“I knew him, of course; and he was always grumbling and discontented about something; but I never thought he was such a fellow as he turned out to be. I haven’t known him but a couple of months or so.”
“I should think you would have got at him while you were getting up something”—Raimundo did not say what—“with him.”
“I was dissatisfied myself. The squadron did not prove to be what I anticipated,” added Bark. “I had an idea that it was in for a general good time; that all we had to do was to go from place to place, and see the sights.”
“But you knew it was a school.”
“Certainly I did; but I never supposed the fellows had to study half as hard as they do. I thought the school was a sort of a fancy idea, to make it take with the parents of the boys. When I found how hard we had to work, I was disgusted with the whole thing. Then I fell in with Bill Stout and others; and, when we had talked the matter over a few times, it was even worse than I had supposed when I did all my own thinking on the subject. After we got together, we both became more and more discontented, till we were convinced that we were all slaves, and that it was really our duty to break the chains that bound us. This was all the kind of talk I ever had with Stout; and, as we sympathized on this matter, I never looked any farther into his character.”
“We shall have time enough to talk over these things when we get on board the steamer,” added Raimundo. “I have watched you and Stout a great deal on board of the Tritonia; and I confess that I was prejudiced against you. I didn’t feel any better about it when I found you and Stout trying to destroy the vessel. But I must say now that you are a different sort of fellow from what I took you to be; and nobody ever grew any faster in another’s estimation than you have in mine since that affair last night in the felucca. I believe your pluck and skill in hauling that cut-throat down saved the whole of us.”
“I have been thinking all the time it was you that saved us,” added Bark, intensely gratified at the praise of Raimundo.
“The battle would have been lost if it hadn’t been for you; for I struck at the villain, and missed him. If you hadn’t brought him down, his knife would have been into me in another instant. But here is the port.”
The steamer was one of the “Messageries Nationales,” though that name had been recently substituted for “Imperiales” because the emperor had been abolished. The tourists went on board in a shore-boat, and took possession of their state-room. They made their preparations for the voyage, and then went on deck. They found comfortable seats, and the weather was like spring.
“What is the name of this steamer?” asked Bark.