“He was an English naval officer, had been imprisoned, but had been at liberty some weeks when the señorita met him.” “What was his name?” “She does not remember; but you are the gentleman.” “Be it so,” said I, laughing. “On slenderer evidence have men been hanged,” said Greaves. Now came a short pause. Antonio shuffled his naked feet, sometimes looking straight, sometimes squinting, impatient to get forward and lounge. The longboat had made her second trip, and lay alongside the beach. The figures of the men crawling from the grove of trees, trundling the casks among them, showed like beetles in the distance. It was about eleven o’clock. The sunlight was misty; the swell rolled with a dull flash in the brows of it; the wind hummed like clustering bees aloft, and swept the cheek as the breath and kiss of fever. The slewing of the brig, along with the sliding of the sun, pitched the glare upon the deck clear of the trysail, in whose shadow we had been conversing. I called to a man to spread the short awning. Antonio was going; the lady Aurora detained him. “The señorita wants to know,” said the Spanish seaman, “how long the voyage to England occupies.” “We mean to thrash our way home,” answered Greaves. “We shall not take long. Let us call it three months.” “Blessed Virgin! Three months!” echoed the girl in Spanish. A fine look of tragic horror enlarged her eyes. She distorted her mouth into a singular expression. The tension paled her lips and exposed her teeth. Greaves seemed to admire her. For _my_ part, I thought her now the most beautiful and wonderful creature I had ever heard of--a lady who might either be angel or devil, you could not tell which; or she might be both. Her face defied you, for it could put on twenty looks in the course of a short conversation, thanks to her heavy eyebrows, which were full of play and character, and thanks to the long lashes of her eyelids, whose drop or lift, whose languishing falls, and arch or scornful or playful erections, changed the meaning of her glances for her as she chose, rendering them, at her will, transparently eloquent or as inscrutable as a gypsy’s gaze. She put her hand upon her dress, and Antonio interpreted. “The lady’s gown will not last three months, and then, señor?” “Chaw!” cried Greaves, and, pointing with something of passion to the island, he exclaimed--“Ask the lady to put the clock back till the day before yesterday is reached, and _then_!” On this being explained a flash of temper lighted up her eyes. “I shall be in rags,” said she, “before you reach your country.” “We have needles and thread on board,” said Greaves coolly. “You are men, and cannot conceive what it is to be a woman embarking on a long voyage, possessed of no more clothes than what she has on.” “How can we comfort her?” said I. “Can the señorita sew?” said Greaves. Certainly she could sew.