"The laddie thinks of nothing else," said his aunt; "indeed, why should he, seeing he comes of pure Viking blood on the one side, and something of it on the other, if old tales be true? Send him to the navy; then if he is drowned, it will be decently in the Queen's uniform."
So into the navy he went, and, having passed through Greenwich, was now awaiting orders at Eval; where he found a most congenial playmate in his aunt.
His still beardless face dimpled with smiles as he worked. To begin with, the wood, which had evidently been used as a cow peg, was mahogany. In other words, it must have been stolen from the drift pile on which his uncle, by virtue of his official position, was supposed to keep an eye, since the logs which the Gulf Stream leaves in its course are Government property. This amused Rick, seeing that the mere suggestion of such nefarious possibilities was a sure bait to his uncle's anger. Then the subject he had elected to carve seemed to him amusing. It was a replica of a Numbo Jumbo he had seen amongst the Caribbees, and which had tickled his fancy by its lavish ugliness. So his knife being a perfect tool-chest of implements, he gouged and punched, chiselled and filed, until, as he stuck the pointed end of the peg into the ground again, a very creditable copy of a malignant god stood before him.
"It's the best I've done yet," he said to himself; "that dodge of the bread-pellet eyes with the shot in the middle of them gives the old devil quite a live look."
He was not yet twenty-one, and boy enough to be proud of the ingenuity which had converted some sandwich crumbs and the lead off a cast into a pair of evil eyes. Man enough, however, to whistle "Who is Sylvia?" as he leant back against the cairn, smiling at Numbo Jumbo and thinking of Lady Maud.
"Rick! you bad boy!" cried his aunt's eager voice just as he was beginning to forget everything in drowsiness. "You promised you wouldn't when I threw the last into the Minch, and this is worse, ever so much worse!"
"Better, you mean. It's the best I've done. Look at its eyes!" Miss Willina pretended to shudder as her hand, instinct with righteous vengeance, went out towards the idol.
"You might leave it there till we go," pleaded Rick. "It really is the best I've done by a long way. Then you could take it home Aunt Will, and have a real _auto-da-fe_. It's more orthodox than drowning; besides, it will help the peats to a blaze when we go in."