“No, sir: he and Raimundo ran away from me in Valencia.”
“Raimundo!” exclaimed Mr. Lowington. “Was he with you?”
“Yes, sir; and they played me a mean trick,” added Bill, who had not yet recovered from his indignation on account of his desertion, and was disposed to do his late associates all the harm he could.
“They ran away from you, as you did from the rest of us,” laughed the principal, who knew Stout so well that he could not blame his companions for deserting him. “Do you happen to know where they have gone?”
“They left Valencia in a steamer at ten o’clock in the forenoon;” and Bill recited the particulars of his search for his late companions, feeling all the time that he was having some part of his revenge upon them for their meanness to him.
“But where was the steamer bound?” asked the principal.
“For Oban,” replied Bill, getting it wrong, as he was very apt to do with geographical names.
“Oban; that’s in Scotland. No steamer in Valencia could be bound to Oban,” added Mr. Lowington.
“This place is not in Scotland: it is in Africa,” Bill explained.