serious. For it could not be unpleasant to her to be told of her power, and she had some sense of her responsibility. She slipped away from me suddenly, because Heemskirk, with old Nelson in attendance at his elbow, was coming up the steps of the verandah. Directly his head came above the level of the floor his ill-natured black eyes shot glances here and there.

“Where’s your girl, Nelson?” he asked, in a tone