Kit Musgrave's Luck

was fast and built on a steam yacht's model, except that her bow was straight. Although she rolled horribly across the combers the

Pedro Macallister, the chief engineer, for although the roll stated that his birthplace was Portobello, it was not in Spain. The rules require

oat to carry him ashore, mused about his first encounter with the captain. Campeador was steaming out from Las Palmas, rolling violently as she breasted the long, foam-crested seas,

irt and shabby English clothes. His cap, ridiculously shrunk by spray, was like a schoolboy's. Kit inquired politely

people without honour or education!" he shoute

to keep proper cargo lists, and what he undertook he did. It was not

know about the chemical m

tin dispatch-box and

ubts my honour I am an anarchist!" He kicked the tumbled papers. "If you find five peseta

anger were not plain, Kit thought it possible the cargo belonged to a relation of the captain's. Picking up the papers, he returned to his office, and when Campeador reached port the bags of manu

, but not important," he remarked. "You will write

d not give the names of all on

ought, there is no use in having official friends.

wn a pile of bags of silver. There was a bank at Las Palmas, but for the most part the merchants did n

before you sign? It is th

the agent's voice was scornful. For a moment

ll the mone

id the agent and Kit

some risk, but he had begun to see the rules were different in

together an animal,

he mused about it, and admitted that perhaps his philosophy did not cover all the complexities of human nature. By

e man! He was Austin's partner and the

ho is A

r aboot the freight. Pented pictures, until he and Jeffer

im to the lady

rown is cautious, and although he's anither daughter, I doubt if I could

humorously, and Kit often found it hard to determine whether he joked or not. All the same, people did

nd not ambitious, but he had some talent that Jacinta roused him to use. Macallister said Jacinta could make any man do what she wanted and the girl Jefferson married was her friend. Money was raised, Austin went to Africa, and he and Jefferson salved

ful voice. "Ye're no like Austin. He was a lad o' parts.

ed and hesitated. "Besides, if I'm ever ric

pick o' twelve! Then I'm thinking it was no' for nothing she l

ck. Don Erminio carried an old pinfire gun, hung round his shoulders by a str

go shoot the rabbit. If the patron is

ats that roamed among the hills were not altogether wild but belonged to somebody. When the party landed he thought his doubts were justified. Two horses, a big white donkey, and a mule

ned to Kit. "He is more animal than the mulo,

gh, and dangerous in places where the sharp lava blocks were piled in heaps, but Don Erminio rode his lean horse like a gaucho. The fat mate rode like a sack, but his big, cautious donkey knew the hills, and Macallister had the carriage and ba

es ached intolerably. The muleteer ran beside him, sometimes holding on by the stirrup and sometimes by the animal's tail. At the top the path went obliquely up a precipitous cinder bank and Macallister used his pointed stick. The mule kicked and Kit, falling back

f square lava houses standing among palms and sugar cane. The

d to Kit. "Now we take a drin

Kit drank two cups of red wine. The captain drank ca?a, a raw rum, and presently picking up a guitar began to sing. His voice was good and Kit liked the music, although he did not k

med. "But they are stra

tarting for the port, he left the village but soon afterwards sat down by a euphorbia bush. Although his head was clear, his legs were a trifle unsteady; the red wine was stronger than he had

they were red, and some belts shone in the searching light like polished steel. In the hollow of a barranco where water ran were tall pa

lat country stained by smoke and the dust of traffic. He had once stopped for a week with his father's relations in the North and remembered the quiet, green valley where the ri

t did not altogether approve; his friends and relations were frugal, industrious folk. He had a vague notion that their utilitarian virtues were sometime

d of yeomen flockmasters, who by stern self-denial had held their sheep-walks on the bleak hills, was in his vein

when he had done so he would stop. He thought, for example, he had stopped in time when he left the wine sh