For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

Three weeks had passed since his interview with Austin before Jefferson was ready to sail, and he spent most of the time in strenuous activity. He had cabled to England for a big centrifugal pump and a second-hand locomotive-type boiler, while, when they arrived, Macallister said that five hundred pounds would not tempt him to raise full steam on the latter. He also purchased a broken-down launch, and, though she was cheap, the cost of her and the pump, with other necessaries, made a considerable hole in his remaining AL2,000. It was for this reason he undertook to make the needful repairs himself, with the help of a steamer's donkey-man who had somehow got left behind, while Austin and Macallister spent most of the week during which the _Estremedura_ lay at Las Palmas in the workshop he had extemporised.

He appeared to know a little about machinery, and could, at least, handle hack-saw and file in a fashion which moved Macallister to approbation, while Austin noticed that the latter's sardonic smile became less frequent as he and the American worked together.