“Humph! Ha! Well, I— Yes, all right, captain! We are coming down.”
Chapter Thirty One.
Great Friends.
The days that followed the attempt to salve the brig after so strange an introduction to her commander and his son, fell calm all through the hot sunny time, and only that a pleasant cool breeze ushered in the evening and continued till the sun rose again, very little progress would have been made by the schooner and its consort, sailing east and south.
But nobody seemed troubled. When the French and English sailors were together they were the best of friends; while long conversations and arguments often took place between the doctor and his new friend, the skipper generally letting them have the cabin to themselves.
Sometimes they drifted into political questions and came very near to losing their tempers; but each mastered and kept down his opinions, for a genuine feeling of liking had arisen between them, and the Count seemed never weary of listening to Uncle Paul’s disquisitions upon the marvels of natural history, nor of studying with him the wonders of creation which he had collected and had to show. Then day by day the brig, which was freed every day from as much water as she had gained during the night, sailed steadily on in the schooner’s wake in full charge of her stern fierce-looking French mate—one of the most silent of men.
And while the Count was mostly with the doctor, literally taking lessons in pelagic lore, the two lads had become inseparable.
“Look here,” said Rodd, almost hotly, one day, “if ever you say a word again about my helping you to escape at Dartmoor, you and I are going to leave off being friends.”