"Oh, thank you, sir! thank you. That's just what I always wished."
"Just what you always wished? Of course I know that, as well as you can tell me, Mr G——. Happy to say, though, I have effected one arrangement, which will make matters far safer, and more agreeable too."
"I fear, sir, if you send me off without the treasure, you will have some difficulty—"
"No, no, G——; you and the treasure will go together; that of course. But the fact is, I've been thinking those Spanish fellows behave so ill, I'm hardly justified in forwarding so large an amount of specie by land, all the way from Lisbon to the Pyrenees. In short, since you spoke to me this morning, I have been on board the flag-ship—seen the admiral. You and the treasure go to Passages in a frigate. Beautiful vessel—passed under her stern in coming ashore."
Alas, my object, then, was only half effected! I was to join the army, but not to travel through Spain. Nunky saw my chagrin and chuckled.
"Come, come, Mr G——," said he, "you beat me this morning; now I've beat you. So make up your mind to a voyage by his Majesty's frigate the M——. Be quick with your arrangements, for she's prepared to sail at a moment's warning. We shall ship the treasure instanter. So everything is ready, when you are."
The next day, at noon, I stood on the deck of the M——, a silent and admiring spectator of a grand, peristrephic panorama, as we glided down the Tagus under easy sail.
CHAPTER IX.
No occurrence worthy of record signalised our voyage from Lisbon to Passages. As you are a member of the Yacht Club, though, and passionately fond of romantic scenery, follow my advice, and treat yourself, some fine week in the summer, to a run along the north coast of Spain—say from Cape Finisterre to the mouth of the Bidassoa. By the bye, hadn't you better reverse it? An awkward thing you'd find it, to catch an on-shore wind at the head of the Bay of Biscay. What would become of you—ah, and what would become of that clever little craft of yours, the Water Wagtail, with her dandified rig, and her enormous breadth of beam, and her six pretty little brass popguns as bright as candlesticks, should a stiff north-wester surprise you on that horrid coast? Won't it be better, then, to secure some safe roadstead—the Gironde for instance—make that your starting-point; choose your weather; and, coasting along the shores of Biscay and Asturias, have the pleasure of feeling that you are running out of the Bay, and not running into it?