As we lay to outside the very narrow entrance to the harbour, the five comerciantes, who were preparing to go on shore, eyed askance the tossing cockleshells of boats that were advancing ready to convey them to land. By taking the motor-car that ran the twenty-eight miles connecting Ciudadela with Mahón, which is on the opposite extreme of the island, they would save three precious hours. With the prospect of a charming sail along the coast before us we did not envy them.
After a protracted delay the boats succeeded in approaching near enough to the accommodation ladder to enable the commercial men to embark. And they were off, clutching at the sides of the little boats, as with rueful faces they joggled shorewards over the choppy waves.
Our chilly friend of the enveloping blanket and the naked ankles, who was a deck passenger, had, as the Man reported, spent the night perched on a grating over the engine-room—a situation where he would surely be warm enough. Where he performed his toilet no one knows, but as we neared Port Mahón he appeared transformed from a shivering bundle into a dandy. Neat black socks covered his ankles, and his brown coat, orange shirt, and green velveteen trousers revealed a nice taste for colour. His yellow-white blanket had disappeared, but he still wore his two hats.
Meanwhile the pigs, whose lamentations had rent the silence of the night, were being hauled, pulled, jerked, pushed, and dumped along the deck, over the side, and into the lighter that was to take them ashore, as they went raising their voices in shrill protest. As the Boy remarked, quoting Uncle Remus, "These pigs know whar dey come from, but dey don' know whar they gwine!"
As the Monte Toro steamed slowly round the low cliffs that seemed to descend sheer into deep water, so little sign of broken beach or of outlying reef was there, we could see how through the ages the restless sea had nibbled and gnawed at the edges of the cliffs, which in many places were deeply honeycombed, and even hollowed into caves.
There were no first-class passengers. The accommodation reserved for them just over the screw was vacant. Third-class included an interesting quartette of stubby Spanish soldiers, and one slim naval stoker, whose flexible movements and sportive bonhomie were in striking contrast to the stolid immobility of his companions. Possibly the stoker felt more at home on shipboard. Certainly he had all the life of the party; for while the others muffled their heads in shawls, and squatted on their carefully spread cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, he was never still, helping an overburdened young mother by shouldering her small boy and taking him round to visit the pet donkey, making friends with the ship's dog, or playing good-humoured tricks upon the others.
The sky was flecked with white clouds—the first we had seen for many days—and the houses scattered over the flat and almost treeless table-land were all white—gleamingly white, after the old russet towns of Pollensa and Alcudia. Here and there we could see one of the great beehive-like heaps of stones that the sailors have christened "watch-towers." Though Majorca was only twenty miles distant, we already felt in a new world.
There was something oddly familiar in the nip of the air. And while we breakfasted on a satisfying "home" meal of omelet, ham, hot buttered toast, and coffee, we recalled what we had heard of the lingering effects of British rule in Minorca, and felt inclined to give it the credit of the breakfast, even though the ham was served raw, and decanters of wine and jars of wooden toothpicks jostled our coffee-cups.
When we again went on deck there were signs that the short voyage was approaching its end. The bearded mate of the Monte Toro, who had made the trip in a red nightcap, had, with a toothpick behind his ear, appeared in a uniform cap, though he retained his velveteen coat. And the most stolid-looking of the soldiers, producing a comb and a tube of pomade, proceeded to make quite an elaborate toilet on deck. Still seated on his outspread handkerchief, he combed and recombed his hair, and greased it with extreme thoroughness; though it must be admitted that when it came to washing he contented himself with a cursory dipping of his hands in the water-bucket. His face he left to Nature.