Vine and Olive; Or, Young America in Spain and Portugal / A Story of Travel and Adventure

by Oliver Optic

“Mr. Scott,” replied the officer addressed, touching his cap to his superior.

“You will inform the captain, if you please, that the lookout reports land on the weather bow.”

The second master touched his cap again, and hastened to the cabin to obey the order. The academy squadron, consisting of the steamer American Prince and the topsail schooners Josephine and Tritonia, were bound from Genoa to Barcelona. They had a short and very pleasant passage, and the students on board of all the vessels were in excellent spirits. Though they had been seeing sights through all the preceding year, they were keenly alive to the pleasure of visiting a country so different as Spain from any other they had seen. The weather was warm and pleasant for the season, and the young men were anxiously looking forward to the arrival at Barcelona. On the voyage and while waiting in Genoa, they had studied up all the books in the library that contained any thing about the interesting land they were next to visit.

The Tritonia sailed on the starboard, and the Josephine on the port quarter, of the American Prince. The two consorts had all sail set, and were making about eight knots an hour, which was only half speed for the steamer, to which she had been reduced in order to keep company with the sailing vessels. Though the breeze was tolerably fresh, the sea was smooth, and the vessels had very little motion. The skies were as blue and as clear as skies can ever be; and nothing could be more delicious than the climate.

In the saloon of the steamer and the steerage of the schooners, which were the schoolrooms of the academy squadron, one-half of the students of the fleet were engaged in their studies and recitations. A quarter watch was on duty in each vessel, and the same portion were off duty. But the latter were not idle: they were, for the most part, occupied in reading about the new land they were to visit; and the more ambitious were preparing for the next recitation. Their positions on board for the next month would depend upon their merit-roll; and it was a matter of no little consequence to them whether they were officers or seamen, whether they lived in the cabin or steerage. Some were struggling to retain the places they now held, and others were eager to win what they had not yet attained.

There were from two to half a dozen in each vessel who did only what they were obliged to do, either in scholarship or seamanship. At first, ship’s duty had been novel and pleasant to them; and they had done well for a time,—had even struggled hard with their lessons for the sake of attaining creditable places as officers and seamen. They had been kindly and generously encouraged as long as they deserved it; but, when the novelty had worn away, they dropped back to what they had been before they became students of the academy squadron. Mr. Lowington labored hard over the cases of these fellows; and, next to getting the fleet safely into port, his desire was to reform them.

In the Tritonia were four of them, who had also challenged the attention and interest of Mr. Augustus Pelham, the vice-principal in charge of the vessel, who had formerly been a student in the academy ship, and who had been a wild boy in his time. The interest which Mr. Lowington manifested in these wayward fellows had inspired the vice-principal to follow his example. Possibly the pleasant weather had some influence on the laggards; for they seemed to be very restive and uneasy under restraint as the squadron approached the coast of Spain. All four of them were in the starboard watch, and in the second part thereof, where they had been put so that the vice-principal could know where to find them when he desired to watch them at unusual hours.

The third lieutenant was the officer of the deck, assisted by the second master. The former was planking the weather side of the quarter deck, and the latter was moving about in the waist. The captain came on deck, and looked at the distant coast through his glass; but it was an old story, and he remained on deck but a few minutes. Raimundo, the officer in the waist, was a Spaniard, and the shore on the starboard was that of “his own, his native land.” But this fact did not seem to excite any enthusiasm in his mind: in fact, he really wished it had been somebody else’s native land, and he did not wish to go there. He bestowed more attention upon the four idlers, who had coiled themselves away in the lee side of the waist, than upon the shadowy shore of the home of his ancestors. He was a sharp officer; and this was his reputation on board. He could snuff mischief afar off; and more than one conspiracy had been blighted by his vigilance. He seemed to be gazing at the clear blue sky, and to be enjoying its azure transparency; but he had an eye to the laggards all the time.

“I wonder what those marines are driving at,” said he to himself, after he had studied the familiar phenomenon for a while, and, as it appeared, without any satisfactory result. “I never see those four fellows talking together as long as they have been at it, without an earthquake or some sort of a smash following pretty soon after. I suppose they are going to run away, for that is really the most fashionable sport on board of all the vessels of the fleet.”

Perhaps the second master was right, and perhaps he was wrong. Certainly running away had been the greatest evil that had tried the patience of the principal; but there had been hardly a case of it since the squadron came into the waters of the Mediterranean, and he hoped the practice had gone out of fashion. It had been so unsuccessful, that most of the students regarded it as a played-out expedient.