She was about twenty feet long, with a mast carrying a good-sized sail.
"Very well, then. I will hire the boat for myself. I will give you six dollars, and another dollar for drink money, if all goes pleasantly. You must be ready to come back, tomorrow evening; or the first thing next morning, if it should suit you to stay till then. You can carry what fish you can get to Malaga, and may take in a return cargo if you can get one. That will be extra profit for yourselves. But you and your brother must agree to carry down the boxes of fruit, and put them on board here. I am not going to pay porters for that.
"At what time will you start?"
"Shall we say six o'clock, senor?"
"That will suit me very well. You can come up with me, now, and bring the fruit down, and put it on board; or I will be down here at five o'clock, and you can go up and get it, then."
The man thought for a moment.
"I would rather do it now, senor, if it makes no difference to you. Then we can have our evening meals at home with our families, and come straight down here, and start."
"Very well; fetch your brother, and we will set about the matter at once; as I have to go out to my farm and make some arrangements, and tell them they may not see me again for three days."
In two or three minutes the fisherman came back, with his brother. Bob went with them to a trader in fruit, and bought twenty boxes of lemons and ten of oranges, and saw them carried down and put on board. Then he handed a dollar to the boatman.
"Get a loaf of white bread, and a nice piece of cooked meat, and a couple of bottles of good wine, and put them on board. We shall be hungry, before morning. I will be here at a few minutes before six."