By half-past seven the next morning all who purpose going ashore are standing on the lower deck of the San Miguel, wondering how they are to get from the steamer to the clumsy "lighter" or freight boat that the great breakers are tossing about below, and which is reported to be our sole means of making the shore.
"The passengers are hauled up and down in a big barrel," says the Captain, who has come from the bridge to receive some official from the settlement. "You're not going ashore, Mrs. Steele!" He fixes a look of astonishment on my friend in her travelling dress.
"Of course I am."
"Why, there's nothing to see but huts and sand-piles."
"Ve go to Guatemala," says the Baron, giving our wraps to the Chinese porter.
"You do nothing of the kind." The brusque Captain is nothing if not unceremonious. "We'll have this Hamburg cargo loaded in a day, and you can't go and get back in time; and I won't wait—I won't wait a second for anyone mad enough to go to Guatemala! You'll have to give it up," he says to Mrs. Steele.
There is a chorus of disappointment from the assembled crowd, but Mrs. Steele, with evident reluctance, says:
"Of course, it would never do to be left behind; there's yellow fever in all these ports, I'm told."
"Place is full of it—stay on the ship like sensible people. There's nothing worth seeing in Guatemala. I hate to be bothered with passengers going off—" and the Captain walks to the railing to wave his hand with stiff pomposity to a Mexican who sits in the lighter.
"You air meestake, Captain," says the Baron de Bach; "all dthose vorkmen say it vill be two days loading dthis café."