Mossamedes was hauling out from the mole, and Kit, on his way to his room, stopped to look about. The deck was strewn with cargo, for a small steamer that had tied up alongside had just moved astern. Winches rattled and a gang of men lowered some heavy wooden cases into the hold. Another gang got in the slack of a big rope made fast on the wall. There was much shouting; the pilot in front of the wheel-house roared orders, Don Erminio ran up and down the bridge and the mate was vociferous on the forecastle.

Macallister looked out with ironical amusement from the door of the engine-room. As a rule the Scot is not theatrical, and when others were noisy Macallister's dour calm was marked.

"They're pretty clothes," he said, indicating Kit's white uniform. "For a' that, if I had your figure, I'd wear something thick. I alloo Miss Brown thought ye like a tablecloth on a pump. But why are ye no' helping the ithers at the comic opera?"

"I have another job," Kit rejoined, putting a bundle of documents in his pocket. "It doesn't look as if you bothered about yours!"

The engines had begun to throb, and the telegraph rang violently. Macallister signed to somebody below and grinned.

"Yon's Don Erminio taking the floor. He means naething and I dinna mind him. When the action kin' o' drags he shouts and gives the telegraph handle a bit pull. When ye think aboot it, temperament's a curious thing. Maybe ye have seen a big boat haul out on the Clyde? Noo an' then an officer lifts his hand, ye hear a whistle, and a winch starts. All's calm and quiate. She's away, ten thousand tons o' her, before ye ken what's gaun on!"

"You're a grim, efficient lot," Kit remarked. "Just now it looks as if the pilot meant to hit the coaling tug. I don't know if you can stop him; that's your business and his. I'll get to mine before she starts to roll."

He went to his room, pulled up his folding stool, and threw the documents on his desk, for he was rather puzzled about some cases of agricultural machinery and tools. Perhaps these were the boxes transhipped from the other boat, but, so far as Kit knew, agricultural machinery was not much used in Morocco. In fact, he thought the Moors' methods were the methods of Abraham. In the meantime, the shouts got louder, and Kit imagined Juan on the forecastle, disputed with the pilot on the bridge.

"Pero, SeÑor!" the mate's expostulating cry pierced the turmoil, and then Kit's inkpot jumped from the desk.

He saw a dark smear on his new clothes, Mossamedes trembled, and he felt a heavy shock. His stool tilted, and he went over backwards and struck his head against the locker.

Getting up rather shakily, he remarked that the ship had listed, for the floor of his room was sharply inclined. When she lurched upright with a jerk he seized the doorpost and then, since it was obvious she was not capsizing, put the cork in the inkpot and began to pick up his papers. He had something of the sobriety that marks the puritan temperament, and it was characteristic that he occupied himself with his proper job. The papers for which he was accountable must not get stained by ink. When he had put all straight he went on deck.

Not far off, the coaling tug circled back for the wharf. Her bulwarks were broken, some plates were bent, and she had let go the string of barges she towed. On board Mossamedes Don Erminio leaned against the bridge-screens and his face was very white. The pilot stated loudly the course the tug's patron ought to have steered, and the mate and a number of sailors ran about the deck. Kit did not think they were usefully employed.

Going to the forecastle, he found Macallister leaning over the rails. A plate was bulged and the stem was bent, but it looked as if all the damage were above the water. Lines of foam ran by and melted ahead, for Mossamedes was steaming stern-foremost out of port.

"She's no' much the worse; I dinna ken aboot the tug," Macallister remarked, and took Kit to a spot beneath the bridge. "Tell the captain to brace up and get away to sea," he resumed. "If he's no' quick, the Commandancia launch will come off and stop us to make reports. They'll forget a' aboot it before we're back."

Kit translated and Don Erminio, pulling himself together, advanced upon the pilot. A savage dispute began, but presently the captain stopped and spread out his hands.

"The animal is not satisfied. He will not go."

"Aweel, I'll come up and pit him off," Macallister remarked and climbed the ladder.

The pilot hesitated. His duty was to take the ship outside the mole, but the engineer's look was resolute, and he retreated to the ladder at the opposite end of the bridge. When Macallister reached the top the pilot had reached the bottom, and a few moments afterwards, went down a rope to his boat.

"Noo, if ye'll put the helm across, I'll give her a bit shove ahead and we'll get away," Macallister said to the captain and rejoined Kit.

"Nane o' it was my job and maybe on board a British ship I'd no' ha' done as much," he observed and vanished below.

Mossamedes circled, the engines throbbed harder, the mole dropped back, and Kit began to laugh. He agreed that Macallister would not have done as much on board a British ship. For all that, his rude but cool efficiency was rather fine.

Half an hour afterwards Kit took some documents to the captain's room. Don Erminio was stretched on a locker, and a bottle of vermouth and some Palma cigars balanced the swing-table. When he saw the documents he frowned.

"Another day. Just now I am ill," he said. "When one has an assassin for a pilot, to command a ship is not amusing. I bear much, but some time I take Enrique Maria Contallan y Clavijo by the neck and throw him in the sea. In the meantime, I have saved the ship and we will take a drink."

Kit refused politely and did not smile. He liked Don Erminio and the captain was not a fool. Kit had known him calm and steady when things were awkward, and sometimes his pluck was rash. All the same, he was unstable; one could not foresee the line he would take. The Spanish character frankly puzzled Kit. It was marked by sharp contrasts, and one could use no rules. Macallister and Jefferson were not like that. Their qualities, so to speak, were constant. When the strain was heavy one knew they would be cool.

Mossamedes steered for the eastern islands, and in the morning the parched rocks of Lanzarote melted in the glitter on the horizon. Then she headed for Africa and at sunset Don Erminio stopped the ship and used the lead. He got soundings on the coast-shelf, and Kit, passing the chart-room, imagined the mate and captain argued about the ship's position, but when Mossamedes went on again the compass indicated that Don Erminio had hauled out to avoid shoals. When the moon rose one saw nothing but sparkling water, the swell was long and measured, and the leadsman, making another cast, got no bottom. It looked as if they had left the hummocks on the coast-shelf astern, and Mossamedes went full-speed.

About midnight Kit lounged and smoked on a locker in the engine-room. He was not sleepy, and since Mossamedes sailed, had thought much about Olivia. On the whole, his thoughts were disturbing. When he was with Olivia he forgot his poverty; all he saw was her charm. She was beautiful, she was clever and now and then he got a hint of tenderness that gave him a strange thrill. The thrill moved and braced him; while it lasted all looked possible. Somehow he would mend his fortune and make his mark. Austin, who had held Kit's post, had done so and married Olivia's sister.

Afterwards, when Olivia was not about, Kit knew himself to be a fool. To begin with, he had not Austin's talents and must be satisfied to keep his proper level. Then supposing he did get rich? After all, he was not Olivia's sort. Kit was staunch and stopped there; he would not admit that sometimes he vaguely doubted if Olivia were the girl for him. Instincts he had inherited from sober and frugal ancestors were strong. Yet for the most part he resisted unconsciously. When one is young and carried away by an attractive girl one is not logical.Lighting a fresh cigarette, he looked about. Mossamedes rolled and light and shadow played about the machinery. In front, the bright cranks flashed and faded in a shallow pit, the crossheads slammed between their guides and the connecting-rods, shining like silver, swung out of the gloom. Above, the big cylinders throbbed and shook with the impulse that drove the ship ahead. Men like shadows moved about with oilcans and tallow-swabs, but now and then a moving beam touched a face beaded by sweat. Macallister occupied the top of a tool box and smoked a black pipe.

Kit liked the engine-room. The steady beat of the machine was soothing. One got a sense of order, measured effort and strength that matched the strain. Force was not wasted but sternly controlled. In the engine-room Macallister was another man, quiet, keen, concentrated, and Kit understood the Scots' satisfaction when all ran well. They sprang from a stock that counted rule and effort to be worth more than beauty.

There was a crash, and Kit jumped from the locker. Mossamedes stopped and the shock threw him against a column. He seized the iron and held on, conscious that he trembled. The jar was terrifying because it was not expected. A sea broke about the vessel, she shook and water rolled across the deck. A greaser shouted and Kit saw Macallister on the grated platform above. He had not seen him go, but his hand was on the throttle-wheel. He did not look disturbed, and signed a man to the control of the reversing-gear. If the link were pulled across, the engines would go astern. The telegraph, however, was silent and Macallister did not turn the wheel.

The ship lifted, lurched forward, as if a sea had borne her up, and went on. Macallister waited for a few moments and then went up to the door with Kit. The door on the starboard side looked out towards Africa, but nothing broke the furrowed plain of glittering sea.

"I'm thinking she bumped a bit hummock," Macallister remarked. "She got a jolt, but the old boat was built by men who dinna scamp their job. Where ye see yon house's name, ye ken the work is good."

"All the same, you have started the bilge pump," said Kit, for a sharp throbbing pierced the beat of machinery.

"Pepe will let her rin a few minutes. Although I dinna expect she'll draw much water, ye keep the rules," Macallister replied and turned to Miguel, who came along the alleyway. "What do you think about it, friend? The third voyage has not begun well."

Macallister's Castilian was uncouth, but Miguel understood. "It is not good, Don Pedro! A bad coast and a treacherous people, but one is not disturbed. Some of the saints were fishermen, and mine is king of all. But I go to try the after well."

He went off, but Kit had noted that the line he carried was neatly coiled and the sounding-rod was wet. He thought it typical that the old quartermaster had tried the forward well a few moments after the ship struck. Moreover his talk about his saint somehow was not extravagant. One felt that Miguel knew and trusted his great patron.

"A most queer fellow," Macallister remarked. "A believer in wax images and pented boards."

"Pented boards?" said Kit.

"Just that," Macallister rejoined. "Ye'll no ken the Scottish classics. When the great reformer was a galley slave they gave him the image to worship. 'A pented brod, mair fit for swimming than praying til,' says he and threw't overboard. Weel, for Miguel, the images are not pented things, and I've met weel-grounded Scots I wouldna trust like him. He kens his job and his word goes. I alloo it's much."

Kit went on deck. The sea sparkled in the moon and long regular combers rolled up from the north. One could not see land and nothing indicated shoals ahead. Mossamedes dipped her bows to the knight-heads and showers of spray leaped about the rail. Then her stern went down and the rising forecastle cut the sky. For a time Kit forgot Olivia and mused about the engineer and Miguel.

Macallister's mood was sometimes freakish and his humour rude, but behind this was a stern, honest efficiency. The quartermaster was a mystic, but when the big white combers chased the cargo launch one could trust him with the steering oar. After all to know one's job was much.