"That is because you have been sitting still. You will find it hurt you when you come to walk. Please go down carefully; a sudden movement might start your wounds again."
It was two or three days before Mr. Atherton again appeared on deck. His left arm was bandaged tightly to his body so as to prevent any movement of the shoulder-blade, and he walked stiffly to the deck-chair, which had been piled with cushions in readiness.
"I am glad to be out again, Mrs. Renshaw," Mr. Atherton said as she arranged the cushions to suit him. "Your husband, with Wilfrid and the two Allens, have kept me company, one or other of them, all the time, so I cannot say I have been dull. But it was much hotter below than it is here. However, I know the doctor was right in keeping me below, for the slightest movement gave me a great deal of pain. However, the wounds are going on nicely, and I hope by the time we get to Buenos Ayres I shall be fit for a trip on shore again."
"I hardly think so, Mr. Atherton; for if the weather continues as it is now—it is a nice steady breeze, and we have been running ever since we left Rio—I think we shall be there long before you are fit to go ashore."
"I do not particularly care about it," Mr. Atherton said. "Buenos Ayres is not like Rio, but is for the most part quite a modern town, and even in situation has little to recommend it. Besides, we shall be so far off that there will be no running backwards and forwards between the ship and the shore as there was at Rio. Of course it depends a good deal on the amount of the water coming down the river, but vessels sometimes have to anchor twelve miles above the town."
"I am sure I have no desire to go ashore," Mrs. Renshaw said, "and after the narrow escape Wilfrid had at Rio I should be glad if he did not set foot there again until we arrive at the end of the voyage."
"He is not likely to get into a scrape again," Mr. Atherton said. "Of course it would have been wiser not to have stopped so late as they did in a town of whose ways they knew nothing; but you may be sure he will be careful another time. Besides, I fancy from what I have heard things are better managed there, and the population are more peaceable and orderly than at Rio. But, indeed, such an adventure as that which befell them might very well have happened to any stranger wandering late at night in the slums of any of our English seaports."
There was a general feeling of disappointment among the passengers when the Flying Scud dropped anchor in the turbid waters of the La Plata. The shore was some five or six miles away, and was low and uninteresting. The towers and spires of the churches of Buenos Ayres were plainly visible, but of the town itself little could be seen. As soon as the anchor was dropped the captain's gig was lowered, and he started for shore to make arrangements for landing the cargo. The next morning a steam tug brought out several flats, and the work of unloading commenced. A few passengers went ashore in the tug, but none of the Renshaws left the ship. Two days sufficed for getting out the goods for Buenos Ayres. The passengers who had been staying at hotels on shore came off with the last tug to the ship. Their stay ashore had been a pleasant one, and they liked the town, which, in point of cleanliness and order, they considered to be in advance of Rio.