At the moment I first saw Angus Jones I was taking my ease on Funchal beach. I lay by an upturned market boat, careful to keep even my feet in the shade. This is a prime precaution when you wear three toes leaking through either shoe and you live under a sun that burns like the white hot spot in a crown sheet. It was breathless noon. The waves came marching in to hiss on the basalt cobbles. Nevertheless and after a manner I was taking my ease, the only thing I was still free to take in all Madeira and the last thing I shall ever give up anywhere.

Off the one quay lay a rusted tramp with the lines of a wash boiler and the flag of Siam—of all tropic flags—hanging over her stern like a dishrag to a nail. With shoutings a half-naked crew hauled bags and crates out of her into shore boats. Her decks were a litter of teak beams, ill-stowed. She carried a sloven list that brought her port chains under, and she shouldered at her anchor like a drunken man at a post. Moreover, the reek of her was an offense along the water front.

And yet I desired her, with all her untidiness, her filth, her unseemly violence of activity, for presently when her cargo was out she would stagger off the roadstead as she had come and bear away for some other port—any other port. Happy ship that could be free to head up into the world again. Happy souls aboard who should leave the black beach of Funchal behind them! And so I lay and watched and envied her and them, admonishing sand hoppers between whiles.

"Do you chance to have the loan of a match about you?"...

I sat up the better to stare. The stranger stood all of seven feet, it seemed to me, built like a lath, hung around and about with the wreck of tweeds. But what struck me was his headgear. He wore one of those wool caps, half an inch thick, with which an inscrutable Providence has moved the peasantry of this blistering isle to inflict themselves. He had the ear flaps down. It made me sweat again to see him. But he seemed amazingly cool. And so indeed he was, for this was Angus Jones.

"Do you find yourself in need of a fire?" I asked.

"It's for a light to my pipe."

"I'd rather not disturb myself," I told him, "but a smoke is an inducement. If the tobacco is worth it, I can probably raise a match or two from some fisherman."

"Rest yourself again," he said, observing me with interest. "I see you are a man of judgment.... It was my idea if I could beg a match I could also beg the rest."

So we reclined in the shade together, Angus Jones and I, and conversed in the liberal fashion of our calling.

"I am newly come from over yon." He hooked a thumb toward the mountains that wall the almost unknown North Coast. "The cheese from ewes is sustaining but monotonous. The people are of an incredible simplicity. They talk pure Portuguese of the fourteenth century, and they count on their fingers."

"You should have stayed there," I made answer. "The people here are sophisticated by tourists and poverty. Also cheese is superior to cactus fruit, and from sugar cane one turns at last with loathing."

"Do you work for it?"

I was long since lost to shame. I confessed how I ballyhooed at the door of an embroidery shop whenever a ship loosed English passengers for a two-hour visit.

"Not good enough," decided Angus Jones. "Though, mark you, I should never admit a town of this size to be as barren as you say. Still I am fed up with Madeira. I am disappointed in Madeira. Is it believable, after my stay of a month, I have yet to meet the famous wine of the name on its native heath?"

"Quite, since it does not exist. You could have met only an inferior imported Malaga with a fake label."

"Can such things be?" asked Jones, with an expression of pain.

"Oh, it's all a fraud. Like the coasters from the Monte that have to be shoved, and the embroidery, which is cheaper in Paris, and the beggars, who are the only wealthy citizens by escaping the taxes."

He considered.

"I think I shall not stay. Tell me, how does a lad like you or me set about getting away from Madeira?"

"How much money have you?"

"As much as a gentleman needs."

"Not good enough," I echoed. "This is the one place in the world you cannot leave without paying for the privilege."

He looked down on my bitterness from between his ear flaps.

"Man," he said, "when dealing with people of a racial simplicity, never talk of paying. 'Tis in the nature of the lesser nationalities to bear the white man as a burden."

And I laughed. It was a blessing to laugh. I thought I had forgotten how.

"Tell me that after a month in Funchal," I said. "I will teach you a new way of cooking cactus and how to steal sugar cane when the moon is full."

He regarded me solemnly and shook his head.

"How long have you been here?"

"So long I would surely slip on my ear if I should ever again walk on anything but cobbles."

"'Tis living among these islanders has taught you such simplicity. Mark me. For two days I have not eaten. I require food, liquor, and to be helped on my way. Your case is much the same, I take it. Good. Now I say—I, Angus Jones—that all these things shall be procured for the two of us.... Come, and let me restore your faith."

For the sake of the jest I bestirred myself and went with him, well knowing what he would find. We climbed to the deserted Rua Da Praia, past the red stone tower that is known as Benger's Folly, and in a cave-like office under the blue arms of the South American Line we approached its greasy little agent....

"Passige? Passige? Maybeso. Sometimes iss a trimmer or two dead coming up from Rio und they need a man to Hamburg. Only you must shovel coal all day and night. Ha, ha! How will you like that? Show me anyways your exit receipt und I will take down the names."

"My which?" asked Angus Jones.

"Have you not paid your exit, to the customs?"

"I propose to take my exit, not pay it," said Angus Jones.

"Ha, ha. But first, my friend, you must pay. Naturally you get no wages for a passige, therefore We cannot advance it."

"But why should—"

The agent waved his arms and faded in the cave.

"I am busy," said he, "Va-se'mbora!"

We proceeded along the rua to the sign of the Elder-Dempsters....

"To ship?" A bilious Anglo-Portuguese behind the desk eyed us up and down. "Would a captain's cabin at forty pounds suit you?"

"Thanks," said Angus Jones. "I'll consider it. But in the meanwhile—"

"Have you paid the Government tax?"

"I am unable—"

"Enough," snapped the Anglo-Portuguese. "Va-se'mbora!"....

At the Booth Line agency we encountered a lank gentleman with a languid smile who further enlightened Angus Jones.

"Take on hands at Madeira? You're crazy. Do you suppose we want the port closed to us for shipping monarchist suspects? They always head for Brazil, and we're watched every minute."

"I am not a monarchist, nor yet a suspect," said Angus Jones.

"You're the only man around here who can say so. A word of advice. Go straight to the alfandega and pay your tax. If any one hears you're trying to get away without squaring yourself with the authorities, you'll more likely get a free passage to jail."

"Sir—!"

"And I'll ask you kindly not to hang about my place. Now, I've done my best for you. Va-se'mbora!"

In the street Angus Jones deigned to question me.

"What is this unlucky tax?"

"It is levied on every one who chooses to export himself from these salubrious shores," I explained. "It is a matter of five hundred reis."

That brought him to a dead halt in his tracks.

"How did you thrive in the mountains?" I was moved to ask.

"Moderately, as a corn doctor. It is their simple custom to wear shoes three sizes too small. The only drawback was the absence of currency. When I came to collect, what was my grief to find they still rely on barter and exchange."

"Then you will be relieved to hear, possibly, that five hundred reis is no more than half a dollar."

"The simplicity of them!" cried Angus Jones. "Do you know, it is a relief. And yet, it scarce betters us, for he who lacks the penny also lacks the pound.

"However, we will concede the point of departure, temporarily. Remains the populace, the great and generous heart that animates the bosom of the native race. What is a steamship agent?... Man, he also is a stranger living on their simplicity."

We turned into a maze of cobbled ways behind the market, passing between rows of shuttered shops. It was the offseason, and in this midday hour the city dozed.

"Here should be the local version of a delicatessen," said Angus Jones before the store of Joao Gomez. We entered where Joao sat intrenched amid sugar loaves and tinned goods and silvered sausages, beneath a flock of lard balloons no rounder nor shinier than his face.

"Good morning," said Angus Jones. "I hope you are quite well. I hope all your family are quite well. Behold in me, sir, a learned medico recently come from London with healing for these islands. Any and all ills to which flesh is heir are banished by a certain marvelous drug of which I am the happy possessor. Have you boils, fever, gangrene, distemper? Do you sneeze, palpitate, or feel pain in sinciput or occiput, tibia, diaphragm or appendix? Are you subject to measles, dropsy, pyromania, or falling arch?"

Joao Gomez had opened one eye far enough to envisage the eloquent intruder and to locate his broom.

"Va-se'mbora!" quoth Joao, and we were eager so to do, for the broom was the ancient kind made of switches, and it stung....

"Note the error in style," said Angus Jones with a slight frown. "My context is too sauced and savored. I must mend it. A crisper brevity serves our need with such simple people."

At the bazaar where Martinho Agostinho Sousa sold stamps, liquors, basketware, and curios of many sorts to the marauding tourist we reconnoitered.

"I like the name," declared Angus Jones. "There is a wistful dampness about it. That Agostinho, now. What piquant promise! And Sousa—if pronounced in the simplest manner. Can this be an omen?"

Martinho was within and welcomed us with purrings and graceful gestures.

"Good morning," said Angus Jones. "I see you deal in many things fine and rare. I have here an article which I am forced to sell for a shade of its value. You can make a thousand per cent profit from the first collector. Give me a dollar and call it square."...

He opened a thin wallet and laid on the counter a faded internal-revenue stamp such as seals a packet of tobacco in a happier land. Martinho looked at it and from it to Angus Jones, and his suavity departed from him.

"What t' Sam Hill you take me for? And me that run a gin mill in Lawrence, Mass.! Do I look like a fall guy?... Beat it, you long-legged hobo! On your way!"

Thus he pursued us with rude outcry, but at the end lapsed and blew us along with a final vernacular blast: "Va-se'mbora!"

We arrived with speed at the Praca da Constituicao, the main square. Angus Jones was somewhat winded but unsubdued.

"How could I know a wretched exile had returned to contaminate the soil with foreign vulgarity?" he inquired. "Give me a native institution."

Then with an evil humor I pointed out to him the Golden Gate, hospitably open to all vagrant airs that stirred among the plane trees.

"That is the social heart and center of Funchal," I told him, quite truly.

The hairy and muscular proprietor of the Golden Gate was nodding over the great porcelain handles of his beer pumps like a switchman in his tower.

"Good morning," said Angus Jones. "I see you have no billiard marker. 'Tis a great pity, but soon mended."

The proprietor rolled out with a formidable roar, rubbing his eyes.

"Pedro, my glasses! Billiar'? On the minute, mos' honorable sir. How stupid am I that a ship should be in and I catched in a sleeping! We have a ver' fine table of billiar', French or English, if you please should look. Pedro, my glasses! Is it a Castle Liner you arrive by, mos' honorable? Will you have beer or wheesky-sod'?" He bobbed and leered, blind as an owl. I might have warned Angus Jones, but I did not. I only stood where I had a clear space to the door.

"All in good time," said Angus Jones. "I speak of a marker. In billiards, if you mark me, the marking is a proper art. Now, there I meet you as an expert. Give me charge of your billiard room, and I'll double your business."

"Billiar'? Yes, yes; only wait.... Pedro!"

Pedro appeared as from a trap, with a pair of spectacles.

"Do I get the job?" asked Angus Jones.

"Jobe!" exclaimed the proprietor. "What jobe?" He put on his glasses and eyed the applicant up and down. "Ah-h-h! You wish—? ... What is here?" he bellowed, and fell back on his bar.

"I seek a place as billiard marker," said Angus Jones.

"Sagrada Familia! Pig spy of a monarchist!"

The Portuguese equivalent of bungstarter whiffed Angus Jones by an eyelash. The rafters shook. We had a start to the door, and needed it. Jones cleared the sill with the aid of a ponderous foot. In the driving hail of oaths and beer mugs we tore across the Praca. A little soldier in blue linen started up from, somewhere. Two others ran out of a doorway. A crippled beggar threw his crutch at us with a curse. Loungers, ragamuffins, street cars, joined the chase with clamorous glee as we turned up an alley. All Funchal joined in the chorus behind us.

"Va-se'mbora! Va-se'mbora!"

And so consigned we fled at last to safety among suburban gardens and burst panting through a cane brake.

I said nothing to Angus Jones. Comment was too obvious. Angus Jones said nothing to me. Comment was inadequate. But I made such amends as lay with me. At a little change house by the sugar fields I spent my one coin for a bottle of wine. The wink and gasp of Angus Jones as that flagrant vintage seared his throat ended the gentle jape as far as I was concerned. He knew more about Madeira now and he no longer condescended to me....

We regained the water front by a devious route and came down toward the quay among odorous fishing smacks and tangled nets. Hotter, more desolate than ever, lay that black griddle of the foreshore on which Angus Jones was now condemned to wander with me. Nothing moved along its pebbly waste but heat waves and boiling surf and hopping insects in clouds.

Off the jetty lay the Siamese tramp, still heaving in the ground swell, and we came down to the edge to stare across at her. As pariahs before a vision of paradise we stood and yearned toward that disreputable hulk.

They had almost finished with her cargo. At this moment they held a clumsy crate balanced over the side in a sling, seeking to lower it upon a shore boat about the size of a dinghy. The crew swarmed like furious ants, and a white officer in dirty ducks flailed amid the riot. As the chain swung we saw the crate was really a clumsy cage in which ramped a huge and tawny form.

"The circus," I murmured.

"Ha!" said Angus Jones.

"Not the kind of circus you mean," I assured him. "No clowns, no rings, no shell games. It's a kind of fifth-class traveling menagerie, from what I hear, backed as a new venture by his excellency the governor himself. They'll house it in that round barn up the promenade where the cinema lives, and anon those natives who have the price will sit around on the benches and tremble and scratch themselves."

"But why should it be thus?" asked Angus Jones.

"Well, those who carry fleas—"

"No, but why should they tremble?"

"This is a far island. No one hereabouts has ever seen any animals more savage than a goat."

"True," said Angus Jones, with a grimace as if he had bitten into a sour fruit. "It is their simplicity. I had almost forgot."

Strange that he should have taken the word in defeat and disillusionment at that moment, for just then the thing happened. There burst a shrill screaming from the tramp, and its knot of toilers flew apart like bits of a bomb. Men leaped into the rigging, climbed the spars, shot down the hatchways. The hanging cage sagged and cracked, and overside flashed, with an arching spring, some great body all lithe and tawny in the sunlight. It plunged, and presently reappeared, surging for shore.

I felt suddenly conspicuous on that beach. We stood far from shelter. Nor are cobbles good to run upon....

"I think we'd better be going," I suggested, and caught sight of my companion, and stopped.

He still wore his wool cap, and it occurred to me even then that he had not turned a hair throughout our flight. But now his face was curiously splotched red and white and his eyes blazed seaward in fixity. He did not budge.

"Tell me," said Angus Jones—"tell me what was that word with which they harried us a while back? I seemed to spy a meaning. The one word they had for us alike?"

"Va-se'mbora?" I said, fidgeting. "Oh, it's the common repulse to beggars and nuisances. You say it when you want to be rid of some one. Va-se'mbora! Which means in the vernacular: Chase yourself."

"Chase yourself," repeated Angus Jones softly. "Think of that now! They seek to tax us. They refuse us dole. They beat us here and yon. They will not let us go, though we would only leave their country for their country's good.... Withal they tell us: Chase yourself! And they are, as you say, a simple people, living on a far island."

The tawny head was close in.

"It's time to move," I urged.

But Angus Jones picked up an oar and cut the painter from a fishing boat and went down to the water's edge. He made a singular figure on Funchal beach, drawn to all his lean height, with the clothes flapping on him as he struck a noble pose. For myself I retreated among the boats where I might hide in some cuddy.

"Observe the epic grandeur of the scene," declaimed Angus Jones. "Here I stand on a rock in mid-Atlantic to meet the raging monarch of the midmost jungle. 'Tis lofty, incredible—in a sense, miraculous."

The man was mad.... I called to him again.

"For Heaven's sake, come away!"

But Angus Jones smiled out over the blue bay.

"As if St. Patrick were to welcome a sea serpent in the dales of Wexford!" he added, raising his oar.

And there crawled out of the wash at his feet a full-grown male lion, gaunt and sopping, with crimson jaws distended....

From afar among the fishing boats I thought many things very swiftly: that I must close my eyes tight against the cruel, bright Madeira sun and what it would show—this for one; that I should never again feed crude Malaga to a man with an empty stomach—for another; that perhaps the animal might be somewhat assuaged with the sea water, and finally that here, after all, was a miracle, as he had said.

For quite surely I saw Angus Jones fetch the jungle monarch but the one wallop with his oar.

"Down!" thundered Angus Jones.

The lion snarled, spat, crouched—and began to shake its paws in the air and to lick its fur like any prowler of the back fence, all forlorn and bedraggled.

"Kitty, kitty!" said Angus Jones....

The lion blinked up at him. He stooped and tickled it between the ears. When he stood up again the rope was noosed about its neck, and the other end of the rope was in his hand. He hailed me to stand forth, and I obeyed in fear and great wonder.

"Do you see me?" said Angus Jones. "I am come of the dominant race. Do you see my cat? It is the proper pet for such a man. And now—" He drew a long breath through his nose. "And now we will resume our investigations amid the haunts of these simple islanders."

So we turned back and made our second entrance into Funchal—Angus Jones and I—and the lion on a leading string. It was stupendous, and yet it went simply enough. Our progress was slow because Thomas—Angus declared his name was Thomas—had to sit down every few feet and wash his feet or his face or some part of him. He seemed a well-mannered and an amiable beast. But he was a fearsome thing to look upon, striding up the peaceful rua, and I took no part when Angus Jones yanked him along.

We called first at the shop of Joao Gomez. There was evidence that Joao had departed by the back way within the moment. But if he stood not upon his going we made even less of it. Those sausages in silver foil were the true fruit of Bologna, ripe and spicy, and there were chocolates, and dainty biscuits in tins, pickled mussels and Logos figs, anchovies and raisins and hams, real Estremadura, known to song and story. Such delights an epicure might have grudged us, but no epicure ever brought the sharp tooth shared by us three. For three at the feast we were. Angus Jones herded the lion into a corner and fed him with a ham, and he was grateful and made about two bites of it.

"Thomas," said Angus Jones, "I see your grievance is like our own—grown up among whips and scorns. Lay on, my son. 'Tis the day of triumph." And his eye was bright like a china button.

"Can you hold him to it?" I asked as we sat in the ruins of JoÃo's stock.

"Who? Thomas? He also has played a part on many stages. Do you note the scars on his poor ribs? He may even have known me, myself. Hold!"

He caught up a leather thong and cracked it like a whip. The lion spat, but rather like puss at the fireside. His great yellow eyes blinked mildly and the lines about them were lines of worry, very pathetic to see, and his chin whiskers waggled. "Don't be hard on him," I begged.

"Stand there!" cried Angus Jones.

The beast reared meekly on his haunches and stayed so until permitted to drop. Angus Jones waved a ham bone and spoke with emotion.

"They accused us as monarchists. Their only mistake was that we are kings. And here is another royalty who shall enter upon his own this tide. Royal shall be our portion. Come, friends, once more into the breach of hospitality, and we'll teach these yellow simps who they've been entertaining unawares. Come where glory waits!"

We went forth into Funchal, and before our steps as we moved it might have been a city of the dead, but further about it seethed. No one crossed our path, and every house was barred and bolted where we passed, but only just in time. There was a scuttling, a screaming, and a terror in the air, a slamming of doors and windows, a crying upon saints and small children. Ox sleds stampeded in the next square. A flock of goats climbed a garden wall ahead of us. Dogs and boys went heeling it up every alley, and people swept past the street ends in a froth of white faces. Even church bells began to chatter and toll as for a pestilence.

Through all we paced in stately procession, slowly, munching in content, and Thomas with a skittish wreath of sausages round his neck, so that I know not what chance kept the alarm from reaching our new acquaintance until the very instant of our entrance into his bazaar—where there was no back door. The drop of his jaw, his squeal as he climbed the shelves against an avalanche of bottles and demijohns, his frantic perch among the basketwork—these were rare tribute....

"Are you there, old dear, late of Lawrence, Mass.?" inquired Angus Jones. "The drinks are on us. What will you have, Martini Angostura de Souse?"

Thomas was somewhat curious of Martinho and sat him down in the midst of the shop. Here he yawned upward chastely, and the quaking of Martinho made the glassware dance.

"Don't let that thing loose!" begged the liquor dealer. And indeed Thomas as an indoor spectacle was paralyzing.

Angus Jones kept the rope taut as if by his single effort the ravening beast was alone restrained.

"We would not so hastily deprive ourselves of you," he said. "We require you to name the drink. 'Tis no light matter. We want the best in the house. The best, mind you. And if you do not wholly suit us, I bid ye beware!"

Martinho writhed, but he was not long deciding. He took no chances with that red pit of a mouth below him. At his direction I drew forth the cobwebbed flasks, and even in the act he groaned aloud. For this was his treasure.... No import, but genuine liquid gold of the soil, the kind that once gave Madeira such great honor. It bore the magic brand Malvasia, under date of '57, and truly it was the drink of the gods, smooth as honey and sweet as a nut.

Angus Jones let it trickle slowly over his palate and reverently read the faded label, and it was as if a holy balm had spread upon his wounds.

"Sir, I thank you," he said, hushed and solemn. "Sir, you have a thirsty name I shall long remember. For now I perceive a great truth—that no title is given wholly in vain. Thus at last we find the good of Madeira, though extracted before your time."

It was no sample we took with us; we added the whole basket of that precious wine to our loot when we bade farewell to Martinho and left him babbling on his shelf....

And here I have recorded the true culmination of our great adventure. What comes after remains dimmed and mellowed, tinged with joy and also with a tender sadness, consecrate to a fragrant and incomparable memory. I know that we came forth from Sousa's in undisputed possession of all Funchal. I know that we advanced as conquerors through the ruas, calcades and passeios that had witnessed our discomfiture. I know that as we entered the Praca da Constituicao a mighty shout went up, and that when we paraded the great plaza from end to end its roofs were black with spectators, but no man set foot to ground within sight of us. These things seemed then but trifles, the natural incident to such a pilgrimage as we made together, we celebrities, now four in number—Angus Jones, and I, and Thomas, and the basket of Malvasia, '57.

It must have been about the end of the second bottle that we hunted mine hairy host of the Golden Gate through all the rooms of his barracks and smoked his Teneriffe cigars at one thousand reis, and made him play billiards with three oranges while we marked the count upon his rear with cues. He was a vile shot, I remembered, so we took to recording his misses, and Angus Jones said this was the most wonderful system of marking ever invented, and taught him free of all charge. I was greatly moved at the generosity of Jones in this matter and embraced him. It seemed to bespeak so grand and forgiving a character.

The fourth bottle had probably been broached by the time we raided the Commercial Association and flushed three steamship agents. One we set to shoveling coal on the public highway and the other two marched around him singing the monarchist anthem—I was the prompter in that piece. I have an idea it was a success, for the roofs passed the word, and we could hear them howling half a mile back. They do not like the monarchist anthem in Funchal.

Certainly the basket was quite light when parley was called at last. This historic event took place under the high stone tower that is known as Benger's Folly where certain eminent citizens had taken refuge, and I have reason to think the overtures came from no less a person than his excellency the governor himself. "What do we want?" echoed Angus Jones in reply to that hail. "What do we want?"

He leaned ever so slightly on the massive shoulder of Thomas—I was in support with the basket—and let a voluptuous eye run from end to end of the water front. So the Spanish conquistador may have looked who took the place in the sixteenth century. And so he had a right to look on subject territory.

"We are fed; we have drunk—gloriously have we drunk," said Angus Jones. "Honor is now restored, and to these people the conviction of their native and essential shim—sim, pardon me, simplishity." He waved a hand. "We require to be helped on our way. For cabin passage in yonder vessel, tax free and duly paid, we will remit the rest. Let it be peach," said Angus Jones. "Yes, let us have peash!"

And as he said so it was.

I have a vague recollection of seeing Thomas behind his bars again somewhere and of parting from him, with tears, I think; then of the rusted side of a ship and its blessed planks under my feet—for a time. One last picture lingers ere all dissolves....

They were even then hoisting anchor aboard our Siamese tramp, but the vessel had swung her stern shoreward not fifty feet off the quay. Angus Jones stood alone by the taffrail in full view of the stricken throng which had flocked down to quay and beach and promenade to see us go. He stood alone, that marvelous man, holding the last bottle of Malvasia sweetly cradled in an arm, and he harangued the multitude. He gave a dissertation upon Madeira, I believe, its men, manners, and morals. What he said is lost to fame, though doubtless it was pithy and pointed. But I remember his climax, and that was nothing short of inspired. He flung abroad a magnificent gesture.

"Va-se'mbora!" thundered Angus Jones in the face of the populace. "Va-se'mbora!"—Which means in the vernacular: Chase yourself!...