“Now, what say you?” cried the skipper, as he pointed with his telescope to a dark-blue mass in the distance; “see there!”
“Ah, true enough; that’s Cintra!”
“Then we shall probably be in the Tagus River before morning?”
“Before midnight, if the wind holds,” said the skipper. We breakfasted on deck beneath an awning. The vessel scarcely seemed to move as she cut her way through the calm water.
The misty outline of the coast grew gradually more defined, and at length the blue mountains could be seen; at first but dimly, but as the day wore on, their many-colored hues shone forth, and patches of green verdure, dotted with sheep or sheltered by dark foliage, met the eye. The bulwarks were crowded with anxious faces; each looked pointedly towards the shore, and many a stout heart beat high, as the land drew near, fated to cover with its earth more than one among us.
“And that’s Portingale, Mister Charles,” said a voice behind me. I turned and saw my man Mike, as with anxious joy, he fixed his eyes upon the shore.
“They tell me it’s a beautiful place, with wine for nothing and spirits for less. Isn’t it a pity they won’t be raisonable and make peace with us?”
“Why, my good fellow, we are excellent friends; it’s the French who want to beat us all.”
“Upon my conscience, that’s not right. There’s an ould saying in Connaught, ‘It’s not fair for one to fall upon twenty.’ Sergeant Haggarty says that I’ll see none of the divarsion at all.”
“I don’t well understand—”