to his skin, and his eyes were red. He was forced to wait, and while
the barber attended to other customers, he fell asleep in his chair.
When he left the shop he went to a hotel and slept for twelve hours.

CHAPTER VI

LISTER MEETS AN OLD ANTAGONIST

The hotel Catalina, half-way between Las Palmas harbor and the town, was
not crowded, and a number of the quests had gone to a ball at the
neighboring Metropole. Barbara, going out some time after dinner, found
the veranda unoccupied and sat down. Mrs. Cartwright was getting better
and did not need her, and Barbara was satisfied to be alone. Her
thoughts were disturbing, and trying to banish them for a few minutes,
she looked about.

The veranda was long, and the lights from the hotel threw the shadow of
the wooden pillars across the dusty grass. Barbara's figure was outlined
in a dark silhouette. She did not wear a hat and, since the night was
warm, had put nothing over her thin dinner dress. She looked slender and
very young.

A strip of parched garden, where a few dusty palms grew, ran down to the
road, across which the square block of the Metropole cut the shining
sea. Steamers' lights swung gently against the dark background of the
Isleta hill. Beyond the Metropole a white belt of surf ran back to the
cluster of lights at the foot of the mountain that marked Las Palmas.
One heard the languid rollers break upon the beach and the measured
crash of surges on the reefs across the isthmus. Sometimes, when the
throb of the surf sank, music came from the Metropole. A distant rattle
indicated a steam-tram going to the port.

The long line across the harbor was the mole, and Barbara had thought
the small steamer, lying near its end, like _Terrier_. There was nothing
in the soft blue dark behind the mole until one came to the African
coast. Then Barbara firmly turned her glance. In a sense, she had sent
Lister to Africa, but she was not going to think about him yet. She must
not think about him until she had weighed something else.

A few hours since she had got a jar. Walking in the town she saw a man
whose figure and step she thought she knew. He was some distance off,
and she entered a shop and bought a Spanish fan she did not want.
Perhaps her disturbance was ridiculous, but the man was very like
Shillito, and their meeting at the busy port was not impossible. Las
Palmas was something like an important railway junction. Numerous
steamers called, and passengers f