CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVI.BILL STOUT AS A TOURIST.Bill Stoutindulged in some very severe reflections upon the conduct of his fellow-conspirator when he found that he was alone in the compartment where he had spent the night. The porter who woke him told him very respectfully (he was a first-class passenger), in good Spanish for a man in his position, that the train was to be run out of the station. Bill couldn’t understand him, but he left the car.“Where are the fellows that came with me?” he asked, turning to the porter; but the man shook his head, and smiled as blandly as though the runaway had given him apeseta.Bill was not much troubled with bashfulness; and he walked about the station, accosting a dozen persons whom he met; but not one of them seemed to know a word of English.“No hablo Ingles,” was the uniform reply of all. One spoke to him in French; but, though Bill had studied this language, he had not gone far enough to be able to speak even a few words of it. He went into the street, and a crowd of carriage-drivers saluted him.“Hotel,” said he, satisfied by this time that it was of no use to talk English to anybody in Spain.As this word is known to all languages, he got on so far very well.“Hotel Villa de Madrid!” shouted one of the drivers.Though Bill’s knowledge of geography was very limited, he had heard of Madrid, and he identified this word in the speech of the man. He bowed to him to indicate that he was ready to go to the hotel he named. He was invited to take a seat in atartana, a two-wheeled vehicle not much easier than a tip-cart, and driven to the hotel. Bill did not look like a very distinguished guest, for he wore the garb of a common sailor when he took off his overcoat. He had not even put on his best rig, as he did not go ashore in regular form. He spoke to the porter who received him at the door, in English, thinking it was quite proper for those about a hotel to speak all languages. But this man seemed to be no better linguist than the rest of the Spaniards; and he made no reply.The guest was conducted to the hall where the landlord, or the manager of the hotel, addressed him in Spanish, and Bill replied in English.“Habla V. Frances?” asked the manager.“I don’thabloany thing but English,” replied Bill, beginning to be disgusted with his ill-success in finding any one who could understand him.“Parlez-vous Français?” persisted the manager.“No. I don’tparlez-vous.”“Parlate voi Italiano?”“No: I tell you I don’t speak any thing but English,” growled Bill.“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”“No; no Dutch.”The manager shrugged his shoulders, and evidently felt that he had done enough, having addressed the guest in four languages.“Two fellows—no comee here?” continued Bill, trying his luck with pigeon English.Of course the manager shook his head at this absurd lingo; and Bill was obliged to give up in despair. The manager called a servant, and sent him out; and the guest hoped that something might yet happen. He seated himself on a sofa, and waited for the waters to move.“I want some breakfast,” said Bill when he had waited half an hour; and as he spoke he pointed to his mouth, and worked his teeth, to illustrate his argument.The manager took out his watch, and pointed to the “X” upon the dial, to indicate that the meal would be ready at that hour. A little later the servant came in with another man, who proved to be an English-speaking citizen of Valencia. He was avalet de place, or guide.With his aid Bill ascertained that “two young fellows” had not been to the Hotel Villa de Madrid that morning. He also obtained a room, and some coffee and bread to last him till breakfast time. When he had taken his coffee, he went with the man to all the hotels in the place. It was nearly ten o’clock when he reached theFonda del Cid. Two young gentlemen, one of them an officer, had just breakfasted at the hotel, and left for Grao, the port of Valencia, two miles distant, where they were to embark in a steamer whichwas to sail for Oran at ten. Bill had not the least idea where Oran was; and, when he asked his guide, he was astonished to learn that it was in Africa, a seaport of Algeria. Then he was madder than ever; for he would have been very glad to take a trip to Africa, and see something besides churches and palaces. He dwelt heavily upon the trick that Bark had played him. It was ten o’clock then, and it would not be possible to reach Grao before half-past ten. He could try it; the steamer might not sail as soon as advertised: they were often detained.Bill did try it, but the steamer was two miles at sea when he reached the port. He engaged the guide for the day, after an effort to beat him down in his price of sixpesetas. He went back to the hotel, and ate his breakfast. There was plenty ofVal de Peñaswine on the table, and he drank all he wanted. Then he went to his room to take a nap before he went out to see the sights of the place. Instead of sleeping an hour as he intended, he did not wake till three o’clock in the afternoon. The wine had had its effect upon him. He found the guide waiting for him in the hall below. The man insisted that he should go to the cathedral; and when they had visited that it was dinner-time.“How much do I owe you now?” asked Bill, when he came to settle with the guide.“Sixpesetas,” replied the man. “That is the price I told you.”“But I have not had you but half a day: from eleven till three you did not do any thing for me,” blustered Bill in his usual style.“But I was ready to go with you, and waited all that time for you,” pleaded the guide.“Here is fourpesetas, and that is one more than you have earned,” added Bill, tendering him the silver.The man refused to accept the sum; and they had quite a row about it. Finally the guide appealed to the manager of the hotel, who promptly decided that sixpesetaswas the amount due the man. Bill paid it under protest, but added that he wanted the guide the next day.“I shall go with you no more,” replied the man, as he put the money into his pocket. “I work for gentlemen only.”“I will pay you for all the time you go with me,” protested Bill; but the guide was resolute, and left the hotel.The next morning Bill used his best endeavors to obtain another guide; but for a time he was unable to make anybody comprehend what he wished. An Englishman who spoke Spanish, and was a guest at the hotel, helped him out at breakfast, and told the manager what the young man wanted.“I will not send for a guide for him,” replied the manager; and then he explained to the tourist in what manner Bill had treated his valet the day before, all of which the gentleman translated to him.But we cannot follow Bill in all his struggles with the language, or in all his wanderings about Valencia. He paid his bill at the hotelVilla de Madrid, and went to another. On his way he bought a new suit of clothes, and discarded for the present his uniform, which attracted attention wherever he was. He went to theFonda del Cidnext; but he could not obtain a guide who spoke English: the only one they evercalled in was engaged to an English party for a week. The manager spoke English, but he was seldom in the house. In some of the shops they spoke English; but Bill was almost as much alone as though he had been on a deserted island. The days wore heavy on his hands; and about all he could do was to drinkVal de Peñas, and sleep it off. He wanted to leave Valencia, but knew not where to go. He desired to get out of Spain; and he had tried to get the run of the English steamers; but as he could not read the posters, or often find any one to read them for him, he had no success.He was heartily tired of the place, and even more disgusted than he had been on board of the Tritonia. He desired to go to England, where he could speak the language of the country; but no vessel for England came along, so far as he could ascertain. One day an English gentleman arrived at the hotel; and Bill got up a talk with him, as he did with everybody who could speak his own language. He told him he wanted to get to England; and the tourist advised him to cross Spain and Portugal by rail, and take a steamer at Lisbon, where one sailed every week for Southampton or Liverpool, and sometimes two or three a week.Bill adopted this suggestion, and in the afternoon started for Lisbon. He had been nearly a week in Valencia, and the change was very agreeable to him. He found a gentleman who spoke English, in the compartment with him; and he got along without any trouble till he reached Alcazar, where his travelling friend changed cars for Madrid. But, before he left the train, he told Bill that he was too late to connectfor Lisbon, and that he would have to wait till half-past one in the afternoon. He could obtain plenty to eat in the station; but that ten hours of waiting at a miserable shed of a station was far worse than learning a lesson in navigation. He was on the high land, only ninety miles from Madrid, and it was cold in the night. There was no fire to warm him, and he had to walk to keep himself comfortable. He could not speak a word to any person; and, when any one spoke to him, he had learned to say, “No hablo.” He had picked up a few words of Spanish, so that he could get what he wanted to eat, though his variety was very limited.In the afternoon he took the train for Ciudad Real, and arrived there at six o’clock. He was too tired to go any farther that night; indeed, he was almost sick. He found an omnibus at the station, and said “Hotel” to the driver. He felt better in the morning, and reached the railroad station at six o’clock. As at the hotel, he gave the ticket-seller a paper and pencil; and he wrote down in figures the price of a ticket to Badajos, inreales. He had changed his money intoIsabelinos, and knew that each was one hundredreales. Bill had improved a good deal in knowledge since he was thrown on his own resources. He waited till the train arrived from Madrid. It was quite a long one; but the conductor seemed to know just where the vacant seats were, and led him to the last carriage, where he was assigned a place in a compartment in which four passengers occupied the corners, and seemed to be all asleep. The runaway took one of the middle seats. He only hoped, that, when the daylight came, he might hear some of his fellow-travellers speak English.Unfortunately for him, they all spoke this language. The light in the top of the compartment had gone out, and the persons in the corners were buried in their overcoats, so that he could not see them after the conductor carried his lantern away.The train started; and Bill, for the want of something better to do, went to sleep himself. His bed at the hotel had been occupied by a myriad of “cosas de España” before he got into it; and his slumbers had been much disturbed. He slept till the sun broke in through the window of the compartment. He heard his fellow-travellers conversing in English; and, when he was fairly awake, he was immediately conscious that a gentleman who sat in one of the opposite corners was studying his features. But, as soon as Bill opened his eyes, it was not necessary for him to study any longer. The gentleman in the corner was Mr. Lowington, principal of the academy squadron; and Bill’s solitary wanderings had come to an end.The principal knew every student in the fleet; but Bill’s head had been half concealed, and his dress had been entirely changed, so that he did not fully identify him till he opened his eyes, and raised his head. The other persons in the compartment were Dr. Winstock, the captain, and the first lieutenant of the Prince.“Good-morning, Stout,” said Mr. Lowington, as soon as he was sure that the new-comer was one of the runaways from the Tritonia.Of course Bill was taken all aback when he realized that he was on the train with the ship’s company of the Prince. But the principal was good-natured, as he always was; and he smiled as he spoke. Bill hadunwittingly run into the camp of the enemy; and that smile assured him that he was to be laughed at, in addition to whatever punishment might be inflicted upon him; and the laugh, to him, was the worst of it.“Good-morning, sir,” replied Bill sheepishly; and he had not the courage to be silent as he desired to be in that presence.“Have you had a good time, Stout?” asked Mr. Lowington.“Not very good,” answered Bill; and by this time the eyes of the doctor and his two pupils, who had not noticed him before, were fixed upon the culprit.“Where is Lingall?” inquired the principal. “Is he on the train with you?”“No, sir: he and Raimundo ran away from me in Valencia.”“Raimundo!” exclaimed Mr. Lowington. “Was he with you?”“Yes, sir; and they played me a mean trick,” added Bill, who had not yet recovered from his indignation on account of his desertion, and was disposed to do his late associates all the harm he could.“They ran away from you, as you did from the rest of us,” laughed the principal, who knew Stout so well that he could not blame his companions for deserting him. “Do you happen to know where they have gone?”“They left Valencia in a steamer at ten o’clock in the forenoon;” and Bill recited the particulars of his search for his late companions, feeling all the time that he was having some part of his revenge upon them for their meanness to him.“But where was the steamer bound?” asked the principal.“For Oban,” replied Bill, getting it wrong, as he was very apt to do with geographical names.“Oban; that’s in Scotland. No steamer in Valencia could be bound to Oban,” added Mr. Lowington.“This place is not in Scotland: it is in Africa,” Bill explained.“He means Oran,” suggested Dr. Winstock.“That’s the place.”Bill knew nothing in regard to the intended movements of Raimundo and Bark.“How happened Raimundo to be with you?” asked the principal. “He left the Tritonia the night before we came from Barcelona.”“No, sir: he did not leave her at all. He was in the hold all the time.”As Bill was very willing to tell all he knew about his fellow-conspirator and the second master,—except that Bark and himself had tried to set the vessel on fire,—he related all the details of the escape, and the trip to Tarragona, including the affray with the boatman. He told the truth in the main, though he did not bring out the fact of his own cowardice, or dwell upon the cause of the quarrel between himself and his companions.“And how happened you to be here, and on this train? Did you know we were on board of it?” inquired the principal.“I did not know you were on this train; but I knew you were over this way somewhere.”“And you were going to look for us,” laughed Mr.Lowington, who believed that the fellow’s ignorance had caused him to blunder into this locality at the wrong time.“I was not looking for you, but for the Tritonias,” replied Bill, who had come to the conclusion that penitence was his best dodge under the circumstances. “I was going over to Lisbon to give myself up to Mr. Pelham.”“Indeed! were you?”“Yes, sir: I did not intend to run away; and it was only when Raimundo had a boat from the shore that I thought of such a thing. I have had hard luck; and I would rather do my duty on board than wander all about the country alone.”“Then it was Lingall that spoiled your fun?”“Yes, sir; but I shall never want to run away again.”“That’s what they all say. But, if you wished to get back, why didn’t you go to Barcelona, where the Tritonia is? That would have been the shortest way for you.”“I didn’t care about staying in the brig, with no one but Mr. Marline and Mr. Rimmer on board,” answered Bill, who could think of no better excuse.Bill thought he might get a chance to slip away at some point on the road, or at least when the party arrived at Lisbon. If there was a steamer in port bound to England, he might get on board of her.“We will consider your case at another time,” said the principal, as the train stopped at a station.The principal and the surgeon, after sending Bill to the other end of the compartment, had a talk aboutRaimundo, who had evidently gone to Africa to get out of the jurisdiction of Spain. After examining Bradshaw, they found the fugitives could take a steamer to Bona, in Algeria, and from there make their way to Italy or Egypt; and concluded they would do so.CHAPTER XVII.THROUGH THE HEART OF SPAIN.Bill Stoutconcluded that he was not a success as a tourist in Spain; but he was confident that he should succeed better in England. He resolved to be a good boy till the excursionists arrived in Lisbon, and not make any attempt to escape; for it was not likely that he could accomplish his purpose. Besides, he had no taste for any more travelling in Spain. In fact, he had a dread of being cast upon his own resources in the interior, where he could not speak the language.“Do you know what country you are in?” asked Dr. Winstock, who sat opposite his pupils, as he had come to call them.“I reckon you’d know if you had seen it as I have,” interposed Bill Stout, who had a seat next to Murray, with a broad grin at the absurdity of the question. “It is Spain,—the meanest country on the face of the earth.”“So you think, Stout; but you have had a rather hard experience of it,” replied the doctor. “We have had a very good time since we left Barcelona.”“I suppose you know the lingo; and that makes all the difference in the world,” added Bill.“When I spoke of country, I referred to a province,” continued Dr. Winstock.“This is La Mancha,” answered Sheridan.“The country of Don Quixote,” added the doctor.“I saw a statue of Cervantes at Madrid, and I heard one of the fellows say he was the author of ‘Don Juan,’” laughed Murray.“Cervantes wrote the first part at Valladolid, and it produced a tremendous sensation. I suppose you have read it.”“I never did,” replied Bill Stout, who counted himself in as one of the party. “Is it a good story?”“It is so considered by those who are competent judges.”“I read it years ago,” added Sheridan.“It is said to be a take-off on the knights of Spain,” said Murray. “Is that so?”“I don’t think that was his sole idea in writing the book; or, if it was, he enlarged upon his plan. He was a literary man, with some reputation, before he wrote Don Quixote; and he probably selected the most popular subject he could find, and it grew upon him as he proceeded. Sancho Panza is a representative of homely common-sense, unaided by any imagination, while his master is full of it. He is used, in the first part of the story, to act as a contrast to the extravagant Don; and in this part of the work he does not use any of the proverbs which is the staple of the typical Spaniard’s talk. The introduction of this feature of Sancho’s talk was a new idea to the author.”“I suppose Cervantes was born and lived in La Mancha,” said Murray.“Not at all: he was born near Madrid, at Alcala de Henares. He was a soldier in the early years of his life. He fought in the battle of Lepanto, under Don John. At one time he was a sort of custom-house officer in Seville; but he got into debt, and was imprisoned for three months, during which time he is said to have been engaged in his great work. He was also a prisoner in Algiers five years; and ten times he risked his life in attempts to escape. He finally died in neglect, poverty, and want.”“Then this is where Don Quixote tilted at windmills,” said Murray, looking out at the window; “and there is one of them.”“It is not in every province of Spain that the Don could have found a windmill to tilt at,” added the doctor.About eight o’clock the train stopped for breakfast, which theavant-courierhad ordered.“This is a vine and olive country,” said the doctor, when the train was again in motion.“Shall we have a chance to see how they make the oil and how they make wine?” asked Sheridan.“You will have a chance to see how it is done; but you will not be able to see it done at this season of the year. There is an olive-orchard,” continued the doctor, pointing out of the window.“The trees look like willows; and I should think they were willows.”“They are not. These trees last a great number of years,—some say, hundreds.”“There are some which look as though they were planted by Noah after he left the ark. They are ugly-looking trees,” added Murray.“The people do not plant them for their beauty, but for the fruit they yield. You see they are in regular rows, like an apple-orchard at home. They start the trees from slips, which are cut off in January. The end of the slip is quartered with a knife, and a small stone put into the end to separate the parts, and the slip stuck into the ground. The earth is banked up around the plant, which has to be watered and tenderly cared for during the first two years of its growth. In ten years these trees yield some returns; but they are not at their best estate till they are thirty years old. The olives we eat”—“I never eat them,” interrupted Murray, shaking his head.“It is an acquired taste; but those who do like them are usually very fond of them. The olive which comes in jars for table use is picked before it is quite ripe, but when full grown; and it is pickled for a week in a brine made of water, salt, garlic, and some other ingredients. The best come from the neighborhood of Seville.”“But I don’t see how they make the oil out of the olive. It don’t seem as though there is any grease in it,” said Sheridan.“The berry is picked for the manufacture of oil when it is ripe, and is then of a purple color. It is gathered in the autumn; and I have seen the peasants beating the trees with sticks, while the women and children were picking up the olives on the ground. The women drive the donkeys to the mill, bearing the berries in the panniers. The olives are crushed on a big stone hollowed out for the purpose, by passing a stone rollerover them, which is moved by a mule. The pulp is then placed in a press not unlike that you have seen in a cider-mill. The oil flows out into a reservoir under the press, from which it is bailed into jars big enough to contain a man: these jars are sunk in the ground to keep them cool. The mass left in the press after the oil is extracted is used to feed the hogs, or for fuel.”“And is that the stuff they put in the casters?” asked Murray, with his nose turned up in disgust.“That is certainly olive-oil,” replied the doctor. “You look as though you did not like it.”“I do not: I should as soon think of eating lamp-oil.”“Every one to his taste, lieutenant; but I have no doubt you have eaten a great deal of it since you came into Spain,” laughed the doctor.“Not if I knew it!”“You did not know it; but you have had it on your beefsteaks and mutton-chops, as well as in the various made-dishes you have partaken of. Spanish oil is not so pure and good as the Italian. Lucca oil has the best reputation. A poorer quality of oil is made here, which is used in making soap.”“Castile soap?”“Yes; and all kinds of oils are used for soap.”“How do they fresco it?” asked Murray.“Fresco it! They give it the marble look by putting coloring matter, mixed with oil, into the mass of soap before it is moulded into bars. What place is this?” said the doctor, as the train stopped.“Almaden,” replied Sheridan, reading the sign on the station.“I thought so, for I spent a couple of days here. Do you know what it is famous for?”“I don’t think I ever heard the name of the place before,” replied Sheridan.“It contains the greatest mine of quicksilver in the world,” added the doctor. “It was worked in the time of the Romans, and is still deemed inexhaustible. Four thousand men are employed here during the winter, for they cannot labor in the summer because the heat renders it too unhealthy. The men can work only six hours at a time; and many of them are salivated and paralyzed by the vapors of the mercury.”“Is this the same stuff the doctors use?” asked Murray.“It is; but it is prepared especially for the purpose. These mines yield the government of Spain a revenue of nearly a million dollars a year.”The country through which the tourists passed was not highly cultivated, except near the towns. On the way they saw a man ploughing-in his grain, and the implement seemed to be a wooden one. But every thing in the agricultural line was of the most primitive kind. In another place they saw a farmer at work miles from his house, for there was no village within that distance. Though there is not a fence to be seen, every man knows his own boundary-lines. In going to his day’s work, he may have to go several miles, taking his plough and other tools in a cart; and probably he wastes half his day in going to and from his work. But the Spanish peasant is an easy-going fellow, and he does not go very early, or stay very late. Often in the morning and in the middle of the afternoon our travellerssaw them going to or coming from their work in this manner.“Now we are out of La Mancha,” said the doctor, half an hour after the train left Almaden.“And what are we in now, sir?” asked Murray.“We are in the province of Cordova, which is a part of Andalusia. But we only go through a corner of Cordova, and then we strike into Estremadura.”In the afternoon the country looked better, though the people and the houses seemed to be very poor. The country looked better; but it was only better than the region near Madrid, and, compared with France or Italy, it was desolation. The effects of themestawere clearly visible.“Medellin,” said Murray, when he had spelled out the word on a station where the train stopped about half-past two.“Do you know the place?” asked Dr. Winstock.“Never heard of it.”“Yet it has some connection with the history of the New World. It is mentioned in Prescott’s ‘Conquest of Mexico.’”“I have read that, but I do not remember this name.”“It is the birthplace of Hernando Cortes; and in Trujillo, a town forty miles north of us, was born another adventurer whose name figures on the glowing page of Prescott,” added the doctor.“That was Pizarro,” said Sheridan. “I remember he was born at—what did you call the place, doctor?”“Trujillo.”“But in Prescott it is spelled with anxwhere you put anh.”“It is the same thing in Spanish, whether you spell it with anxorj. It is a strong aspirate, likeh, but is pronounced with a rougher breathing sound. Loja and Loxa are the same word,” explained the doctor. “So you will find Cordova spelled with abinstead of av; but the letters have the same power in Spanish.”“What river is this on the right?” inquired Murray.“That is the Guadiana.”“And where are its eyes, of which Professor Mapps spoke in his lecture?”“We passed them in the night, and also went over the underground river,” replied the doctor. “The region through which we are now passing was more densely peopled in the days when it was a part of the Roman empire than it is now. Without doubt the same is true of the period of the Moorish dominion. After America was discovered, and colonization began, vast numbers of emigrants went from Estremadura. In the time of Philip II. the country began to run down; and one of the reasons was the emigration to America. About four o’clock we shall arrive at Merida,” added the doctor, looking at his watch.“What is there at Merida?”“There is a great deal for the antiquarian and the student of history. You must be on the lookout for it, for there are many things to be seen from the window of the car,” continued the doctor. “It was the capital of Lusitania, and was calledEmerita Augusta, from the first word of which title comes the present name. The river there is crossed by a Roman bridge twenty-five hundred and seventy-five feet long, twenty-five wide, and thirty-three above the stream. The city was surroundedby six leagues of walls, having eighty-four gates, and had a garrison of eighty thousand foot and ten thousand horsemen. The ruins of aqueducts, temples, forum, circus, and other structures, are still to be seen; some of them, as I said, from the train.”Unfortunately the train passed the portion of the ruins of the ancient city to be seen from the window, so rapidly that only a glance at them could be obtained; but perhaps most of the students saw all they desired of them. An hour and a half later the train arrived at Badajos, where they were to spend the night, and thence proceed to Lisbon the next morning. Each individual of the ship’s company had been provided with a ticket; and it was called for in the station before he was permitted to pass out of the building. As soon as they appeared in the open air, they were assailed by a small army of omnibus-drivers; but fortunately, as the town was nearly two miles from the station, there were enough for all of them. These men actually fought together for the passengers, and behaved as badly as New York hackmen. Though all the vehicles at the station were loaded as full as they could be stowed, there was not room for more than half of the party.The doctor and his pupils preferred to walk. In Madrid, the principal had received a letter from theavant-courier; informing him how many persons could be accommodated in each of the hotels; and all the excursionists had been assigned to their quarters.“We go to theFonda las Tres Naciones,” said the doctor as they left the station. “I went there when I was here before. Those drivers fought for me as theydid to-day; and with some reason, for I was the only passenger. I selected one, and told him to take me to theFonda de las cuatro Naciones; and he laughed as though I had made a good joke. I made it ‘Four Nations’ instead of ‘Three.’ Here is the bridge over the Guadiana, built by the same architect as the Escurial.”“What is there in this place to see?” asked Sheridan.“Nothing at all; but it is an out-of-the-way old Spanish town seldom mentioned by tourists.”“I have not found it in a single book I have read, except the guide-books; and all these have to say about it is concerning the battles fought here,” added Sheridan.“Mr. Lowington has us stop here by my advice; and we are simply to spend the night here. You were on the train last night, and it would have been too much to add the long and tedious journey to Lisbon to that from Madrid without a night’s rest. Besides, you should see what you can of Portugal by daylight; for we are to visit only Lisbon and some of the places near it.”The party entered the town, and climbed up the steep streets to the hotel. The place was certainly very primitive. It had been a Roman town, and did not seem to have changed much since the time of the Cæsars. A peculiarly Spanish supper was served at the Three Nations, which was the best hotel in the place, but poor enough at that. Those who were fond of garlic had enough of it. The room in which the captain and first lieutenant were lodged had no window,and the ceiling was composed of poles on which hay was placed; and the apartment above them may have been a stable, or at least a hay-loft. Some of the students took an evening walk about the town, but most of them “turned in” at eight o’clock.The party were called at four o’clock in the morning; and after a light breakfast of coffee, eggs, and bread, they proceeded to the station. The train provided for them consisted of second-class carriages, at the head of which were several freight-cars. This is the regular day train, all of the first-class cars being used on the night train.“Now you can see something of Badajos,” said the doctor, as they walked down the hill. “It is a frontier town, and the capital of the province. It is more of a fortress than a city. Marshal Soult captured it in 1811; and it is said that it was taken only through the treachery of the commander of the Spaniards. The Duke of Wellington captured it in 1812. I suppose you have seen pictures by the Spanish artist Morales, for there are some in theMuseoat Madrid. He was born here; and, when Philip II. stopped at Badajos on his way to Lisbon, he sent for the artist. The king remarked, ‘You are very old, Morales.’—‘And very poor,’ replied the painter; and Philip gave him a pension of three hundred ducats a year till he died. Manuel Godoy, the villanous minister of Charles IV., called the ‘Prince of Peace,’ was born also here.”The train started at six o’clock, while it was still dark. Badajos is five miles from the boundary-line of Portugal; and in about an hour the train stopped at Elvas. The Portuguese police were on hand in fullforce, as well as a squad of custom-house officers. The former asked each of the adult members of the party his name, age, nationality, occupation, and a score of other questions, and would have done the same with the students if the doctor had not protested; and the officers contented themselves with merely taking their names, on the assurance that they were all Americans, were students, and had passports. Every bag and valise was opened by the custom-house officers; and all the freight and baggage cars were locked and sealed, so that they should not be opened till they arrived at Lisbon. Elvas has been the seat of an extensive smuggling trade, and the officers take every precaution to break up the business.The train was detained over an hour; and some of the students, after they had been “overhauled” as they called it, ran up into the town. Like Badajos, it is a strongly fortified place; but, unlike that, it has never been captured, though often besieged. The students caught a view of the ancient aqueduct, having three stories of arches.The train started at last; and all day it jogged along at a snail’s pace through Portugal. The scenery was about the same as in Spain, and with about the same variety one finds in New England. Dr. Winstock called the attention of his pupils to the cork-trees, and described the process of removing the bark, which forms the valuable article of commerce. They saw piles of it at the railroad stations, waiting to be shipped.There were very few stations on the way, and hardly a town was seen before four in the afternoon, when the train crossed the Tagus. The students were almostin a state of rebellion at this time, because they had had nothing to eat since their early breakfast. They had come one hundred and ten miles in ten hours; and eleven miles an hour was slow locomotion on a railroad. The courier wrote that he had made an arrangement by which the train was to go to the junction with the road to Oporto in seven hours, which was not hurrying the locomotive very much; but the conductor said he had no orders to this effect.“This is Entroncamiento,” said the doctor, as the train stopped at a station. “We dine here.”“Glory!” replied Murray. “But we might starve if we had to pronounce that name before dinner.”The students astonished the keeper of the restaurant by the quantity of soup, chicken, and chops they devoured; but they all gave him the credit of providing an excellent dinner. The excursionists had to wait a long time for the train from Oporto, for it was more than an hour late; and they did not arrive at Lisbon till half-past nine. The doctor and his pupils were sent to the Hotel Braganza, after they had gone through another ordeal with the custom-house officers. Bill Stout was taken to the Hotel Central on the quay by the river. The runaway had been as tractable as one of the lambs, till he came to the hotel. While the party were waiting for the rooms to be assigned to them, and Mr. Lowington was very busy, he slipped out into the street. He walked along the river, looking out at the vessels anchored in the stream. He made out the outline of several steamers. While he was looking at them, a couple of sailors, “half seas over,”, passed him. They were talking in English, and Bill hailed them.“Do you know whether there is a steamer in port bound to England?” he asked, after he had passed the time of night with them.“Yes, my lad: there is the Princess Royal, and she sails for London early in the morning,” replied the more sober of the two sailors. “Are you bound to London?”“I am. Which is the Princess Royal?”The man pointed the steamer out to him, and insisted that he should take a drink with them. Bill did not object. But he never took any thing stronger than wine, and his new friends insisted that he should join them with some brandy. He took very little; but then he felt obliged to treat his new friends in turn for their civility, and he repeated the dose. He then inquired where he could find a boat to take him on board of the steamer. They went out with him, and soon found a boat, in which he embarked. The boatman spoke a little English; and as soon as he was clear of the shore he asked which steamer his passenger wished to go to. By this time the brandy was beginning to have its effect upon Bill’s head; but he answered the man by pointing to the one the sailor had indicated, as he supposed.In a few moments the boat was alongside the steamer; and Bill’s head was flying around like a top. He paid the boatman his price, and then with an uneasy step walked up the accommodation-ladder. A man was standing on the platform at the head of the ladder, who asked him what he wanted.“I want to go to England,” replied the runaway, tossing his bag over the rail upon the deck.“This vessel don’t go to England; you have boarded the wrong steamer,” replied the man.Bill hailed the boatman, who was pulling for the shore.“Anchor watch!” called the man on the platform. “Bring a lantern here!”“Here is one,” said a young man, wearing an overcoat and a uniform cap, as he handed up a lantern to the first speaker.“Hand me my bag, please, gen’l’men,” said Bill.At this moment the man on the platform held the lantern up to Bill’s face.“I thought I knew that voice,” added Mr. Pelham, for it was he. “Don’t give him the bag, Scott.”“That’s my bag, and I want it,” muttered Bill.“I am afraid you have been drinking, Stout,” continued the vice-principal, taking Bill by the collar, and conducting him down the steps to the deck of the American Prince.“It is Stout, as sure as I live!” exclaimed Scott.“No doubt of that, though he has changed his rig. Pass the word for Mr. Peaks.”Bill was not so far gone but that he understood the situation. He had boarded the American Prince, instead of the Princess Royal. The big boatswain of the steamer soon appeared, and laid his great paw on the culprit.“Where did you come from, Stout?” asked the vice-principal.“I came down with Mr. Lowington and the rest of them,” answered Bill; and his tongue seemed to be twice too big for his mouth.Mr. Pelham sent for Mr. Fluxion, and they got out of the tipsy runaway all they could. They learned that the ship’s company of the Prince had just arrived. Bill Stout was caged; and the two vice-principals went on shore in the boat that was waiting for the “passenger for England.” They found Mr. Lowington at the Hotel Central. He was engaged just then in looking up Bill Stout; and he was glad to know that he was in a safe place.CHAPTER XVIII.AFRICA AND REPENTANCE.Havingbrought Bill Stout safely into port, we feel obliged to bestow some attention upon the other wanderers from the fold of discipline and good instruction. At theFonda del Cid, where our brace of tourists went after taking such unceremonious leave of Bill Stout, was a party of English people who insisted upon having their breakfast at an hour that would permit them to use the forenoon in seeing the sights of Valencia; and thus it happened that this meal was ready for the fugitives at eight o’clock.“What day is this, Lingall?” asked Raimundo, as they came into the main hall of the hotel after breakfast.“Wednesday,” replied Bark.“I thought so. Look at this bill,” added the second master, pointing to a small poster, with the picture of a steamer at the head of it.“I see it, but I can’t read it.”“This steamer starts from Grao at ten this forenoon, for Oran. It is only half-past eight now.”“Starts from Grao? where is that?” asked Bark.“Grao is the port of Valencia: it is not many miles from here.”“And where is the other place? I never heard of it.”“Oran is in Algeria. It cannot be more than three hundred miles from Valencia.”“But that will be going to Africa.”“It will be the best thing we can do if we mean to keep out of the way.”“I don’t object: I am as willing to go to Africa as anywhere else.”“We can stay over there for a week or two, and then come back to Spain. We can hit the Tritonia at Cadiz or Lisbon.”“I don’t think I want to hit her,” replied Bark with a sheepish smile.“I was speaking for myself; and I forgot that your case was not the same as my own,” added Raimundo.“I don’t know what your case is; but, as you seem to be perfectly easy about it, I wish mine was no worse than I believe yours is.”“We will talk about that another time; for, if we are going to Oran, it is time we were on the way to the port,” said Raimundo. “If you don’t want to go to Africa, I won’t urge it; but that will suit my case the best of any thing I can think of.”“It makes no difference to me where I go; and I am perfectly willing to go with you wherever you wish,” replied Bark, who, from hating the second master, had come to have an intense admiration for him.Bark Lingall believed that his companion had saved the lives of the whole party in the boat; and certainly he had managed the expedition with great skill. He was as brave as a lion, in spite of his gentleness. But perhaps his respect and regard for the young Spaniardhad grown out of the contrast he could not help making between him and Bill Stout. He could not now understand how it was that he had got up such an intimacy with his late associate in mischief, or rather in crime. Burning the Tritonia was vastly worse than he had at first considered it. Its enormity had increased in his mind when he reflected that Raimundo, who must have had a very strong motive for his sudden disappearance, had preferred to reveal himself rather than have the beautiful craft destroyed. In a word, Bark had made some progress towards a genuine repentance for taking part in the conspiracy with Bill Stout.Raimundo paid the bill, and they took atartanafor Grao. They learned from the driver that it was less than half an hour’s ride. They first went to the office of the steamer, paid their passage, and secured their state-room.“This is a good move for another reason,” said Raimundo, as they started again.“What’s that?” asked Bark.“I have been expecting to see Stout drop down upon us every moment since we went to the hotel.”“So have I; and I think, if it had been my case, I should have found you by this time, if I wanted to do so,” added Bark.“It is hardly time yet for him to get around; but he will find theFonda del Cidin the course of the forenoon. You forget that Stout cannot speak a word of Spanish; and his want of the language will make it slow work for him to do any thing.”“I did not think of that.”“Do you feel all right about leaving him as we did?” asked Raimundo. “For my part, I could not endure him. He insulted me without the least reason for doing so.”“He is the most unreasonable fellow I ever met in the whole course of my natural life. It was impossible to get along with him; and I am entirely satisfied with myself for leaving him,” replied Bark. “He insulted you, as you say; and I gave him the alternative of apologizing to you, or of parting company with us. I believe I did the fair thing. A fellow cannot hug a hog for any great length of period.”“That’s so; but didn’t you know him before?”“I knew him, of course; and he was always grumbling and discontented about something; but I never thought he was such a fellow as he turned out to be. I haven’t known him but a couple of months or so.”“I should think you would have got at him while you were getting up something”—Raimundo did not say what—“with him.”“I was dissatisfied myself. The squadron did not prove to be what I anticipated,” added Bark. “I had an idea that it was in for a general good time; that all we had to do was to go from place to place, and see the sights.”“But you knew it was a school.”“Certainly I did; but I never supposed the fellows had to study half as hard as they do. I thought the school was a sort of a fancy idea, to make it take with the parents of the boys. When I found how hard we had to work, I was disgusted with the whole thing. Then I fell in with Bill Stout and others; and, whenwe had talked the matter over a few times, it was even worse than I had supposed when I did all my own thinking on the subject. After we got together, we both became more and more discontented, till we were convinced that we were all slaves, and that it was really our duty to break the chains that bound us. This was all the kind of talk I ever had with Stout; and, as we sympathized on this matter, I never looked any farther into his character.”“We shall have time enough to talk over these things when we get on board the steamer,” added Raimundo. “I have watched you and Stout a great deal on board of the Tritonia; and I confess that I was prejudiced against you. I didn’t feel any better about it when I found you and Stout trying to destroy the vessel. But I must say now that you are a different sort of fellow from what I took you to be; and nobody ever grew any faster in another’s estimation than you have in mine since that affair last night in the felucca. I believe your pluck and skill in hauling that cut-throat down saved the whole of us.”“I have been thinking all the time it was you that saved us,” added Bark, intensely gratified at the praise of Raimundo.“The battle would have been lost if it hadn’t been for you; for I struck at the villain, and missed him. If you hadn’t brought him down, his knife would have been into me in another instant. But here is the port.”The steamer was one of the “Messageries Nationales,” though that name had been recently substituted for “Imperiales” because the emperor had been abolished. The tourists went on board in a shore-boat, and tookpossession of their state-room. They made their preparations for the voyage, and then went on deck. They found comfortable seats, and the weather was like spring.“What is the name of this steamer?” asked Bark.“The City of Brest.”“That was not the name on the handbill we saw; was it, Mr. Raimundo?”“Yes,—Ville de Brest.”“That was it,” added Bark.“Well, that is the French of City of Brest,” laughed the second master. “Don’t you speak French?”“I know a little of it; and I know that a ‘ville’ is a city; but I didn’t understand it as you spoke the word.”“I learned all the French I know in the academy squadron; and I can get along very well with it. I have spent a whole evening where nothing but French was spoken by the party. Professor Badois never speaks a word of English to me.”“And you speak Italian and German besides, Mr. Raimundo.”“I can get along with them, as I can with French.”“That makes five languages you speak.”“I am not much in Italian,” laughed the second master. “My uncle set me to learning it in New York; but I forgot most of it, and learned more while we were in Italy than I ever knew before.”“I wish I had some other lingo besides my own.”“You can have it by learning it.”“But I am not so good a scholar as you are, Mr. Raimundo.”“You don’t know that; for, if I mistake not, you have never laid yourself out on study, as I had not when I first went on board of the Young America. But, to change the subject, you have called me Mr. Raimundo three times since we sat down here. I agree with Stout so far, that we had better drop all titles till I put on my uniform again.”“I have been so used to calling you Mr., that it comes most natural for me to do so,” replied Bark.“I think I shall change my name a little; at least, so far as to translate it into plain English. I have always kept my Spanish name, which is Enrique Raimundo. It is so entered on the ship’s books; but I shall make it Henry Raymond for the present.”“And is that the English of the other name?”“It is; and, when you call me any thing, let it be Henry.”“Very well, Henry,” added Bark.“That is the name I gave when I bought the tickets. I noticed that Stout called you Bark.”“My name is Barclay; and you can call me that, or Bark for short.”“Bark don’t sound very respectful, and it reminds one of a dog.”“My bark is on the wave; and I do not object to the name. I was always called Bark before I went to sea, and it sounds more natural to me than any thing else would. My father always called me Barclay; and I believe he was the only one that did.”“All right, Bark: if you don’t object, I need not. You hinted that you did not think you should go back to the Tritonia.”“It wouldn’t be safe for me to do so,” replied Bark anxiously.“I have come to the conclusion that it is always the safest to do the right thing, whatever the consequences may be.”“What! stay in the brig the rest of the voyage!”“Yes, if that is the penalty for doing the right thing,” replied Henry, as he chooses to be called.“Suppose you were in my place; that you had tried to set the vessel on fire, and had run away: what would you do?”“You did not set the vessel on fire, or try to do it. It was Stout that did it,” argued Raymond.“But I was in the plot. I agreed to take part in it; and I hold myself to be just as deep in the mire as Bill Stout is in the mud,” added Bark.“I am glad to see that you are a man about it, and don’t shirk off the blame on the other fellow.”“Though I did not get up the idea, I am as guilty as Bill; and I will not cast it all upon him.”“That’s the right thing to say.”“But what would you do, if you were in my place?”“Just as I said before. I should return to the Tritonia, and face the music, if I were sent home in a man-of-war, to be tried for my life for the deed.”“That’s pretty rough medicine.”“Since I have been in the squadron, I have learned a new morality. I don’t think it would be possible for me to commit a crime, especially such as burning a vessel; but, if I had done it, I should want to be hanged for it as soon as possible. I don’t know that anybody else is like me; but I tell you just how I feel.”“But, if you were bad enough to do the deed, you could not feel as you do now,” replied Bark, shaking his head.“That may be; but I can only tell you how I feel now. I never did any thing that I called a crime,—I mean any thing that made me liable to be punished by the law,—but I was a very wild fellow in the way of mischief. I used to be playing tricks upon the fellows, on my schoolmasters, and others, and was always in a scrape. I was good for nothing till I came on board of the Young America. As soon as I got interested, I worked night and day to get my lessons. Of course I had to be very correct in my conduct, or I should have lost my rank. It required a struggle for me to do these things at first; but I was determined to be an officer. I was as severe with myself as though I had been a monk with the highest of aspirations. I was an officer in three months; and I have been one ever since, though I have never been higher than fourth lieutenant, for the reason that I am not good in mathematics. My strength is in the languages.”“But I should think you would get discouraged because you get no higher.”“Not at all. As the matter stands now with me, I should do the best I could if I had to take the lowest place in the ship.”“I don’t understand that,” added Bark, who had come to the conclusion that his companion was the strangest mortal on the face of the earth; but that was only because Bark dwelt on a lower moral plane.“After I had done my duty zealously for a few months, I was happy only in doing it; and it gave memore pleasure than the reward that followed it. Like Ignatius Loyola, I became an enthusiastic believer in God, in a personal God, in Christ the Saviour, and in the Virgin Mary: blessed be the Mother of God, her Son, and the Father of all of us!” and Raymond crossed himself as devoutly as though he were engaged in his devotions.Bark was absolutely thrilled by this narrative of the personal experience of his new-found friend; and he was utterly unable to say any thing.“But God and duty seem almost the same to me,” continued Raymond. “I am ready to die or to live, but not to live at the expense of right and duty. For the last six months I have believed myself liable to be assassinated at any time. I know not how much this has to do with my mental, moral, and religious condition; but I am as I have described myself to be. I should do my duty if I knew that I should be burned at the stake for it”“What do you mean by assassinated?” asked Bark, startled by the statement.“I mean exactly what I say. But I am going to tell you my story in full. I have related it to only one other student in the squadron; and, if we should be together again on board of the Tritonia, I must ask you to keep it to yourself,” said Raymond.“It has bothered me all along to understand how a fellow as high-toned as you are could allow yourself to be considered a runaway; for I suppose the officers look upon you as such.”“No doubt they do; but in good time I shall tell Mr. Lowington the whole story, and then he will be able to judge for himself.”By this time the steamer had started. Raymond told his story just as he had related it to Scott on board of the Tritonia. Bark was interested; and, when the recital was finished, the steamer was out of sight of land.“I suppose you will not believe me when I say it; but I have kept out of my uncle’s way more for his sake than my own,” said Raymond in conclusion. “I will not tempt one of my own flesh and blood to commit a crime; and I feel that it would have been cowardice for me to run away from my ship for the mere sake of saving myself from harm. Besides, I think I could take care of myself in Barcelona.”“I have no doubt of that,” replied Bark, whose admiration of his fellow-tourist was even increased by the narration to which he had just listened.Certainly Raymond was a most remarkable young man. Bark felt as though he were in the presence of a superior being. He realized his own meanness and littleness, judged by the high standard of his companion. As both of them were tired, after the night on the train, they went to the state-room, and lay down in their berths. Raymond went to sleep; but Bark could not, for he was intensely excited by the conversation he had had with his new friend. He lay thinking of his own life and character, as compared with his companion’s; and the conspiracy in which he had taken part absolutely filled him with horror. The inward peace and happiness which Raymond had realized from his devotion to duty strongly impressed him.But we will not follow him through all the meanderings of his thought. It is enough to say that fellowshipwith Raymond had made a man of him, and he was fully determined to seek peace in doing his whole duty. He was prepared to do what his companion had counselled him to do,—to return to the Tritonia, and take the consequences of his evil-doing. When his friend awoke, he announced to him his decision. Raymond saw that he was sincere, and he did all he could to confirm and strengthen his good resolution.“There is one thing about the matter that troubles me,” said Bark, as they seated themselves on deck after dinner. “I am willing to own up, and take the penalty, whatever it may be; but, if I confess that I was engaged in a conspiracy to burn the Tritonia, I shall implicate others,—I shall have to blow on Bill Stout.”“Well, what right have you to do any thing else?” demanded Raymond earnestly. “Suppose Filipe had killed me last night, and had offered you a thousand dollars to conceal the crime: would it have been right for you to accept the offer?”“Certainly not.”“You would be an accomplice if you had. You have no more right to cover up Stout’s crime than you would have to conceal Filipe’s. Besides, the principal ought to know that he has a fellow on board that is bad enough to burn the Tritonia. He may do it with some other fellow yet; and, if he should, you would share the guilt with him.”“You found out what we were doing,” added Bark.“And I felt that I ought not to leave the vessel without telling the steward,” replied Raymond. “I certainly intended to inform the principal as soon as I had an opportunity. I believe in boy honor and all thatsort of thing as much as you do; but I have no right to let the vessels of the squadron be burned.”The subject was discussed till dark, and Bark could not resist the arguments of his friend. He was resolved to do his whole duty.It is not our purpose to follow the fugitives into Africa. They reached Oran the next day, and remained there two weeks, until a steamer left for Malaga, when they returned to Spain.“That’s the American Prince, as true as you live!” exclaimed Bark, as the vessel in which they sailed was approaching Malaga; and both of them had been observing her for an hour.“She is on her way from Lisbon back to Barcelona; and she will not be in Malaga for a week or more,” replied Raymond.Before night they were in the hotel in Malaga.

CHAPTER XVI.BILL STOUT AS A TOURIST.Bill Stoutindulged in some very severe reflections upon the conduct of his fellow-conspirator when he found that he was alone in the compartment where he had spent the night. The porter who woke him told him very respectfully (he was a first-class passenger), in good Spanish for a man in his position, that the train was to be run out of the station. Bill couldn’t understand him, but he left the car.“Where are the fellows that came with me?” he asked, turning to the porter; but the man shook his head, and smiled as blandly as though the runaway had given him apeseta.Bill was not much troubled with bashfulness; and he walked about the station, accosting a dozen persons whom he met; but not one of them seemed to know a word of English.“No hablo Ingles,” was the uniform reply of all. One spoke to him in French; but, though Bill had studied this language, he had not gone far enough to be able to speak even a few words of it. He went into the street, and a crowd of carriage-drivers saluted him.“Hotel,” said he, satisfied by this time that it was of no use to talk English to anybody in Spain.As this word is known to all languages, he got on so far very well.“Hotel Villa de Madrid!” shouted one of the drivers.Though Bill’s knowledge of geography was very limited, he had heard of Madrid, and he identified this word in the speech of the man. He bowed to him to indicate that he was ready to go to the hotel he named. He was invited to take a seat in atartana, a two-wheeled vehicle not much easier than a tip-cart, and driven to the hotel. Bill did not look like a very distinguished guest, for he wore the garb of a common sailor when he took off his overcoat. He had not even put on his best rig, as he did not go ashore in regular form. He spoke to the porter who received him at the door, in English, thinking it was quite proper for those about a hotel to speak all languages. But this man seemed to be no better linguist than the rest of the Spaniards; and he made no reply.The guest was conducted to the hall where the landlord, or the manager of the hotel, addressed him in Spanish, and Bill replied in English.“Habla V. Frances?” asked the manager.“I don’thabloany thing but English,” replied Bill, beginning to be disgusted with his ill-success in finding any one who could understand him.“Parlez-vous Français?” persisted the manager.“No. I don’tparlez-vous.”“Parlate voi Italiano?”“No: I tell you I don’t speak any thing but English,” growled Bill.“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”“No; no Dutch.”The manager shrugged his shoulders, and evidently felt that he had done enough, having addressed the guest in four languages.“Two fellows—no comee here?” continued Bill, trying his luck with pigeon English.Of course the manager shook his head at this absurd lingo; and Bill was obliged to give up in despair. The manager called a servant, and sent him out; and the guest hoped that something might yet happen. He seated himself on a sofa, and waited for the waters to move.“I want some breakfast,” said Bill when he had waited half an hour; and as he spoke he pointed to his mouth, and worked his teeth, to illustrate his argument.The manager took out his watch, and pointed to the “X” upon the dial, to indicate that the meal would be ready at that hour. A little later the servant came in with another man, who proved to be an English-speaking citizen of Valencia. He was avalet de place, or guide.With his aid Bill ascertained that “two young fellows” had not been to the Hotel Villa de Madrid that morning. He also obtained a room, and some coffee and bread to last him till breakfast time. When he had taken his coffee, he went with the man to all the hotels in the place. It was nearly ten o’clock when he reached theFonda del Cid. Two young gentlemen, one of them an officer, had just breakfasted at the hotel, and left for Grao, the port of Valencia, two miles distant, where they were to embark in a steamer whichwas to sail for Oran at ten. Bill had not the least idea where Oran was; and, when he asked his guide, he was astonished to learn that it was in Africa, a seaport of Algeria. Then he was madder than ever; for he would have been very glad to take a trip to Africa, and see something besides churches and palaces. He dwelt heavily upon the trick that Bark had played him. It was ten o’clock then, and it would not be possible to reach Grao before half-past ten. He could try it; the steamer might not sail as soon as advertised: they were often detained.Bill did try it, but the steamer was two miles at sea when he reached the port. He engaged the guide for the day, after an effort to beat him down in his price of sixpesetas. He went back to the hotel, and ate his breakfast. There was plenty ofVal de Peñaswine on the table, and he drank all he wanted. Then he went to his room to take a nap before he went out to see the sights of the place. Instead of sleeping an hour as he intended, he did not wake till three o’clock in the afternoon. The wine had had its effect upon him. He found the guide waiting for him in the hall below. The man insisted that he should go to the cathedral; and when they had visited that it was dinner-time.“How much do I owe you now?” asked Bill, when he came to settle with the guide.“Sixpesetas,” replied the man. “That is the price I told you.”“But I have not had you but half a day: from eleven till three you did not do any thing for me,” blustered Bill in his usual style.“But I was ready to go with you, and waited all that time for you,” pleaded the guide.“Here is fourpesetas, and that is one more than you have earned,” added Bill, tendering him the silver.The man refused to accept the sum; and they had quite a row about it. Finally the guide appealed to the manager of the hotel, who promptly decided that sixpesetaswas the amount due the man. Bill paid it under protest, but added that he wanted the guide the next day.“I shall go with you no more,” replied the man, as he put the money into his pocket. “I work for gentlemen only.”“I will pay you for all the time you go with me,” protested Bill; but the guide was resolute, and left the hotel.The next morning Bill used his best endeavors to obtain another guide; but for a time he was unable to make anybody comprehend what he wished. An Englishman who spoke Spanish, and was a guest at the hotel, helped him out at breakfast, and told the manager what the young man wanted.“I will not send for a guide for him,” replied the manager; and then he explained to the tourist in what manner Bill had treated his valet the day before, all of which the gentleman translated to him.But we cannot follow Bill in all his struggles with the language, or in all his wanderings about Valencia. He paid his bill at the hotelVilla de Madrid, and went to another. On his way he bought a new suit of clothes, and discarded for the present his uniform, which attracted attention wherever he was. He went to theFonda del Cidnext; but he could not obtain a guide who spoke English: the only one they evercalled in was engaged to an English party for a week. The manager spoke English, but he was seldom in the house. In some of the shops they spoke English; but Bill was almost as much alone as though he had been on a deserted island. The days wore heavy on his hands; and about all he could do was to drinkVal de Peñas, and sleep it off. He wanted to leave Valencia, but knew not where to go. He desired to get out of Spain; and he had tried to get the run of the English steamers; but as he could not read the posters, or often find any one to read them for him, he had no success.He was heartily tired of the place, and even more disgusted than he had been on board of the Tritonia. He desired to go to England, where he could speak the language of the country; but no vessel for England came along, so far as he could ascertain. One day an English gentleman arrived at the hotel; and Bill got up a talk with him, as he did with everybody who could speak his own language. He told him he wanted to get to England; and the tourist advised him to cross Spain and Portugal by rail, and take a steamer at Lisbon, where one sailed every week for Southampton or Liverpool, and sometimes two or three a week.Bill adopted this suggestion, and in the afternoon started for Lisbon. He had been nearly a week in Valencia, and the change was very agreeable to him. He found a gentleman who spoke English, in the compartment with him; and he got along without any trouble till he reached Alcazar, where his travelling friend changed cars for Madrid. But, before he left the train, he told Bill that he was too late to connectfor Lisbon, and that he would have to wait till half-past one in the afternoon. He could obtain plenty to eat in the station; but that ten hours of waiting at a miserable shed of a station was far worse than learning a lesson in navigation. He was on the high land, only ninety miles from Madrid, and it was cold in the night. There was no fire to warm him, and he had to walk to keep himself comfortable. He could not speak a word to any person; and, when any one spoke to him, he had learned to say, “No hablo.” He had picked up a few words of Spanish, so that he could get what he wanted to eat, though his variety was very limited.In the afternoon he took the train for Ciudad Real, and arrived there at six o’clock. He was too tired to go any farther that night; indeed, he was almost sick. He found an omnibus at the station, and said “Hotel” to the driver. He felt better in the morning, and reached the railroad station at six o’clock. As at the hotel, he gave the ticket-seller a paper and pencil; and he wrote down in figures the price of a ticket to Badajos, inreales. He had changed his money intoIsabelinos, and knew that each was one hundredreales. Bill had improved a good deal in knowledge since he was thrown on his own resources. He waited till the train arrived from Madrid. It was quite a long one; but the conductor seemed to know just where the vacant seats were, and led him to the last carriage, where he was assigned a place in a compartment in which four passengers occupied the corners, and seemed to be all asleep. The runaway took one of the middle seats. He only hoped, that, when the daylight came, he might hear some of his fellow-travellers speak English.Unfortunately for him, they all spoke this language. The light in the top of the compartment had gone out, and the persons in the corners were buried in their overcoats, so that he could not see them after the conductor carried his lantern away.The train started; and Bill, for the want of something better to do, went to sleep himself. His bed at the hotel had been occupied by a myriad of “cosas de España” before he got into it; and his slumbers had been much disturbed. He slept till the sun broke in through the window of the compartment. He heard his fellow-travellers conversing in English; and, when he was fairly awake, he was immediately conscious that a gentleman who sat in one of the opposite corners was studying his features. But, as soon as Bill opened his eyes, it was not necessary for him to study any longer. The gentleman in the corner was Mr. Lowington, principal of the academy squadron; and Bill’s solitary wanderings had come to an end.The principal knew every student in the fleet; but Bill’s head had been half concealed, and his dress had been entirely changed, so that he did not fully identify him till he opened his eyes, and raised his head. The other persons in the compartment were Dr. Winstock, the captain, and the first lieutenant of the Prince.“Good-morning, Stout,” said Mr. Lowington, as soon as he was sure that the new-comer was one of the runaways from the Tritonia.Of course Bill was taken all aback when he realized that he was on the train with the ship’s company of the Prince. But the principal was good-natured, as he always was; and he smiled as he spoke. Bill hadunwittingly run into the camp of the enemy; and that smile assured him that he was to be laughed at, in addition to whatever punishment might be inflicted upon him; and the laugh, to him, was the worst of it.“Good-morning, sir,” replied Bill sheepishly; and he had not the courage to be silent as he desired to be in that presence.“Have you had a good time, Stout?” asked Mr. Lowington.“Not very good,” answered Bill; and by this time the eyes of the doctor and his two pupils, who had not noticed him before, were fixed upon the culprit.“Where is Lingall?” inquired the principal. “Is he on the train with you?”“No, sir: he and Raimundo ran away from me in Valencia.”“Raimundo!” exclaimed Mr. Lowington. “Was he with you?”“Yes, sir; and they played me a mean trick,” added Bill, who had not yet recovered from his indignation on account of his desertion, and was disposed to do his late associates all the harm he could.“They ran away from you, as you did from the rest of us,” laughed the principal, who knew Stout so well that he could not blame his companions for deserting him. “Do you happen to know where they have gone?”“They left Valencia in a steamer at ten o’clock in the forenoon;” and Bill recited the particulars of his search for his late companions, feeling all the time that he was having some part of his revenge upon them for their meanness to him.“But where was the steamer bound?” asked the principal.“For Oban,” replied Bill, getting it wrong, as he was very apt to do with geographical names.“Oban; that’s in Scotland. No steamer in Valencia could be bound to Oban,” added Mr. Lowington.“This place is not in Scotland: it is in Africa,” Bill explained.“He means Oran,” suggested Dr. Winstock.“That’s the place.”Bill knew nothing in regard to the intended movements of Raimundo and Bark.“How happened Raimundo to be with you?” asked the principal. “He left the Tritonia the night before we came from Barcelona.”“No, sir: he did not leave her at all. He was in the hold all the time.”As Bill was very willing to tell all he knew about his fellow-conspirator and the second master,—except that Bark and himself had tried to set the vessel on fire,—he related all the details of the escape, and the trip to Tarragona, including the affray with the boatman. He told the truth in the main, though he did not bring out the fact of his own cowardice, or dwell upon the cause of the quarrel between himself and his companions.“And how happened you to be here, and on this train? Did you know we were on board of it?” inquired the principal.“I did not know you were on this train; but I knew you were over this way somewhere.”“And you were going to look for us,” laughed Mr.Lowington, who believed that the fellow’s ignorance had caused him to blunder into this locality at the wrong time.“I was not looking for you, but for the Tritonias,” replied Bill, who had come to the conclusion that penitence was his best dodge under the circumstances. “I was going over to Lisbon to give myself up to Mr. Pelham.”“Indeed! were you?”“Yes, sir: I did not intend to run away; and it was only when Raimundo had a boat from the shore that I thought of such a thing. I have had hard luck; and I would rather do my duty on board than wander all about the country alone.”“Then it was Lingall that spoiled your fun?”“Yes, sir; but I shall never want to run away again.”“That’s what they all say. But, if you wished to get back, why didn’t you go to Barcelona, where the Tritonia is? That would have been the shortest way for you.”“I didn’t care about staying in the brig, with no one but Mr. Marline and Mr. Rimmer on board,” answered Bill, who could think of no better excuse.Bill thought he might get a chance to slip away at some point on the road, or at least when the party arrived at Lisbon. If there was a steamer in port bound to England, he might get on board of her.“We will consider your case at another time,” said the principal, as the train stopped at a station.The principal and the surgeon, after sending Bill to the other end of the compartment, had a talk aboutRaimundo, who had evidently gone to Africa to get out of the jurisdiction of Spain. After examining Bradshaw, they found the fugitives could take a steamer to Bona, in Algeria, and from there make their way to Italy or Egypt; and concluded they would do so.

BILL STOUT AS A TOURIST.

Bill Stoutindulged in some very severe reflections upon the conduct of his fellow-conspirator when he found that he was alone in the compartment where he had spent the night. The porter who woke him told him very respectfully (he was a first-class passenger), in good Spanish for a man in his position, that the train was to be run out of the station. Bill couldn’t understand him, but he left the car.

“Where are the fellows that came with me?” he asked, turning to the porter; but the man shook his head, and smiled as blandly as though the runaway had given him apeseta.

Bill was not much troubled with bashfulness; and he walked about the station, accosting a dozen persons whom he met; but not one of them seemed to know a word of English.

“No hablo Ingles,” was the uniform reply of all. One spoke to him in French; but, though Bill had studied this language, he had not gone far enough to be able to speak even a few words of it. He went into the street, and a crowd of carriage-drivers saluted him.

“Hotel,” said he, satisfied by this time that it was of no use to talk English to anybody in Spain.

As this word is known to all languages, he got on so far very well.

“Hotel Villa de Madrid!” shouted one of the drivers.

Though Bill’s knowledge of geography was very limited, he had heard of Madrid, and he identified this word in the speech of the man. He bowed to him to indicate that he was ready to go to the hotel he named. He was invited to take a seat in atartana, a two-wheeled vehicle not much easier than a tip-cart, and driven to the hotel. Bill did not look like a very distinguished guest, for he wore the garb of a common sailor when he took off his overcoat. He had not even put on his best rig, as he did not go ashore in regular form. He spoke to the porter who received him at the door, in English, thinking it was quite proper for those about a hotel to speak all languages. But this man seemed to be no better linguist than the rest of the Spaniards; and he made no reply.

The guest was conducted to the hall where the landlord, or the manager of the hotel, addressed him in Spanish, and Bill replied in English.

“Habla V. Frances?” asked the manager.

“I don’thabloany thing but English,” replied Bill, beginning to be disgusted with his ill-success in finding any one who could understand him.

“Parlez-vous Français?” persisted the manager.

“No. I don’tparlez-vous.”

“Parlate voi Italiano?”

“No: I tell you I don’t speak any thing but English,” growled Bill.

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

“No; no Dutch.”

The manager shrugged his shoulders, and evidently felt that he had done enough, having addressed the guest in four languages.

“Two fellows—no comee here?” continued Bill, trying his luck with pigeon English.

Of course the manager shook his head at this absurd lingo; and Bill was obliged to give up in despair. The manager called a servant, and sent him out; and the guest hoped that something might yet happen. He seated himself on a sofa, and waited for the waters to move.

“I want some breakfast,” said Bill when he had waited half an hour; and as he spoke he pointed to his mouth, and worked his teeth, to illustrate his argument.

The manager took out his watch, and pointed to the “X” upon the dial, to indicate that the meal would be ready at that hour. A little later the servant came in with another man, who proved to be an English-speaking citizen of Valencia. He was avalet de place, or guide.

With his aid Bill ascertained that “two young fellows” had not been to the Hotel Villa de Madrid that morning. He also obtained a room, and some coffee and bread to last him till breakfast time. When he had taken his coffee, he went with the man to all the hotels in the place. It was nearly ten o’clock when he reached theFonda del Cid. Two young gentlemen, one of them an officer, had just breakfasted at the hotel, and left for Grao, the port of Valencia, two miles distant, where they were to embark in a steamer whichwas to sail for Oran at ten. Bill had not the least idea where Oran was; and, when he asked his guide, he was astonished to learn that it was in Africa, a seaport of Algeria. Then he was madder than ever; for he would have been very glad to take a trip to Africa, and see something besides churches and palaces. He dwelt heavily upon the trick that Bark had played him. It was ten o’clock then, and it would not be possible to reach Grao before half-past ten. He could try it; the steamer might not sail as soon as advertised: they were often detained.

Bill did try it, but the steamer was two miles at sea when he reached the port. He engaged the guide for the day, after an effort to beat him down in his price of sixpesetas. He went back to the hotel, and ate his breakfast. There was plenty ofVal de Peñaswine on the table, and he drank all he wanted. Then he went to his room to take a nap before he went out to see the sights of the place. Instead of sleeping an hour as he intended, he did not wake till three o’clock in the afternoon. The wine had had its effect upon him. He found the guide waiting for him in the hall below. The man insisted that he should go to the cathedral; and when they had visited that it was dinner-time.

“How much do I owe you now?” asked Bill, when he came to settle with the guide.

“Sixpesetas,” replied the man. “That is the price I told you.”

“But I have not had you but half a day: from eleven till three you did not do any thing for me,” blustered Bill in his usual style.

“But I was ready to go with you, and waited all that time for you,” pleaded the guide.

“Here is fourpesetas, and that is one more than you have earned,” added Bill, tendering him the silver.

The man refused to accept the sum; and they had quite a row about it. Finally the guide appealed to the manager of the hotel, who promptly decided that sixpesetaswas the amount due the man. Bill paid it under protest, but added that he wanted the guide the next day.

“I shall go with you no more,” replied the man, as he put the money into his pocket. “I work for gentlemen only.”

“I will pay you for all the time you go with me,” protested Bill; but the guide was resolute, and left the hotel.

The next morning Bill used his best endeavors to obtain another guide; but for a time he was unable to make anybody comprehend what he wished. An Englishman who spoke Spanish, and was a guest at the hotel, helped him out at breakfast, and told the manager what the young man wanted.

“I will not send for a guide for him,” replied the manager; and then he explained to the tourist in what manner Bill had treated his valet the day before, all of which the gentleman translated to him.

But we cannot follow Bill in all his struggles with the language, or in all his wanderings about Valencia. He paid his bill at the hotelVilla de Madrid, and went to another. On his way he bought a new suit of clothes, and discarded for the present his uniform, which attracted attention wherever he was. He went to theFonda del Cidnext; but he could not obtain a guide who spoke English: the only one they evercalled in was engaged to an English party for a week. The manager spoke English, but he was seldom in the house. In some of the shops they spoke English; but Bill was almost as much alone as though he had been on a deserted island. The days wore heavy on his hands; and about all he could do was to drinkVal de Peñas, and sleep it off. He wanted to leave Valencia, but knew not where to go. He desired to get out of Spain; and he had tried to get the run of the English steamers; but as he could not read the posters, or often find any one to read them for him, he had no success.

He was heartily tired of the place, and even more disgusted than he had been on board of the Tritonia. He desired to go to England, where he could speak the language of the country; but no vessel for England came along, so far as he could ascertain. One day an English gentleman arrived at the hotel; and Bill got up a talk with him, as he did with everybody who could speak his own language. He told him he wanted to get to England; and the tourist advised him to cross Spain and Portugal by rail, and take a steamer at Lisbon, where one sailed every week for Southampton or Liverpool, and sometimes two or three a week.

Bill adopted this suggestion, and in the afternoon started for Lisbon. He had been nearly a week in Valencia, and the change was very agreeable to him. He found a gentleman who spoke English, in the compartment with him; and he got along without any trouble till he reached Alcazar, where his travelling friend changed cars for Madrid. But, before he left the train, he told Bill that he was too late to connectfor Lisbon, and that he would have to wait till half-past one in the afternoon. He could obtain plenty to eat in the station; but that ten hours of waiting at a miserable shed of a station was far worse than learning a lesson in navigation. He was on the high land, only ninety miles from Madrid, and it was cold in the night. There was no fire to warm him, and he had to walk to keep himself comfortable. He could not speak a word to any person; and, when any one spoke to him, he had learned to say, “No hablo.” He had picked up a few words of Spanish, so that he could get what he wanted to eat, though his variety was very limited.

In the afternoon he took the train for Ciudad Real, and arrived there at six o’clock. He was too tired to go any farther that night; indeed, he was almost sick. He found an omnibus at the station, and said “Hotel” to the driver. He felt better in the morning, and reached the railroad station at six o’clock. As at the hotel, he gave the ticket-seller a paper and pencil; and he wrote down in figures the price of a ticket to Badajos, inreales. He had changed his money intoIsabelinos, and knew that each was one hundredreales. Bill had improved a good deal in knowledge since he was thrown on his own resources. He waited till the train arrived from Madrid. It was quite a long one; but the conductor seemed to know just where the vacant seats were, and led him to the last carriage, where he was assigned a place in a compartment in which four passengers occupied the corners, and seemed to be all asleep. The runaway took one of the middle seats. He only hoped, that, when the daylight came, he might hear some of his fellow-travellers speak English.Unfortunately for him, they all spoke this language. The light in the top of the compartment had gone out, and the persons in the corners were buried in their overcoats, so that he could not see them after the conductor carried his lantern away.

The train started; and Bill, for the want of something better to do, went to sleep himself. His bed at the hotel had been occupied by a myriad of “cosas de España” before he got into it; and his slumbers had been much disturbed. He slept till the sun broke in through the window of the compartment. He heard his fellow-travellers conversing in English; and, when he was fairly awake, he was immediately conscious that a gentleman who sat in one of the opposite corners was studying his features. But, as soon as Bill opened his eyes, it was not necessary for him to study any longer. The gentleman in the corner was Mr. Lowington, principal of the academy squadron; and Bill’s solitary wanderings had come to an end.

The principal knew every student in the fleet; but Bill’s head had been half concealed, and his dress had been entirely changed, so that he did not fully identify him till he opened his eyes, and raised his head. The other persons in the compartment were Dr. Winstock, the captain, and the first lieutenant of the Prince.

“Good-morning, Stout,” said Mr. Lowington, as soon as he was sure that the new-comer was one of the runaways from the Tritonia.

Of course Bill was taken all aback when he realized that he was on the train with the ship’s company of the Prince. But the principal was good-natured, as he always was; and he smiled as he spoke. Bill hadunwittingly run into the camp of the enemy; and that smile assured him that he was to be laughed at, in addition to whatever punishment might be inflicted upon him; and the laugh, to him, was the worst of it.

“Good-morning, sir,” replied Bill sheepishly; and he had not the courage to be silent as he desired to be in that presence.

“Have you had a good time, Stout?” asked Mr. Lowington.

“Not very good,” answered Bill; and by this time the eyes of the doctor and his two pupils, who had not noticed him before, were fixed upon the culprit.

“Where is Lingall?” inquired the principal. “Is he on the train with you?”

“No, sir: he and Raimundo ran away from me in Valencia.”

“Raimundo!” exclaimed Mr. Lowington. “Was he with you?”

“Yes, sir; and they played me a mean trick,” added Bill, who had not yet recovered from his indignation on account of his desertion, and was disposed to do his late associates all the harm he could.

“They ran away from you, as you did from the rest of us,” laughed the principal, who knew Stout so well that he could not blame his companions for deserting him. “Do you happen to know where they have gone?”

“They left Valencia in a steamer at ten o’clock in the forenoon;” and Bill recited the particulars of his search for his late companions, feeling all the time that he was having some part of his revenge upon them for their meanness to him.

“But where was the steamer bound?” asked the principal.

“For Oban,” replied Bill, getting it wrong, as he was very apt to do with geographical names.

“Oban; that’s in Scotland. No steamer in Valencia could be bound to Oban,” added Mr. Lowington.

“This place is not in Scotland: it is in Africa,” Bill explained.

“He means Oran,” suggested Dr. Winstock.

“That’s the place.”

Bill knew nothing in regard to the intended movements of Raimundo and Bark.

“How happened Raimundo to be with you?” asked the principal. “He left the Tritonia the night before we came from Barcelona.”

“No, sir: he did not leave her at all. He was in the hold all the time.”

As Bill was very willing to tell all he knew about his fellow-conspirator and the second master,—except that Bark and himself had tried to set the vessel on fire,—he related all the details of the escape, and the trip to Tarragona, including the affray with the boatman. He told the truth in the main, though he did not bring out the fact of his own cowardice, or dwell upon the cause of the quarrel between himself and his companions.

“And how happened you to be here, and on this train? Did you know we were on board of it?” inquired the principal.

“I did not know you were on this train; but I knew you were over this way somewhere.”

“And you were going to look for us,” laughed Mr.Lowington, who believed that the fellow’s ignorance had caused him to blunder into this locality at the wrong time.

“I was not looking for you, but for the Tritonias,” replied Bill, who had come to the conclusion that penitence was his best dodge under the circumstances. “I was going over to Lisbon to give myself up to Mr. Pelham.”

“Indeed! were you?”

“Yes, sir: I did not intend to run away; and it was only when Raimundo had a boat from the shore that I thought of such a thing. I have had hard luck; and I would rather do my duty on board than wander all about the country alone.”

“Then it was Lingall that spoiled your fun?”

“Yes, sir; but I shall never want to run away again.”

“That’s what they all say. But, if you wished to get back, why didn’t you go to Barcelona, where the Tritonia is? That would have been the shortest way for you.”

“I didn’t care about staying in the brig, with no one but Mr. Marline and Mr. Rimmer on board,” answered Bill, who could think of no better excuse.

Bill thought he might get a chance to slip away at some point on the road, or at least when the party arrived at Lisbon. If there was a steamer in port bound to England, he might get on board of her.

“We will consider your case at another time,” said the principal, as the train stopped at a station.

The principal and the surgeon, after sending Bill to the other end of the compartment, had a talk aboutRaimundo, who had evidently gone to Africa to get out of the jurisdiction of Spain. After examining Bradshaw, they found the fugitives could take a steamer to Bona, in Algeria, and from there make their way to Italy or Egypt; and concluded they would do so.

CHAPTER XVII.THROUGH THE HEART OF SPAIN.Bill Stoutconcluded that he was not a success as a tourist in Spain; but he was confident that he should succeed better in England. He resolved to be a good boy till the excursionists arrived in Lisbon, and not make any attempt to escape; for it was not likely that he could accomplish his purpose. Besides, he had no taste for any more travelling in Spain. In fact, he had a dread of being cast upon his own resources in the interior, where he could not speak the language.“Do you know what country you are in?” asked Dr. Winstock, who sat opposite his pupils, as he had come to call them.“I reckon you’d know if you had seen it as I have,” interposed Bill Stout, who had a seat next to Murray, with a broad grin at the absurdity of the question. “It is Spain,—the meanest country on the face of the earth.”“So you think, Stout; but you have had a rather hard experience of it,” replied the doctor. “We have had a very good time since we left Barcelona.”“I suppose you know the lingo; and that makes all the difference in the world,” added Bill.“When I spoke of country, I referred to a province,” continued Dr. Winstock.“This is La Mancha,” answered Sheridan.“The country of Don Quixote,” added the doctor.“I saw a statue of Cervantes at Madrid, and I heard one of the fellows say he was the author of ‘Don Juan,’” laughed Murray.“Cervantes wrote the first part at Valladolid, and it produced a tremendous sensation. I suppose you have read it.”“I never did,” replied Bill Stout, who counted himself in as one of the party. “Is it a good story?”“It is so considered by those who are competent judges.”“I read it years ago,” added Sheridan.“It is said to be a take-off on the knights of Spain,” said Murray. “Is that so?”“I don’t think that was his sole idea in writing the book; or, if it was, he enlarged upon his plan. He was a literary man, with some reputation, before he wrote Don Quixote; and he probably selected the most popular subject he could find, and it grew upon him as he proceeded. Sancho Panza is a representative of homely common-sense, unaided by any imagination, while his master is full of it. He is used, in the first part of the story, to act as a contrast to the extravagant Don; and in this part of the work he does not use any of the proverbs which is the staple of the typical Spaniard’s talk. The introduction of this feature of Sancho’s talk was a new idea to the author.”“I suppose Cervantes was born and lived in La Mancha,” said Murray.“Not at all: he was born near Madrid, at Alcala de Henares. He was a soldier in the early years of his life. He fought in the battle of Lepanto, under Don John. At one time he was a sort of custom-house officer in Seville; but he got into debt, and was imprisoned for three months, during which time he is said to have been engaged in his great work. He was also a prisoner in Algiers five years; and ten times he risked his life in attempts to escape. He finally died in neglect, poverty, and want.”“Then this is where Don Quixote tilted at windmills,” said Murray, looking out at the window; “and there is one of them.”“It is not in every province of Spain that the Don could have found a windmill to tilt at,” added the doctor.About eight o’clock the train stopped for breakfast, which theavant-courierhad ordered.“This is a vine and olive country,” said the doctor, when the train was again in motion.“Shall we have a chance to see how they make the oil and how they make wine?” asked Sheridan.“You will have a chance to see how it is done; but you will not be able to see it done at this season of the year. There is an olive-orchard,” continued the doctor, pointing out of the window.“The trees look like willows; and I should think they were willows.”“They are not. These trees last a great number of years,—some say, hundreds.”“There are some which look as though they were planted by Noah after he left the ark. They are ugly-looking trees,” added Murray.“The people do not plant them for their beauty, but for the fruit they yield. You see they are in regular rows, like an apple-orchard at home. They start the trees from slips, which are cut off in January. The end of the slip is quartered with a knife, and a small stone put into the end to separate the parts, and the slip stuck into the ground. The earth is banked up around the plant, which has to be watered and tenderly cared for during the first two years of its growth. In ten years these trees yield some returns; but they are not at their best estate till they are thirty years old. The olives we eat”—“I never eat them,” interrupted Murray, shaking his head.“It is an acquired taste; but those who do like them are usually very fond of them. The olive which comes in jars for table use is picked before it is quite ripe, but when full grown; and it is pickled for a week in a brine made of water, salt, garlic, and some other ingredients. The best come from the neighborhood of Seville.”“But I don’t see how they make the oil out of the olive. It don’t seem as though there is any grease in it,” said Sheridan.“The berry is picked for the manufacture of oil when it is ripe, and is then of a purple color. It is gathered in the autumn; and I have seen the peasants beating the trees with sticks, while the women and children were picking up the olives on the ground. The women drive the donkeys to the mill, bearing the berries in the panniers. The olives are crushed on a big stone hollowed out for the purpose, by passing a stone rollerover them, which is moved by a mule. The pulp is then placed in a press not unlike that you have seen in a cider-mill. The oil flows out into a reservoir under the press, from which it is bailed into jars big enough to contain a man: these jars are sunk in the ground to keep them cool. The mass left in the press after the oil is extracted is used to feed the hogs, or for fuel.”“And is that the stuff they put in the casters?” asked Murray, with his nose turned up in disgust.“That is certainly olive-oil,” replied the doctor. “You look as though you did not like it.”“I do not: I should as soon think of eating lamp-oil.”“Every one to his taste, lieutenant; but I have no doubt you have eaten a great deal of it since you came into Spain,” laughed the doctor.“Not if I knew it!”“You did not know it; but you have had it on your beefsteaks and mutton-chops, as well as in the various made-dishes you have partaken of. Spanish oil is not so pure and good as the Italian. Lucca oil has the best reputation. A poorer quality of oil is made here, which is used in making soap.”“Castile soap?”“Yes; and all kinds of oils are used for soap.”“How do they fresco it?” asked Murray.“Fresco it! They give it the marble look by putting coloring matter, mixed with oil, into the mass of soap before it is moulded into bars. What place is this?” said the doctor, as the train stopped.“Almaden,” replied Sheridan, reading the sign on the station.“I thought so, for I spent a couple of days here. Do you know what it is famous for?”“I don’t think I ever heard the name of the place before,” replied Sheridan.“It contains the greatest mine of quicksilver in the world,” added the doctor. “It was worked in the time of the Romans, and is still deemed inexhaustible. Four thousand men are employed here during the winter, for they cannot labor in the summer because the heat renders it too unhealthy. The men can work only six hours at a time; and many of them are salivated and paralyzed by the vapors of the mercury.”“Is this the same stuff the doctors use?” asked Murray.“It is; but it is prepared especially for the purpose. These mines yield the government of Spain a revenue of nearly a million dollars a year.”The country through which the tourists passed was not highly cultivated, except near the towns. On the way they saw a man ploughing-in his grain, and the implement seemed to be a wooden one. But every thing in the agricultural line was of the most primitive kind. In another place they saw a farmer at work miles from his house, for there was no village within that distance. Though there is not a fence to be seen, every man knows his own boundary-lines. In going to his day’s work, he may have to go several miles, taking his plough and other tools in a cart; and probably he wastes half his day in going to and from his work. But the Spanish peasant is an easy-going fellow, and he does not go very early, or stay very late. Often in the morning and in the middle of the afternoon our travellerssaw them going to or coming from their work in this manner.“Now we are out of La Mancha,” said the doctor, half an hour after the train left Almaden.“And what are we in now, sir?” asked Murray.“We are in the province of Cordova, which is a part of Andalusia. But we only go through a corner of Cordova, and then we strike into Estremadura.”In the afternoon the country looked better, though the people and the houses seemed to be very poor. The country looked better; but it was only better than the region near Madrid, and, compared with France or Italy, it was desolation. The effects of themestawere clearly visible.“Medellin,” said Murray, when he had spelled out the word on a station where the train stopped about half-past two.“Do you know the place?” asked Dr. Winstock.“Never heard of it.”“Yet it has some connection with the history of the New World. It is mentioned in Prescott’s ‘Conquest of Mexico.’”“I have read that, but I do not remember this name.”“It is the birthplace of Hernando Cortes; and in Trujillo, a town forty miles north of us, was born another adventurer whose name figures on the glowing page of Prescott,” added the doctor.“That was Pizarro,” said Sheridan. “I remember he was born at—what did you call the place, doctor?”“Trujillo.”“But in Prescott it is spelled with anxwhere you put anh.”“It is the same thing in Spanish, whether you spell it with anxorj. It is a strong aspirate, likeh, but is pronounced with a rougher breathing sound. Loja and Loxa are the same word,” explained the doctor. “So you will find Cordova spelled with abinstead of av; but the letters have the same power in Spanish.”“What river is this on the right?” inquired Murray.“That is the Guadiana.”“And where are its eyes, of which Professor Mapps spoke in his lecture?”“We passed them in the night, and also went over the underground river,” replied the doctor. “The region through which we are now passing was more densely peopled in the days when it was a part of the Roman empire than it is now. Without doubt the same is true of the period of the Moorish dominion. After America was discovered, and colonization began, vast numbers of emigrants went from Estremadura. In the time of Philip II. the country began to run down; and one of the reasons was the emigration to America. About four o’clock we shall arrive at Merida,” added the doctor, looking at his watch.“What is there at Merida?”“There is a great deal for the antiquarian and the student of history. You must be on the lookout for it, for there are many things to be seen from the window of the car,” continued the doctor. “It was the capital of Lusitania, and was calledEmerita Augusta, from the first word of which title comes the present name. The river there is crossed by a Roman bridge twenty-five hundred and seventy-five feet long, twenty-five wide, and thirty-three above the stream. The city was surroundedby six leagues of walls, having eighty-four gates, and had a garrison of eighty thousand foot and ten thousand horsemen. The ruins of aqueducts, temples, forum, circus, and other structures, are still to be seen; some of them, as I said, from the train.”Unfortunately the train passed the portion of the ruins of the ancient city to be seen from the window, so rapidly that only a glance at them could be obtained; but perhaps most of the students saw all they desired of them. An hour and a half later the train arrived at Badajos, where they were to spend the night, and thence proceed to Lisbon the next morning. Each individual of the ship’s company had been provided with a ticket; and it was called for in the station before he was permitted to pass out of the building. As soon as they appeared in the open air, they were assailed by a small army of omnibus-drivers; but fortunately, as the town was nearly two miles from the station, there were enough for all of them. These men actually fought together for the passengers, and behaved as badly as New York hackmen. Though all the vehicles at the station were loaded as full as they could be stowed, there was not room for more than half of the party.The doctor and his pupils preferred to walk. In Madrid, the principal had received a letter from theavant-courier; informing him how many persons could be accommodated in each of the hotels; and all the excursionists had been assigned to their quarters.“We go to theFonda las Tres Naciones,” said the doctor as they left the station. “I went there when I was here before. Those drivers fought for me as theydid to-day; and with some reason, for I was the only passenger. I selected one, and told him to take me to theFonda de las cuatro Naciones; and he laughed as though I had made a good joke. I made it ‘Four Nations’ instead of ‘Three.’ Here is the bridge over the Guadiana, built by the same architect as the Escurial.”“What is there in this place to see?” asked Sheridan.“Nothing at all; but it is an out-of-the-way old Spanish town seldom mentioned by tourists.”“I have not found it in a single book I have read, except the guide-books; and all these have to say about it is concerning the battles fought here,” added Sheridan.“Mr. Lowington has us stop here by my advice; and we are simply to spend the night here. You were on the train last night, and it would have been too much to add the long and tedious journey to Lisbon to that from Madrid without a night’s rest. Besides, you should see what you can of Portugal by daylight; for we are to visit only Lisbon and some of the places near it.”The party entered the town, and climbed up the steep streets to the hotel. The place was certainly very primitive. It had been a Roman town, and did not seem to have changed much since the time of the Cæsars. A peculiarly Spanish supper was served at the Three Nations, which was the best hotel in the place, but poor enough at that. Those who were fond of garlic had enough of it. The room in which the captain and first lieutenant were lodged had no window,and the ceiling was composed of poles on which hay was placed; and the apartment above them may have been a stable, or at least a hay-loft. Some of the students took an evening walk about the town, but most of them “turned in” at eight o’clock.The party were called at four o’clock in the morning; and after a light breakfast of coffee, eggs, and bread, they proceeded to the station. The train provided for them consisted of second-class carriages, at the head of which were several freight-cars. This is the regular day train, all of the first-class cars being used on the night train.“Now you can see something of Badajos,” said the doctor, as they walked down the hill. “It is a frontier town, and the capital of the province. It is more of a fortress than a city. Marshal Soult captured it in 1811; and it is said that it was taken only through the treachery of the commander of the Spaniards. The Duke of Wellington captured it in 1812. I suppose you have seen pictures by the Spanish artist Morales, for there are some in theMuseoat Madrid. He was born here; and, when Philip II. stopped at Badajos on his way to Lisbon, he sent for the artist. The king remarked, ‘You are very old, Morales.’—‘And very poor,’ replied the painter; and Philip gave him a pension of three hundred ducats a year till he died. Manuel Godoy, the villanous minister of Charles IV., called the ‘Prince of Peace,’ was born also here.”The train started at six o’clock, while it was still dark. Badajos is five miles from the boundary-line of Portugal; and in about an hour the train stopped at Elvas. The Portuguese police were on hand in fullforce, as well as a squad of custom-house officers. The former asked each of the adult members of the party his name, age, nationality, occupation, and a score of other questions, and would have done the same with the students if the doctor had not protested; and the officers contented themselves with merely taking their names, on the assurance that they were all Americans, were students, and had passports. Every bag and valise was opened by the custom-house officers; and all the freight and baggage cars were locked and sealed, so that they should not be opened till they arrived at Lisbon. Elvas has been the seat of an extensive smuggling trade, and the officers take every precaution to break up the business.The train was detained over an hour; and some of the students, after they had been “overhauled” as they called it, ran up into the town. Like Badajos, it is a strongly fortified place; but, unlike that, it has never been captured, though often besieged. The students caught a view of the ancient aqueduct, having three stories of arches.The train started at last; and all day it jogged along at a snail’s pace through Portugal. The scenery was about the same as in Spain, and with about the same variety one finds in New England. Dr. Winstock called the attention of his pupils to the cork-trees, and described the process of removing the bark, which forms the valuable article of commerce. They saw piles of it at the railroad stations, waiting to be shipped.There were very few stations on the way, and hardly a town was seen before four in the afternoon, when the train crossed the Tagus. The students were almostin a state of rebellion at this time, because they had had nothing to eat since their early breakfast. They had come one hundred and ten miles in ten hours; and eleven miles an hour was slow locomotion on a railroad. The courier wrote that he had made an arrangement by which the train was to go to the junction with the road to Oporto in seven hours, which was not hurrying the locomotive very much; but the conductor said he had no orders to this effect.“This is Entroncamiento,” said the doctor, as the train stopped at a station. “We dine here.”“Glory!” replied Murray. “But we might starve if we had to pronounce that name before dinner.”The students astonished the keeper of the restaurant by the quantity of soup, chicken, and chops they devoured; but they all gave him the credit of providing an excellent dinner. The excursionists had to wait a long time for the train from Oporto, for it was more than an hour late; and they did not arrive at Lisbon till half-past nine. The doctor and his pupils were sent to the Hotel Braganza, after they had gone through another ordeal with the custom-house officers. Bill Stout was taken to the Hotel Central on the quay by the river. The runaway had been as tractable as one of the lambs, till he came to the hotel. While the party were waiting for the rooms to be assigned to them, and Mr. Lowington was very busy, he slipped out into the street. He walked along the river, looking out at the vessels anchored in the stream. He made out the outline of several steamers. While he was looking at them, a couple of sailors, “half seas over,”, passed him. They were talking in English, and Bill hailed them.“Do you know whether there is a steamer in port bound to England?” he asked, after he had passed the time of night with them.“Yes, my lad: there is the Princess Royal, and she sails for London early in the morning,” replied the more sober of the two sailors. “Are you bound to London?”“I am. Which is the Princess Royal?”The man pointed the steamer out to him, and insisted that he should take a drink with them. Bill did not object. But he never took any thing stronger than wine, and his new friends insisted that he should join them with some brandy. He took very little; but then he felt obliged to treat his new friends in turn for their civility, and he repeated the dose. He then inquired where he could find a boat to take him on board of the steamer. They went out with him, and soon found a boat, in which he embarked. The boatman spoke a little English; and as soon as he was clear of the shore he asked which steamer his passenger wished to go to. By this time the brandy was beginning to have its effect upon Bill’s head; but he answered the man by pointing to the one the sailor had indicated, as he supposed.In a few moments the boat was alongside the steamer; and Bill’s head was flying around like a top. He paid the boatman his price, and then with an uneasy step walked up the accommodation-ladder. A man was standing on the platform at the head of the ladder, who asked him what he wanted.“I want to go to England,” replied the runaway, tossing his bag over the rail upon the deck.“This vessel don’t go to England; you have boarded the wrong steamer,” replied the man.Bill hailed the boatman, who was pulling for the shore.“Anchor watch!” called the man on the platform. “Bring a lantern here!”“Here is one,” said a young man, wearing an overcoat and a uniform cap, as he handed up a lantern to the first speaker.“Hand me my bag, please, gen’l’men,” said Bill.At this moment the man on the platform held the lantern up to Bill’s face.“I thought I knew that voice,” added Mr. Pelham, for it was he. “Don’t give him the bag, Scott.”“That’s my bag, and I want it,” muttered Bill.“I am afraid you have been drinking, Stout,” continued the vice-principal, taking Bill by the collar, and conducting him down the steps to the deck of the American Prince.“It is Stout, as sure as I live!” exclaimed Scott.“No doubt of that, though he has changed his rig. Pass the word for Mr. Peaks.”Bill was not so far gone but that he understood the situation. He had boarded the American Prince, instead of the Princess Royal. The big boatswain of the steamer soon appeared, and laid his great paw on the culprit.“Where did you come from, Stout?” asked the vice-principal.“I came down with Mr. Lowington and the rest of them,” answered Bill; and his tongue seemed to be twice too big for his mouth.Mr. Pelham sent for Mr. Fluxion, and they got out of the tipsy runaway all they could. They learned that the ship’s company of the Prince had just arrived. Bill Stout was caged; and the two vice-principals went on shore in the boat that was waiting for the “passenger for England.” They found Mr. Lowington at the Hotel Central. He was engaged just then in looking up Bill Stout; and he was glad to know that he was in a safe place.

THROUGH THE HEART OF SPAIN.

Bill Stoutconcluded that he was not a success as a tourist in Spain; but he was confident that he should succeed better in England. He resolved to be a good boy till the excursionists arrived in Lisbon, and not make any attempt to escape; for it was not likely that he could accomplish his purpose. Besides, he had no taste for any more travelling in Spain. In fact, he had a dread of being cast upon his own resources in the interior, where he could not speak the language.

“Do you know what country you are in?” asked Dr. Winstock, who sat opposite his pupils, as he had come to call them.

“I reckon you’d know if you had seen it as I have,” interposed Bill Stout, who had a seat next to Murray, with a broad grin at the absurdity of the question. “It is Spain,—the meanest country on the face of the earth.”

“So you think, Stout; but you have had a rather hard experience of it,” replied the doctor. “We have had a very good time since we left Barcelona.”

“I suppose you know the lingo; and that makes all the difference in the world,” added Bill.

“When I spoke of country, I referred to a province,” continued Dr. Winstock.

“This is La Mancha,” answered Sheridan.

“The country of Don Quixote,” added the doctor.

“I saw a statue of Cervantes at Madrid, and I heard one of the fellows say he was the author of ‘Don Juan,’” laughed Murray.

“Cervantes wrote the first part at Valladolid, and it produced a tremendous sensation. I suppose you have read it.”

“I never did,” replied Bill Stout, who counted himself in as one of the party. “Is it a good story?”

“It is so considered by those who are competent judges.”

“I read it years ago,” added Sheridan.

“It is said to be a take-off on the knights of Spain,” said Murray. “Is that so?”

“I don’t think that was his sole idea in writing the book; or, if it was, he enlarged upon his plan. He was a literary man, with some reputation, before he wrote Don Quixote; and he probably selected the most popular subject he could find, and it grew upon him as he proceeded. Sancho Panza is a representative of homely common-sense, unaided by any imagination, while his master is full of it. He is used, in the first part of the story, to act as a contrast to the extravagant Don; and in this part of the work he does not use any of the proverbs which is the staple of the typical Spaniard’s talk. The introduction of this feature of Sancho’s talk was a new idea to the author.”

“I suppose Cervantes was born and lived in La Mancha,” said Murray.

“Not at all: he was born near Madrid, at Alcala de Henares. He was a soldier in the early years of his life. He fought in the battle of Lepanto, under Don John. At one time he was a sort of custom-house officer in Seville; but he got into debt, and was imprisoned for three months, during which time he is said to have been engaged in his great work. He was also a prisoner in Algiers five years; and ten times he risked his life in attempts to escape. He finally died in neglect, poverty, and want.”

“Then this is where Don Quixote tilted at windmills,” said Murray, looking out at the window; “and there is one of them.”

“It is not in every province of Spain that the Don could have found a windmill to tilt at,” added the doctor.

About eight o’clock the train stopped for breakfast, which theavant-courierhad ordered.

“This is a vine and olive country,” said the doctor, when the train was again in motion.

“Shall we have a chance to see how they make the oil and how they make wine?” asked Sheridan.

“You will have a chance to see how it is done; but you will not be able to see it done at this season of the year. There is an olive-orchard,” continued the doctor, pointing out of the window.

“The trees look like willows; and I should think they were willows.”

“They are not. These trees last a great number of years,—some say, hundreds.”

“There are some which look as though they were planted by Noah after he left the ark. They are ugly-looking trees,” added Murray.

“The people do not plant them for their beauty, but for the fruit they yield. You see they are in regular rows, like an apple-orchard at home. They start the trees from slips, which are cut off in January. The end of the slip is quartered with a knife, and a small stone put into the end to separate the parts, and the slip stuck into the ground. The earth is banked up around the plant, which has to be watered and tenderly cared for during the first two years of its growth. In ten years these trees yield some returns; but they are not at their best estate till they are thirty years old. The olives we eat”—

“I never eat them,” interrupted Murray, shaking his head.

“It is an acquired taste; but those who do like them are usually very fond of them. The olive which comes in jars for table use is picked before it is quite ripe, but when full grown; and it is pickled for a week in a brine made of water, salt, garlic, and some other ingredients. The best come from the neighborhood of Seville.”

“But I don’t see how they make the oil out of the olive. It don’t seem as though there is any grease in it,” said Sheridan.

“The berry is picked for the manufacture of oil when it is ripe, and is then of a purple color. It is gathered in the autumn; and I have seen the peasants beating the trees with sticks, while the women and children were picking up the olives on the ground. The women drive the donkeys to the mill, bearing the berries in the panniers. The olives are crushed on a big stone hollowed out for the purpose, by passing a stone rollerover them, which is moved by a mule. The pulp is then placed in a press not unlike that you have seen in a cider-mill. The oil flows out into a reservoir under the press, from which it is bailed into jars big enough to contain a man: these jars are sunk in the ground to keep them cool. The mass left in the press after the oil is extracted is used to feed the hogs, or for fuel.”

“And is that the stuff they put in the casters?” asked Murray, with his nose turned up in disgust.

“That is certainly olive-oil,” replied the doctor. “You look as though you did not like it.”

“I do not: I should as soon think of eating lamp-oil.”

“Every one to his taste, lieutenant; but I have no doubt you have eaten a great deal of it since you came into Spain,” laughed the doctor.

“Not if I knew it!”

“You did not know it; but you have had it on your beefsteaks and mutton-chops, as well as in the various made-dishes you have partaken of. Spanish oil is not so pure and good as the Italian. Lucca oil has the best reputation. A poorer quality of oil is made here, which is used in making soap.”

“Castile soap?”

“Yes; and all kinds of oils are used for soap.”

“How do they fresco it?” asked Murray.

“Fresco it! They give it the marble look by putting coloring matter, mixed with oil, into the mass of soap before it is moulded into bars. What place is this?” said the doctor, as the train stopped.

“Almaden,” replied Sheridan, reading the sign on the station.

“I thought so, for I spent a couple of days here. Do you know what it is famous for?”

“I don’t think I ever heard the name of the place before,” replied Sheridan.

“It contains the greatest mine of quicksilver in the world,” added the doctor. “It was worked in the time of the Romans, and is still deemed inexhaustible. Four thousand men are employed here during the winter, for they cannot labor in the summer because the heat renders it too unhealthy. The men can work only six hours at a time; and many of them are salivated and paralyzed by the vapors of the mercury.”

“Is this the same stuff the doctors use?” asked Murray.

“It is; but it is prepared especially for the purpose. These mines yield the government of Spain a revenue of nearly a million dollars a year.”

The country through which the tourists passed was not highly cultivated, except near the towns. On the way they saw a man ploughing-in his grain, and the implement seemed to be a wooden one. But every thing in the agricultural line was of the most primitive kind. In another place they saw a farmer at work miles from his house, for there was no village within that distance. Though there is not a fence to be seen, every man knows his own boundary-lines. In going to his day’s work, he may have to go several miles, taking his plough and other tools in a cart; and probably he wastes half his day in going to and from his work. But the Spanish peasant is an easy-going fellow, and he does not go very early, or stay very late. Often in the morning and in the middle of the afternoon our travellerssaw them going to or coming from their work in this manner.

“Now we are out of La Mancha,” said the doctor, half an hour after the train left Almaden.

“And what are we in now, sir?” asked Murray.

“We are in the province of Cordova, which is a part of Andalusia. But we only go through a corner of Cordova, and then we strike into Estremadura.”

In the afternoon the country looked better, though the people and the houses seemed to be very poor. The country looked better; but it was only better than the region near Madrid, and, compared with France or Italy, it was desolation. The effects of themestawere clearly visible.

“Medellin,” said Murray, when he had spelled out the word on a station where the train stopped about half-past two.

“Do you know the place?” asked Dr. Winstock.

“Never heard of it.”

“Yet it has some connection with the history of the New World. It is mentioned in Prescott’s ‘Conquest of Mexico.’”

“I have read that, but I do not remember this name.”

“It is the birthplace of Hernando Cortes; and in Trujillo, a town forty miles north of us, was born another adventurer whose name figures on the glowing page of Prescott,” added the doctor.

“That was Pizarro,” said Sheridan. “I remember he was born at—what did you call the place, doctor?”

“Trujillo.”

“But in Prescott it is spelled with anxwhere you put anh.”

“It is the same thing in Spanish, whether you spell it with anxorj. It is a strong aspirate, likeh, but is pronounced with a rougher breathing sound. Loja and Loxa are the same word,” explained the doctor. “So you will find Cordova spelled with abinstead of av; but the letters have the same power in Spanish.”

“What river is this on the right?” inquired Murray.

“That is the Guadiana.”

“And where are its eyes, of which Professor Mapps spoke in his lecture?”

“We passed them in the night, and also went over the underground river,” replied the doctor. “The region through which we are now passing was more densely peopled in the days when it was a part of the Roman empire than it is now. Without doubt the same is true of the period of the Moorish dominion. After America was discovered, and colonization began, vast numbers of emigrants went from Estremadura. In the time of Philip II. the country began to run down; and one of the reasons was the emigration to America. About four o’clock we shall arrive at Merida,” added the doctor, looking at his watch.

“What is there at Merida?”

“There is a great deal for the antiquarian and the student of history. You must be on the lookout for it, for there are many things to be seen from the window of the car,” continued the doctor. “It was the capital of Lusitania, and was calledEmerita Augusta, from the first word of which title comes the present name. The river there is crossed by a Roman bridge twenty-five hundred and seventy-five feet long, twenty-five wide, and thirty-three above the stream. The city was surroundedby six leagues of walls, having eighty-four gates, and had a garrison of eighty thousand foot and ten thousand horsemen. The ruins of aqueducts, temples, forum, circus, and other structures, are still to be seen; some of them, as I said, from the train.”

Unfortunately the train passed the portion of the ruins of the ancient city to be seen from the window, so rapidly that only a glance at them could be obtained; but perhaps most of the students saw all they desired of them. An hour and a half later the train arrived at Badajos, where they were to spend the night, and thence proceed to Lisbon the next morning. Each individual of the ship’s company had been provided with a ticket; and it was called for in the station before he was permitted to pass out of the building. As soon as they appeared in the open air, they were assailed by a small army of omnibus-drivers; but fortunately, as the town was nearly two miles from the station, there were enough for all of them. These men actually fought together for the passengers, and behaved as badly as New York hackmen. Though all the vehicles at the station were loaded as full as they could be stowed, there was not room for more than half of the party.

The doctor and his pupils preferred to walk. In Madrid, the principal had received a letter from theavant-courier; informing him how many persons could be accommodated in each of the hotels; and all the excursionists had been assigned to their quarters.

“We go to theFonda las Tres Naciones,” said the doctor as they left the station. “I went there when I was here before. Those drivers fought for me as theydid to-day; and with some reason, for I was the only passenger. I selected one, and told him to take me to theFonda de las cuatro Naciones; and he laughed as though I had made a good joke. I made it ‘Four Nations’ instead of ‘Three.’ Here is the bridge over the Guadiana, built by the same architect as the Escurial.”

“What is there in this place to see?” asked Sheridan.

“Nothing at all; but it is an out-of-the-way old Spanish town seldom mentioned by tourists.”

“I have not found it in a single book I have read, except the guide-books; and all these have to say about it is concerning the battles fought here,” added Sheridan.

“Mr. Lowington has us stop here by my advice; and we are simply to spend the night here. You were on the train last night, and it would have been too much to add the long and tedious journey to Lisbon to that from Madrid without a night’s rest. Besides, you should see what you can of Portugal by daylight; for we are to visit only Lisbon and some of the places near it.”

The party entered the town, and climbed up the steep streets to the hotel. The place was certainly very primitive. It had been a Roman town, and did not seem to have changed much since the time of the Cæsars. A peculiarly Spanish supper was served at the Three Nations, which was the best hotel in the place, but poor enough at that. Those who were fond of garlic had enough of it. The room in which the captain and first lieutenant were lodged had no window,and the ceiling was composed of poles on which hay was placed; and the apartment above them may have been a stable, or at least a hay-loft. Some of the students took an evening walk about the town, but most of them “turned in” at eight o’clock.

The party were called at four o’clock in the morning; and after a light breakfast of coffee, eggs, and bread, they proceeded to the station. The train provided for them consisted of second-class carriages, at the head of which were several freight-cars. This is the regular day train, all of the first-class cars being used on the night train.

“Now you can see something of Badajos,” said the doctor, as they walked down the hill. “It is a frontier town, and the capital of the province. It is more of a fortress than a city. Marshal Soult captured it in 1811; and it is said that it was taken only through the treachery of the commander of the Spaniards. The Duke of Wellington captured it in 1812. I suppose you have seen pictures by the Spanish artist Morales, for there are some in theMuseoat Madrid. He was born here; and, when Philip II. stopped at Badajos on his way to Lisbon, he sent for the artist. The king remarked, ‘You are very old, Morales.’—‘And very poor,’ replied the painter; and Philip gave him a pension of three hundred ducats a year till he died. Manuel Godoy, the villanous minister of Charles IV., called the ‘Prince of Peace,’ was born also here.”

The train started at six o’clock, while it was still dark. Badajos is five miles from the boundary-line of Portugal; and in about an hour the train stopped at Elvas. The Portuguese police were on hand in fullforce, as well as a squad of custom-house officers. The former asked each of the adult members of the party his name, age, nationality, occupation, and a score of other questions, and would have done the same with the students if the doctor had not protested; and the officers contented themselves with merely taking their names, on the assurance that they were all Americans, were students, and had passports. Every bag and valise was opened by the custom-house officers; and all the freight and baggage cars were locked and sealed, so that they should not be opened till they arrived at Lisbon. Elvas has been the seat of an extensive smuggling trade, and the officers take every precaution to break up the business.

The train was detained over an hour; and some of the students, after they had been “overhauled” as they called it, ran up into the town. Like Badajos, it is a strongly fortified place; but, unlike that, it has never been captured, though often besieged. The students caught a view of the ancient aqueduct, having three stories of arches.

The train started at last; and all day it jogged along at a snail’s pace through Portugal. The scenery was about the same as in Spain, and with about the same variety one finds in New England. Dr. Winstock called the attention of his pupils to the cork-trees, and described the process of removing the bark, which forms the valuable article of commerce. They saw piles of it at the railroad stations, waiting to be shipped.

There were very few stations on the way, and hardly a town was seen before four in the afternoon, when the train crossed the Tagus. The students were almostin a state of rebellion at this time, because they had had nothing to eat since their early breakfast. They had come one hundred and ten miles in ten hours; and eleven miles an hour was slow locomotion on a railroad. The courier wrote that he had made an arrangement by which the train was to go to the junction with the road to Oporto in seven hours, which was not hurrying the locomotive very much; but the conductor said he had no orders to this effect.

“This is Entroncamiento,” said the doctor, as the train stopped at a station. “We dine here.”

“Glory!” replied Murray. “But we might starve if we had to pronounce that name before dinner.”

The students astonished the keeper of the restaurant by the quantity of soup, chicken, and chops they devoured; but they all gave him the credit of providing an excellent dinner. The excursionists had to wait a long time for the train from Oporto, for it was more than an hour late; and they did not arrive at Lisbon till half-past nine. The doctor and his pupils were sent to the Hotel Braganza, after they had gone through another ordeal with the custom-house officers. Bill Stout was taken to the Hotel Central on the quay by the river. The runaway had been as tractable as one of the lambs, till he came to the hotel. While the party were waiting for the rooms to be assigned to them, and Mr. Lowington was very busy, he slipped out into the street. He walked along the river, looking out at the vessels anchored in the stream. He made out the outline of several steamers. While he was looking at them, a couple of sailors, “half seas over,”, passed him. They were talking in English, and Bill hailed them.

“Do you know whether there is a steamer in port bound to England?” he asked, after he had passed the time of night with them.

“Yes, my lad: there is the Princess Royal, and she sails for London early in the morning,” replied the more sober of the two sailors. “Are you bound to London?”

“I am. Which is the Princess Royal?”

The man pointed the steamer out to him, and insisted that he should take a drink with them. Bill did not object. But he never took any thing stronger than wine, and his new friends insisted that he should join them with some brandy. He took very little; but then he felt obliged to treat his new friends in turn for their civility, and he repeated the dose. He then inquired where he could find a boat to take him on board of the steamer. They went out with him, and soon found a boat, in which he embarked. The boatman spoke a little English; and as soon as he was clear of the shore he asked which steamer his passenger wished to go to. By this time the brandy was beginning to have its effect upon Bill’s head; but he answered the man by pointing to the one the sailor had indicated, as he supposed.

In a few moments the boat was alongside the steamer; and Bill’s head was flying around like a top. He paid the boatman his price, and then with an uneasy step walked up the accommodation-ladder. A man was standing on the platform at the head of the ladder, who asked him what he wanted.

“I want to go to England,” replied the runaway, tossing his bag over the rail upon the deck.

“This vessel don’t go to England; you have boarded the wrong steamer,” replied the man.

Bill hailed the boatman, who was pulling for the shore.

“Anchor watch!” called the man on the platform. “Bring a lantern here!”

“Here is one,” said a young man, wearing an overcoat and a uniform cap, as he handed up a lantern to the first speaker.

“Hand me my bag, please, gen’l’men,” said Bill.

At this moment the man on the platform held the lantern up to Bill’s face.

“I thought I knew that voice,” added Mr. Pelham, for it was he. “Don’t give him the bag, Scott.”

“That’s my bag, and I want it,” muttered Bill.

“I am afraid you have been drinking, Stout,” continued the vice-principal, taking Bill by the collar, and conducting him down the steps to the deck of the American Prince.

“It is Stout, as sure as I live!” exclaimed Scott.

“No doubt of that, though he has changed his rig. Pass the word for Mr. Peaks.”

Bill was not so far gone but that he understood the situation. He had boarded the American Prince, instead of the Princess Royal. The big boatswain of the steamer soon appeared, and laid his great paw on the culprit.

“Where did you come from, Stout?” asked the vice-principal.

“I came down with Mr. Lowington and the rest of them,” answered Bill; and his tongue seemed to be twice too big for his mouth.

Mr. Pelham sent for Mr. Fluxion, and they got out of the tipsy runaway all they could. They learned that the ship’s company of the Prince had just arrived. Bill Stout was caged; and the two vice-principals went on shore in the boat that was waiting for the “passenger for England.” They found Mr. Lowington at the Hotel Central. He was engaged just then in looking up Bill Stout; and he was glad to know that he was in a safe place.

CHAPTER XVIII.AFRICA AND REPENTANCE.Havingbrought Bill Stout safely into port, we feel obliged to bestow some attention upon the other wanderers from the fold of discipline and good instruction. At theFonda del Cid, where our brace of tourists went after taking such unceremonious leave of Bill Stout, was a party of English people who insisted upon having their breakfast at an hour that would permit them to use the forenoon in seeing the sights of Valencia; and thus it happened that this meal was ready for the fugitives at eight o’clock.“What day is this, Lingall?” asked Raimundo, as they came into the main hall of the hotel after breakfast.“Wednesday,” replied Bark.“I thought so. Look at this bill,” added the second master, pointing to a small poster, with the picture of a steamer at the head of it.“I see it, but I can’t read it.”“This steamer starts from Grao at ten this forenoon, for Oran. It is only half-past eight now.”“Starts from Grao? where is that?” asked Bark.“Grao is the port of Valencia: it is not many miles from here.”“And where is the other place? I never heard of it.”“Oran is in Algeria. It cannot be more than three hundred miles from Valencia.”“But that will be going to Africa.”“It will be the best thing we can do if we mean to keep out of the way.”“I don’t object: I am as willing to go to Africa as anywhere else.”“We can stay over there for a week or two, and then come back to Spain. We can hit the Tritonia at Cadiz or Lisbon.”“I don’t think I want to hit her,” replied Bark with a sheepish smile.“I was speaking for myself; and I forgot that your case was not the same as my own,” added Raimundo.“I don’t know what your case is; but, as you seem to be perfectly easy about it, I wish mine was no worse than I believe yours is.”“We will talk about that another time; for, if we are going to Oran, it is time we were on the way to the port,” said Raimundo. “If you don’t want to go to Africa, I won’t urge it; but that will suit my case the best of any thing I can think of.”“It makes no difference to me where I go; and I am perfectly willing to go with you wherever you wish,” replied Bark, who, from hating the second master, had come to have an intense admiration for him.Bark Lingall believed that his companion had saved the lives of the whole party in the boat; and certainly he had managed the expedition with great skill. He was as brave as a lion, in spite of his gentleness. But perhaps his respect and regard for the young Spaniardhad grown out of the contrast he could not help making between him and Bill Stout. He could not now understand how it was that he had got up such an intimacy with his late associate in mischief, or rather in crime. Burning the Tritonia was vastly worse than he had at first considered it. Its enormity had increased in his mind when he reflected that Raimundo, who must have had a very strong motive for his sudden disappearance, had preferred to reveal himself rather than have the beautiful craft destroyed. In a word, Bark had made some progress towards a genuine repentance for taking part in the conspiracy with Bill Stout.Raimundo paid the bill, and they took atartanafor Grao. They learned from the driver that it was less than half an hour’s ride. They first went to the office of the steamer, paid their passage, and secured their state-room.“This is a good move for another reason,” said Raimundo, as they started again.“What’s that?” asked Bark.“I have been expecting to see Stout drop down upon us every moment since we went to the hotel.”“So have I; and I think, if it had been my case, I should have found you by this time, if I wanted to do so,” added Bark.“It is hardly time yet for him to get around; but he will find theFonda del Cidin the course of the forenoon. You forget that Stout cannot speak a word of Spanish; and his want of the language will make it slow work for him to do any thing.”“I did not think of that.”“Do you feel all right about leaving him as we did?” asked Raimundo. “For my part, I could not endure him. He insulted me without the least reason for doing so.”“He is the most unreasonable fellow I ever met in the whole course of my natural life. It was impossible to get along with him; and I am entirely satisfied with myself for leaving him,” replied Bark. “He insulted you, as you say; and I gave him the alternative of apologizing to you, or of parting company with us. I believe I did the fair thing. A fellow cannot hug a hog for any great length of period.”“That’s so; but didn’t you know him before?”“I knew him, of course; and he was always grumbling and discontented about something; but I never thought he was such a fellow as he turned out to be. I haven’t known him but a couple of months or so.”“I should think you would have got at him while you were getting up something”—Raimundo did not say what—“with him.”“I was dissatisfied myself. The squadron did not prove to be what I anticipated,” added Bark. “I had an idea that it was in for a general good time; that all we had to do was to go from place to place, and see the sights.”“But you knew it was a school.”“Certainly I did; but I never supposed the fellows had to study half as hard as they do. I thought the school was a sort of a fancy idea, to make it take with the parents of the boys. When I found how hard we had to work, I was disgusted with the whole thing. Then I fell in with Bill Stout and others; and, whenwe had talked the matter over a few times, it was even worse than I had supposed when I did all my own thinking on the subject. After we got together, we both became more and more discontented, till we were convinced that we were all slaves, and that it was really our duty to break the chains that bound us. This was all the kind of talk I ever had with Stout; and, as we sympathized on this matter, I never looked any farther into his character.”“We shall have time enough to talk over these things when we get on board the steamer,” added Raimundo. “I have watched you and Stout a great deal on board of the Tritonia; and I confess that I was prejudiced against you. I didn’t feel any better about it when I found you and Stout trying to destroy the vessel. But I must say now that you are a different sort of fellow from what I took you to be; and nobody ever grew any faster in another’s estimation than you have in mine since that affair last night in the felucca. I believe your pluck and skill in hauling that cut-throat down saved the whole of us.”“I have been thinking all the time it was you that saved us,” added Bark, intensely gratified at the praise of Raimundo.“The battle would have been lost if it hadn’t been for you; for I struck at the villain, and missed him. If you hadn’t brought him down, his knife would have been into me in another instant. But here is the port.”The steamer was one of the “Messageries Nationales,” though that name had been recently substituted for “Imperiales” because the emperor had been abolished. The tourists went on board in a shore-boat, and tookpossession of their state-room. They made their preparations for the voyage, and then went on deck. They found comfortable seats, and the weather was like spring.“What is the name of this steamer?” asked Bark.“The City of Brest.”“That was not the name on the handbill we saw; was it, Mr. Raimundo?”“Yes,—Ville de Brest.”“That was it,” added Bark.“Well, that is the French of City of Brest,” laughed the second master. “Don’t you speak French?”“I know a little of it; and I know that a ‘ville’ is a city; but I didn’t understand it as you spoke the word.”“I learned all the French I know in the academy squadron; and I can get along very well with it. I have spent a whole evening where nothing but French was spoken by the party. Professor Badois never speaks a word of English to me.”“And you speak Italian and German besides, Mr. Raimundo.”“I can get along with them, as I can with French.”“That makes five languages you speak.”“I am not much in Italian,” laughed the second master. “My uncle set me to learning it in New York; but I forgot most of it, and learned more while we were in Italy than I ever knew before.”“I wish I had some other lingo besides my own.”“You can have it by learning it.”“But I am not so good a scholar as you are, Mr. Raimundo.”“You don’t know that; for, if I mistake not, you have never laid yourself out on study, as I had not when I first went on board of the Young America. But, to change the subject, you have called me Mr. Raimundo three times since we sat down here. I agree with Stout so far, that we had better drop all titles till I put on my uniform again.”“I have been so used to calling you Mr., that it comes most natural for me to do so,” replied Bark.“I think I shall change my name a little; at least, so far as to translate it into plain English. I have always kept my Spanish name, which is Enrique Raimundo. It is so entered on the ship’s books; but I shall make it Henry Raymond for the present.”“And is that the English of the other name?”“It is; and, when you call me any thing, let it be Henry.”“Very well, Henry,” added Bark.“That is the name I gave when I bought the tickets. I noticed that Stout called you Bark.”“My name is Barclay; and you can call me that, or Bark for short.”“Bark don’t sound very respectful, and it reminds one of a dog.”“My bark is on the wave; and I do not object to the name. I was always called Bark before I went to sea, and it sounds more natural to me than any thing else would. My father always called me Barclay; and I believe he was the only one that did.”“All right, Bark: if you don’t object, I need not. You hinted that you did not think you should go back to the Tritonia.”“It wouldn’t be safe for me to do so,” replied Bark anxiously.“I have come to the conclusion that it is always the safest to do the right thing, whatever the consequences may be.”“What! stay in the brig the rest of the voyage!”“Yes, if that is the penalty for doing the right thing,” replied Henry, as he chooses to be called.“Suppose you were in my place; that you had tried to set the vessel on fire, and had run away: what would you do?”“You did not set the vessel on fire, or try to do it. It was Stout that did it,” argued Raymond.“But I was in the plot. I agreed to take part in it; and I hold myself to be just as deep in the mire as Bill Stout is in the mud,” added Bark.“I am glad to see that you are a man about it, and don’t shirk off the blame on the other fellow.”“Though I did not get up the idea, I am as guilty as Bill; and I will not cast it all upon him.”“That’s the right thing to say.”“But what would you do, if you were in my place?”“Just as I said before. I should return to the Tritonia, and face the music, if I were sent home in a man-of-war, to be tried for my life for the deed.”“That’s pretty rough medicine.”“Since I have been in the squadron, I have learned a new morality. I don’t think it would be possible for me to commit a crime, especially such as burning a vessel; but, if I had done it, I should want to be hanged for it as soon as possible. I don’t know that anybody else is like me; but I tell you just how I feel.”“But, if you were bad enough to do the deed, you could not feel as you do now,” replied Bark, shaking his head.“That may be; but I can only tell you how I feel now. I never did any thing that I called a crime,—I mean any thing that made me liable to be punished by the law,—but I was a very wild fellow in the way of mischief. I used to be playing tricks upon the fellows, on my schoolmasters, and others, and was always in a scrape. I was good for nothing till I came on board of the Young America. As soon as I got interested, I worked night and day to get my lessons. Of course I had to be very correct in my conduct, or I should have lost my rank. It required a struggle for me to do these things at first; but I was determined to be an officer. I was as severe with myself as though I had been a monk with the highest of aspirations. I was an officer in three months; and I have been one ever since, though I have never been higher than fourth lieutenant, for the reason that I am not good in mathematics. My strength is in the languages.”“But I should think you would get discouraged because you get no higher.”“Not at all. As the matter stands now with me, I should do the best I could if I had to take the lowest place in the ship.”“I don’t understand that,” added Bark, who had come to the conclusion that his companion was the strangest mortal on the face of the earth; but that was only because Bark dwelt on a lower moral plane.“After I had done my duty zealously for a few months, I was happy only in doing it; and it gave memore pleasure than the reward that followed it. Like Ignatius Loyola, I became an enthusiastic believer in God, in a personal God, in Christ the Saviour, and in the Virgin Mary: blessed be the Mother of God, her Son, and the Father of all of us!” and Raymond crossed himself as devoutly as though he were engaged in his devotions.Bark was absolutely thrilled by this narrative of the personal experience of his new-found friend; and he was utterly unable to say any thing.“But God and duty seem almost the same to me,” continued Raymond. “I am ready to die or to live, but not to live at the expense of right and duty. For the last six months I have believed myself liable to be assassinated at any time. I know not how much this has to do with my mental, moral, and religious condition; but I am as I have described myself to be. I should do my duty if I knew that I should be burned at the stake for it”“What do you mean by assassinated?” asked Bark, startled by the statement.“I mean exactly what I say. But I am going to tell you my story in full. I have related it to only one other student in the squadron; and, if we should be together again on board of the Tritonia, I must ask you to keep it to yourself,” said Raymond.“It has bothered me all along to understand how a fellow as high-toned as you are could allow yourself to be considered a runaway; for I suppose the officers look upon you as such.”“No doubt they do; but in good time I shall tell Mr. Lowington the whole story, and then he will be able to judge for himself.”By this time the steamer had started. Raymond told his story just as he had related it to Scott on board of the Tritonia. Bark was interested; and, when the recital was finished, the steamer was out of sight of land.“I suppose you will not believe me when I say it; but I have kept out of my uncle’s way more for his sake than my own,” said Raymond in conclusion. “I will not tempt one of my own flesh and blood to commit a crime; and I feel that it would have been cowardice for me to run away from my ship for the mere sake of saving myself from harm. Besides, I think I could take care of myself in Barcelona.”“I have no doubt of that,” replied Bark, whose admiration of his fellow-tourist was even increased by the narration to which he had just listened.Certainly Raymond was a most remarkable young man. Bark felt as though he were in the presence of a superior being. He realized his own meanness and littleness, judged by the high standard of his companion. As both of them were tired, after the night on the train, they went to the state-room, and lay down in their berths. Raymond went to sleep; but Bark could not, for he was intensely excited by the conversation he had had with his new friend. He lay thinking of his own life and character, as compared with his companion’s; and the conspiracy in which he had taken part absolutely filled him with horror. The inward peace and happiness which Raymond had realized from his devotion to duty strongly impressed him.But we will not follow him through all the meanderings of his thought. It is enough to say that fellowshipwith Raymond had made a man of him, and he was fully determined to seek peace in doing his whole duty. He was prepared to do what his companion had counselled him to do,—to return to the Tritonia, and take the consequences of his evil-doing. When his friend awoke, he announced to him his decision. Raymond saw that he was sincere, and he did all he could to confirm and strengthen his good resolution.“There is one thing about the matter that troubles me,” said Bark, as they seated themselves on deck after dinner. “I am willing to own up, and take the penalty, whatever it may be; but, if I confess that I was engaged in a conspiracy to burn the Tritonia, I shall implicate others,—I shall have to blow on Bill Stout.”“Well, what right have you to do any thing else?” demanded Raymond earnestly. “Suppose Filipe had killed me last night, and had offered you a thousand dollars to conceal the crime: would it have been right for you to accept the offer?”“Certainly not.”“You would be an accomplice if you had. You have no more right to cover up Stout’s crime than you would have to conceal Filipe’s. Besides, the principal ought to know that he has a fellow on board that is bad enough to burn the Tritonia. He may do it with some other fellow yet; and, if he should, you would share the guilt with him.”“You found out what we were doing,” added Bark.“And I felt that I ought not to leave the vessel without telling the steward,” replied Raymond. “I certainly intended to inform the principal as soon as I had an opportunity. I believe in boy honor and all thatsort of thing as much as you do; but I have no right to let the vessels of the squadron be burned.”The subject was discussed till dark, and Bark could not resist the arguments of his friend. He was resolved to do his whole duty.It is not our purpose to follow the fugitives into Africa. They reached Oran the next day, and remained there two weeks, until a steamer left for Malaga, when they returned to Spain.“That’s the American Prince, as true as you live!” exclaimed Bark, as the vessel in which they sailed was approaching Malaga; and both of them had been observing her for an hour.“She is on her way from Lisbon back to Barcelona; and she will not be in Malaga for a week or more,” replied Raymond.Before night they were in the hotel in Malaga.

AFRICA AND REPENTANCE.

Havingbrought Bill Stout safely into port, we feel obliged to bestow some attention upon the other wanderers from the fold of discipline and good instruction. At theFonda del Cid, where our brace of tourists went after taking such unceremonious leave of Bill Stout, was a party of English people who insisted upon having their breakfast at an hour that would permit them to use the forenoon in seeing the sights of Valencia; and thus it happened that this meal was ready for the fugitives at eight o’clock.

“What day is this, Lingall?” asked Raimundo, as they came into the main hall of the hotel after breakfast.

“Wednesday,” replied Bark.

“I thought so. Look at this bill,” added the second master, pointing to a small poster, with the picture of a steamer at the head of it.

“I see it, but I can’t read it.”

“This steamer starts from Grao at ten this forenoon, for Oran. It is only half-past eight now.”

“Starts from Grao? where is that?” asked Bark.

“Grao is the port of Valencia: it is not many miles from here.”

“And where is the other place? I never heard of it.”

“Oran is in Algeria. It cannot be more than three hundred miles from Valencia.”

“But that will be going to Africa.”

“It will be the best thing we can do if we mean to keep out of the way.”

“I don’t object: I am as willing to go to Africa as anywhere else.”

“We can stay over there for a week or two, and then come back to Spain. We can hit the Tritonia at Cadiz or Lisbon.”

“I don’t think I want to hit her,” replied Bark with a sheepish smile.

“I was speaking for myself; and I forgot that your case was not the same as my own,” added Raimundo.

“I don’t know what your case is; but, as you seem to be perfectly easy about it, I wish mine was no worse than I believe yours is.”

“We will talk about that another time; for, if we are going to Oran, it is time we were on the way to the port,” said Raimundo. “If you don’t want to go to Africa, I won’t urge it; but that will suit my case the best of any thing I can think of.”

“It makes no difference to me where I go; and I am perfectly willing to go with you wherever you wish,” replied Bark, who, from hating the second master, had come to have an intense admiration for him.

Bark Lingall believed that his companion had saved the lives of the whole party in the boat; and certainly he had managed the expedition with great skill. He was as brave as a lion, in spite of his gentleness. But perhaps his respect and regard for the young Spaniardhad grown out of the contrast he could not help making between him and Bill Stout. He could not now understand how it was that he had got up such an intimacy with his late associate in mischief, or rather in crime. Burning the Tritonia was vastly worse than he had at first considered it. Its enormity had increased in his mind when he reflected that Raimundo, who must have had a very strong motive for his sudden disappearance, had preferred to reveal himself rather than have the beautiful craft destroyed. In a word, Bark had made some progress towards a genuine repentance for taking part in the conspiracy with Bill Stout.

Raimundo paid the bill, and they took atartanafor Grao. They learned from the driver that it was less than half an hour’s ride. They first went to the office of the steamer, paid their passage, and secured their state-room.

“This is a good move for another reason,” said Raimundo, as they started again.

“What’s that?” asked Bark.

“I have been expecting to see Stout drop down upon us every moment since we went to the hotel.”

“So have I; and I think, if it had been my case, I should have found you by this time, if I wanted to do so,” added Bark.

“It is hardly time yet for him to get around; but he will find theFonda del Cidin the course of the forenoon. You forget that Stout cannot speak a word of Spanish; and his want of the language will make it slow work for him to do any thing.”

“I did not think of that.”

“Do you feel all right about leaving him as we did?” asked Raimundo. “For my part, I could not endure him. He insulted me without the least reason for doing so.”

“He is the most unreasonable fellow I ever met in the whole course of my natural life. It was impossible to get along with him; and I am entirely satisfied with myself for leaving him,” replied Bark. “He insulted you, as you say; and I gave him the alternative of apologizing to you, or of parting company with us. I believe I did the fair thing. A fellow cannot hug a hog for any great length of period.”

“That’s so; but didn’t you know him before?”

“I knew him, of course; and he was always grumbling and discontented about something; but I never thought he was such a fellow as he turned out to be. I haven’t known him but a couple of months or so.”

“I should think you would have got at him while you were getting up something”—Raimundo did not say what—“with him.”

“I was dissatisfied myself. The squadron did not prove to be what I anticipated,” added Bark. “I had an idea that it was in for a general good time; that all we had to do was to go from place to place, and see the sights.”

“But you knew it was a school.”

“Certainly I did; but I never supposed the fellows had to study half as hard as they do. I thought the school was a sort of a fancy idea, to make it take with the parents of the boys. When I found how hard we had to work, I was disgusted with the whole thing. Then I fell in with Bill Stout and others; and, whenwe had talked the matter over a few times, it was even worse than I had supposed when I did all my own thinking on the subject. After we got together, we both became more and more discontented, till we were convinced that we were all slaves, and that it was really our duty to break the chains that bound us. This was all the kind of talk I ever had with Stout; and, as we sympathized on this matter, I never looked any farther into his character.”

“We shall have time enough to talk over these things when we get on board the steamer,” added Raimundo. “I have watched you and Stout a great deal on board of the Tritonia; and I confess that I was prejudiced against you. I didn’t feel any better about it when I found you and Stout trying to destroy the vessel. But I must say now that you are a different sort of fellow from what I took you to be; and nobody ever grew any faster in another’s estimation than you have in mine since that affair last night in the felucca. I believe your pluck and skill in hauling that cut-throat down saved the whole of us.”

“I have been thinking all the time it was you that saved us,” added Bark, intensely gratified at the praise of Raimundo.

“The battle would have been lost if it hadn’t been for you; for I struck at the villain, and missed him. If you hadn’t brought him down, his knife would have been into me in another instant. But here is the port.”

The steamer was one of the “Messageries Nationales,” though that name had been recently substituted for “Imperiales” because the emperor had been abolished. The tourists went on board in a shore-boat, and tookpossession of their state-room. They made their preparations for the voyage, and then went on deck. They found comfortable seats, and the weather was like spring.

“What is the name of this steamer?” asked Bark.

“The City of Brest.”

“That was not the name on the handbill we saw; was it, Mr. Raimundo?”

“Yes,—Ville de Brest.”

“That was it,” added Bark.

“Well, that is the French of City of Brest,” laughed the second master. “Don’t you speak French?”

“I know a little of it; and I know that a ‘ville’ is a city; but I didn’t understand it as you spoke the word.”

“I learned all the French I know in the academy squadron; and I can get along very well with it. I have spent a whole evening where nothing but French was spoken by the party. Professor Badois never speaks a word of English to me.”

“And you speak Italian and German besides, Mr. Raimundo.”

“I can get along with them, as I can with French.”

“That makes five languages you speak.”

“I am not much in Italian,” laughed the second master. “My uncle set me to learning it in New York; but I forgot most of it, and learned more while we were in Italy than I ever knew before.”

“I wish I had some other lingo besides my own.”

“You can have it by learning it.”

“But I am not so good a scholar as you are, Mr. Raimundo.”

“You don’t know that; for, if I mistake not, you have never laid yourself out on study, as I had not when I first went on board of the Young America. But, to change the subject, you have called me Mr. Raimundo three times since we sat down here. I agree with Stout so far, that we had better drop all titles till I put on my uniform again.”

“I have been so used to calling you Mr., that it comes most natural for me to do so,” replied Bark.

“I think I shall change my name a little; at least, so far as to translate it into plain English. I have always kept my Spanish name, which is Enrique Raimundo. It is so entered on the ship’s books; but I shall make it Henry Raymond for the present.”

“And is that the English of the other name?”

“It is; and, when you call me any thing, let it be Henry.”

“Very well, Henry,” added Bark.

“That is the name I gave when I bought the tickets. I noticed that Stout called you Bark.”

“My name is Barclay; and you can call me that, or Bark for short.”

“Bark don’t sound very respectful, and it reminds one of a dog.”

“My bark is on the wave; and I do not object to the name. I was always called Bark before I went to sea, and it sounds more natural to me than any thing else would. My father always called me Barclay; and I believe he was the only one that did.”

“All right, Bark: if you don’t object, I need not. You hinted that you did not think you should go back to the Tritonia.”

“It wouldn’t be safe for me to do so,” replied Bark anxiously.

“I have come to the conclusion that it is always the safest to do the right thing, whatever the consequences may be.”

“What! stay in the brig the rest of the voyage!”

“Yes, if that is the penalty for doing the right thing,” replied Henry, as he chooses to be called.

“Suppose you were in my place; that you had tried to set the vessel on fire, and had run away: what would you do?”

“You did not set the vessel on fire, or try to do it. It was Stout that did it,” argued Raymond.

“But I was in the plot. I agreed to take part in it; and I hold myself to be just as deep in the mire as Bill Stout is in the mud,” added Bark.

“I am glad to see that you are a man about it, and don’t shirk off the blame on the other fellow.”

“Though I did not get up the idea, I am as guilty as Bill; and I will not cast it all upon him.”

“That’s the right thing to say.”

“But what would you do, if you were in my place?”

“Just as I said before. I should return to the Tritonia, and face the music, if I were sent home in a man-of-war, to be tried for my life for the deed.”

“That’s pretty rough medicine.”

“Since I have been in the squadron, I have learned a new morality. I don’t think it would be possible for me to commit a crime, especially such as burning a vessel; but, if I had done it, I should want to be hanged for it as soon as possible. I don’t know that anybody else is like me; but I tell you just how I feel.”

“But, if you were bad enough to do the deed, you could not feel as you do now,” replied Bark, shaking his head.

“That may be; but I can only tell you how I feel now. I never did any thing that I called a crime,—I mean any thing that made me liable to be punished by the law,—but I was a very wild fellow in the way of mischief. I used to be playing tricks upon the fellows, on my schoolmasters, and others, and was always in a scrape. I was good for nothing till I came on board of the Young America. As soon as I got interested, I worked night and day to get my lessons. Of course I had to be very correct in my conduct, or I should have lost my rank. It required a struggle for me to do these things at first; but I was determined to be an officer. I was as severe with myself as though I had been a monk with the highest of aspirations. I was an officer in three months; and I have been one ever since, though I have never been higher than fourth lieutenant, for the reason that I am not good in mathematics. My strength is in the languages.”

“But I should think you would get discouraged because you get no higher.”

“Not at all. As the matter stands now with me, I should do the best I could if I had to take the lowest place in the ship.”

“I don’t understand that,” added Bark, who had come to the conclusion that his companion was the strangest mortal on the face of the earth; but that was only because Bark dwelt on a lower moral plane.

“After I had done my duty zealously for a few months, I was happy only in doing it; and it gave memore pleasure than the reward that followed it. Like Ignatius Loyola, I became an enthusiastic believer in God, in a personal God, in Christ the Saviour, and in the Virgin Mary: blessed be the Mother of God, her Son, and the Father of all of us!” and Raymond crossed himself as devoutly as though he were engaged in his devotions.

Bark was absolutely thrilled by this narrative of the personal experience of his new-found friend; and he was utterly unable to say any thing.

“But God and duty seem almost the same to me,” continued Raymond. “I am ready to die or to live, but not to live at the expense of right and duty. For the last six months I have believed myself liable to be assassinated at any time. I know not how much this has to do with my mental, moral, and religious condition; but I am as I have described myself to be. I should do my duty if I knew that I should be burned at the stake for it”

“What do you mean by assassinated?” asked Bark, startled by the statement.

“I mean exactly what I say. But I am going to tell you my story in full. I have related it to only one other student in the squadron; and, if we should be together again on board of the Tritonia, I must ask you to keep it to yourself,” said Raymond.

“It has bothered me all along to understand how a fellow as high-toned as you are could allow yourself to be considered a runaway; for I suppose the officers look upon you as such.”

“No doubt they do; but in good time I shall tell Mr. Lowington the whole story, and then he will be able to judge for himself.”

By this time the steamer had started. Raymond told his story just as he had related it to Scott on board of the Tritonia. Bark was interested; and, when the recital was finished, the steamer was out of sight of land.

“I suppose you will not believe me when I say it; but I have kept out of my uncle’s way more for his sake than my own,” said Raymond in conclusion. “I will not tempt one of my own flesh and blood to commit a crime; and I feel that it would have been cowardice for me to run away from my ship for the mere sake of saving myself from harm. Besides, I think I could take care of myself in Barcelona.”

“I have no doubt of that,” replied Bark, whose admiration of his fellow-tourist was even increased by the narration to which he had just listened.

Certainly Raymond was a most remarkable young man. Bark felt as though he were in the presence of a superior being. He realized his own meanness and littleness, judged by the high standard of his companion. As both of them were tired, after the night on the train, they went to the state-room, and lay down in their berths. Raymond went to sleep; but Bark could not, for he was intensely excited by the conversation he had had with his new friend. He lay thinking of his own life and character, as compared with his companion’s; and the conspiracy in which he had taken part absolutely filled him with horror. The inward peace and happiness which Raymond had realized from his devotion to duty strongly impressed him.

But we will not follow him through all the meanderings of his thought. It is enough to say that fellowshipwith Raymond had made a man of him, and he was fully determined to seek peace in doing his whole duty. He was prepared to do what his companion had counselled him to do,—to return to the Tritonia, and take the consequences of his evil-doing. When his friend awoke, he announced to him his decision. Raymond saw that he was sincere, and he did all he could to confirm and strengthen his good resolution.

“There is one thing about the matter that troubles me,” said Bark, as they seated themselves on deck after dinner. “I am willing to own up, and take the penalty, whatever it may be; but, if I confess that I was engaged in a conspiracy to burn the Tritonia, I shall implicate others,—I shall have to blow on Bill Stout.”

“Well, what right have you to do any thing else?” demanded Raymond earnestly. “Suppose Filipe had killed me last night, and had offered you a thousand dollars to conceal the crime: would it have been right for you to accept the offer?”

“Certainly not.”

“You would be an accomplice if you had. You have no more right to cover up Stout’s crime than you would have to conceal Filipe’s. Besides, the principal ought to know that he has a fellow on board that is bad enough to burn the Tritonia. He may do it with some other fellow yet; and, if he should, you would share the guilt with him.”

“You found out what we were doing,” added Bark.

“And I felt that I ought not to leave the vessel without telling the steward,” replied Raymond. “I certainly intended to inform the principal as soon as I had an opportunity. I believe in boy honor and all thatsort of thing as much as you do; but I have no right to let the vessels of the squadron be burned.”

The subject was discussed till dark, and Bark could not resist the arguments of his friend. He was resolved to do his whole duty.

It is not our purpose to follow the fugitives into Africa. They reached Oran the next day, and remained there two weeks, until a steamer left for Malaga, when they returned to Spain.

“That’s the American Prince, as true as you live!” exclaimed Bark, as the vessel in which they sailed was approaching Malaga; and both of them had been observing her for an hour.

“She is on her way from Lisbon back to Barcelona; and she will not be in Malaga for a week or more,” replied Raymond.

Before night they were in the hotel in Malaga.

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