“I believe you, sir. He and that Dan Markel would make a team for meanness.”
“Wonder if we’ll ever see Markel again,” remarked Frank.
“Don’t want to see him,” growled Hockley.
“We don’t, that’s a fact,” put in Mark, yet they were to see the man from Baltimore, and under very peculiar circumstances.
Now that they had spent over two weeks on land the boys did not object to going on shipboard once more. The run eastward along the coast of Cuba to Santiago Bay would take a little over two days, the distance being little less than four hundred miles, around Cape Cruz.
“We will not run close to shore,” said the professor. “If you will look at the map you will see that there are many islands here, and also many keys, as they are called—little islands. The channels are dangerous, too, but especially in a storm.”
“I hope we don’t get any storm,” said Darry.
His wish was fulfilled and the trip to Santiago passed off without anything out of the ordinary happening. The City of Madrid proved an old but very comfortable steamer, and the meals served were more than satisfactory.
“There is where the Merrimac was sunk by Lieutenant Hobson,” said the professor, as they passed the spot, in the channel leading from the Caribbean Sea to Santiago Bay. “Hobson and his brave men were fired upon from half a dozen points about here and in spite of all they could do were finally caught and placed under arrest.”
“But they were afterwards released,” put in Frank. “It was a daring thing to do, that’s sure.”