Then someone yelled "Are we down-hearted?" and the Cubs yelled "No!" so loudly that Akela thought she would be deafened for life.
Presently the train ran out into the country, and plodded along between woods and fields. And the early morning sun shone brightly, and the sky was very blue. The country, the country! And, very soon, the sea! There were some of them who had never been to the country, and "Spongey," the youngest of the party, had never even been in a real train.
"Talk about hot!" said someone, panting, when the train had thundered on for about an hour. And, my word, it was hot! Besides, there were blacks and dust, and everyone began to get very grimy—specially the people who were eating bread-and-jam and sticky fruit, and the people who had to crawl under the seat to pick up things that had got lost.
"Never mind," said Akela, "we shall be in the sea this evening, and then we shall be cool."
That started everyone jumping for joy again, of course.
Presently the train passed Arundel Castle—its white towers and turrets and battlements rising up amidst the dark green woods like an enchanted castle in the days of knights and fairies—and the Cubs learnt that there are castles in real life as well as in story-books.
After that they began looking out of the window to see who would be the first one to catch sight of the sea. "Bunny" was the first to, and his friend Bert, the Senior Sixer, came a close second.
At last the train got to Portsmouth Harbour, and, shouldering their kit-bags, the Cubs ran down on to the steamer.
The harbour was thrilling: battleships, cruisers, torpedo-boats, the Royal yacht, the Admiralty yacht, and, most interesting of all, Nelson's ship, the Victory. As if the steamer knew that a crowd of eager Cubs were longing to see all round the Victory, it went out of its way to steam right round it, slowly and quite near, and the Cubs had a splendid view.
The boys all wanted to be the first to touch the sea, but Bunny, who had seen it first, forestalled them again, by letting down a ball of string over the edge of the boat and pulling it up all wet.