Page 3 (1/2)

Isobel Baring raised her head from the cushions

"Ventana was a determined wooer, then? What did he do?" she asked

"He--he pesteredhim 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 coe

Elsie's display of irritation vanished in a h Isobel

bounced up from the depths of the chair; her dark eyes blazed

wrathfully

"Tell hian

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

But pertinacity was afamily; otherwise,

Isobel's father, a bluff, church-warden type of man, would not have won

his way to the chief place in the firents, the leading house in Chile's principal

port Notwithstanding Elsie's previous outburst, the steas sent