"Eighty dollars; but I can't take you. Full fore and aft."
"'Z that so? Well, say, cap, can't I go aloft somewhere? What 'll you charge then?"
"We charge eighty dollars to go anywhere; but can't carry you aloft. Got to carry our provisions there."
Bill mused a minute. "Hard case, ain't it?" appealing first to Walter, then to the captain. "But as I want to go mighty bad, what 'll you tax to tow me?"
The captain turned away, with a horselaugh and a shake of the head, to attend to his own affairs, leaving our two friends in no happy frame of mind at the prospect before them. With the utmost economy their little stock of money would last but little longer. The heat was oppressive and the place alive with vermin. Hours were spent on the harbor headland watching for the friendly smoke of the overdue steamer.
Several days now went by before the delayed steamer put in an appearance. It was none too soon, for with so many mouths to feed, the place began to be threatened with famine. It was by the merest chance that Walter secured a passage for himself in the steerage, and for Bill as a coal-passer, on this ship. Luckily for them, the captain's name happened to be the same as Walter's. He also hailed from New Bedford. He even admitted, though cautiously, that there might be some distant relationship. So Walter won the day, with the understanding that he was to spread his blanket on deck, for other accommodations there were none; while before the ship was two days at sea, men actually fought for what were considered choice spots to lie down upon at night.
The event of the voyage up the coast was a stay of several days at Acapulco, for making repairs in the engine room and for coaling ship. What a glorious harbor it is! land-locked and so sheltered by high mountains, that once within it is difficult to discover where a ship has found her way in, or how she is going to get out. Here, in bygone times, the great Manila galleons came with their rich cargoes, which were then transported across Mexico by pack-trains to be again reshipped to Old Spain. The arrival of a Yankee ship was now the only event that stirred the sleepy old place into life. At the sound of her cannon it rubbed its eyes, so to speak, and woke up. Bill even asserted that the people looked too "tarnation" lazy to draw their own breath.
Ample time was allowed here for a welcome run on shore; and the arrival of another steamer, homeward bound, made Acapulco for the time populous. Bill could not get shore leave, so Walter went alone. There were a custom-house without custom, a plaza, in which the inhabitants had hurriedly set up a tempting display of fruits, shells, lemonade, and home-made nicknacks to catch the passengers' loose change, besides a moldy-looking cathedral, whose cracked bells now and again set a whole colony of watchful buzzards lazily flapping about the house-tops. And under the very shadow of the cathedral walls a group of native Mexicanos were busily engaged in their favorite amusement of gambling with cards or in cock-fighting.
After sauntering about the town to his heart's content, Walter joined a knot of passengers who were making their way toward the dilapidated fort that commands the basin. On their way they passed a squad of barefooted soldiers, guarding three or four villainous-looking prisoners, who were at work on the road, and who shot evil glances at the light-hearted Americanos. Walter thought if this was a fair sample of the Mexican army, there was no use in crowing over the victories won by Scott and Taylor not many years before.
At the end of a hot and dusty walk in the glare of a noonday sun, the visitors seated themselves on the crumbling ramparts of the old fort, and fell to swapping news, as the saying is. One of the Californians was being teased by his companions to tell the story of a man lost overboard on the trip down the coast; and while the others stretched themselves out in various attitudes to listen, he, after lighting a cheroot, began the story: