The students walked through the gardens, and went through the palace. Perhaps the camels kept here were more interesting to the young gentlemen, gorged with six months’ sight-seeing in all the countries of Europe, than any thing else they saw at the summer residence of the kings of Spain.
At the station there is a very fair hotel with restaurant, where the party had supper. But they had four hours of weary waiting before the train for Ciudad Real would arrive; and most of them tried to sleep, for it had been a long day.
“Better be here than at the junction of this road with that to Toledo,” said the doctor, as he fixed himself for a nap. “The last time I was here I did not understand it; and, when I came from Toledo, I got off the train at the junction, which is Castillejo, ten miles from Aranjuez.”
“I noticed the place when we went down this morning,” replied Sheridan. “The station is little better than a shed, and there is no town there.”
“The train was late; and I had to wait there without my supper from eight o’clock till after midnight. It was cold, and there was no fire. I was never more uncomfortable for four hours in my life. The stations in Spain are built to save money, and not for the comfort of the passengers, at least in the smaller places. But we had better go to sleep if we can; for we have to keep moving for nearly twenty-four hours at the next stretch.”
Not many of the party could sleep, tired as they were, till they took the train at eleven o’clock. The compartments were heated with hot-water vessels, or rather the feet were heated by them. The students stowed themselves away as well as they could; and soon, without much encouragement to do so, they were buried in slumber.
CHAPTER XV.
TROUBLE IN THE RUNAWAY CAMP.