"It has one or two memories that will stick. You trying to catch up the slits in the mainsail as fast as the wind slitted them, with the knowledge that we'd probably go to glory if you got behind; I shan't forget that. And I think the face of that man we laughed at on the brig will stick. Also one or two other items. But as you say, old chappie, it's nicest to look at from beyond."
The day flushed hotly as it wore on, and still the breeze kept light. We slid through the water slowly, leaving scarce a trace of wake behind us. Haigh smoked and drank vermouth; Taltavull busied himself below with dealing, on paper, with tremendous sums of money; I bathed at intervals, diving from the bowsprit end, and climbing aboard again by the lee runner.
It was a lazy, dreamy passage that of ours across the channel, and most enjoyable withal; but there was a strong lure dragging us on, and I think all of the ugly cutter's complement were unfeignedly glad when she opened up abeam both of the high headlands which bound Alcudia Bay. There is one lighthouse, on the northernmost cape, and we passed another on an island about half-way in, both in mocking contrast to the old round sandstone tower which rears itself amongst the palmetto scrub about a mile outside the puerto. What that old crumbling castle was for it is difficult to see, for in the days when it was built there was no known artillery which would throw a ball half-way across the shallow bay.
"The lazaretto," said Taltavull, pointing to a grim, gray fortress farther along the shore, with high limestone walls, and lookout towers at the corners. "Heaven help the poor cholera-stricken wretches whose fate it is to be boxed up in that prison! It helps to show, however, what a rabid hatred the Mallorcans have of all manner of disease. Read George Sand's book about the island if you want to understand that. She brought Chopin here long ago, and wintered with him at the Valledemosa Convent, hoping to save him from consumption. The people in the village there are as hospitable as any in the world as a general thing, but they ostracized these two because of their dread and loathing for sickness, and deliberately tried to starve them out."
"Brutes," said Haigh.
"I think," commented the anarchist, "that they'd a perfect right to act as they did. They chose to, and that was sufficient. That's my creed."
"Poor creed," said Haigh. "Cospatric, stand by with that mud-hook, and we'll bring to by the schooner here. It's getting very shallow."
We brought up to an anchor, snugged down, and then hailed a boat and got put ashore where the fishing craft were riding to their bowfasts, and discharging scaly rainbows on to the stone quay. The inevitable Carabinero gave us an examination, and then we made our way up from the little port village through beanfields and vineyards and oliveyards, past an old Roman amphitheatre on to the double-walled town.
Very Asiatic in appearance is Alcudia as one approaches it, with its yellow and white houses, its domes, its crumbling amber walls, with ragged date-palms scattered here and there, and dusty green clumps of prickly pear scrawming about everywhere. But as a walled city its days are done. The massive gateway with its pitting of Saracen round-shot has no guard. The two fosses are planted thickly with grotesquely gnarled olive-trees. The streets are clean and the houses are in good repair, but there is a lazy old-time air about the place that would clog the hurrying feet of even a sight-seeing American.
We fetched up at the casa and had dinner, which commenced with a dry soup of ochre-coloured rice. It was a curious meal all through, and across the little well-yard we could watch the cooking done in earthen pipkins of various sizes, each over its own charcoal fire. Then we went into the café—an irregular room, with the roof partly supported on arches, concrete floor, and heavy odour of rancid oil and Government tobacco—and sat on rush-bottomed chairs round a little deal table to sip our cognac and discuss on the next move.