Four Young Explorers Part 29

The tide was right at six o'clock in the morning, and the order had been given the night before to sail at this hour. Mr. Froler and Captain Rayburn were on deck before this time; and the latter took a boat to his vessel, after very hearty thanks for the pleasure he had enjoyed.

"I don't feel at all like leaving your steamer, Captain Ringgold, but I suppose I must," said the French gentleman, as the commander took him by the hand in the morning.

"I am as sorry to have you leave as you are to do so," replied the captain. "We have seen the place, and made the acquaintance of quite a number of the people. In fact, you have turned our visit into a general frolic, and I am sure my party have never enjoyed themselves more than during the past two days; and we owe it all to you, Mr. Froler."

"You praise my feeble efforts to enable you to see the place and some of the people more than they deserve," replied the Frenchman.

"When I meet you in New York, I shall do my best to reciprocate your very kind and hospitable reception, and I am confident all my pa.s.sengers will do the same. I should be most happy to have you continue on board."

"I should avail myself of your very kind invitation so far as to go to Manila if there were a line of steamers between that port and Saigon.

But I should have to go by the way of Singapore. With your permission, I will go down the river with you."

"What is this coming alongside?" asked the captain, as he moved over to the rail.

"It is one of the gunboats, Captain," answered Mr. Froler. "There is the governor on her deck and two ladies. His Excellency has come off to say good-by to you."

"He is very considerate."

"And there is the landlord of the hotel."

"I paid his bill yesterday afternoon, and for everything up to this morning," said the commander as he hastened down the gangway to receive the governor.

On his way he called Louis, who was on deck early, and directed him to have the stewards call all the pa.s.sengers, and to inform them that His Excellency was coming on board. The distinguished official was received by the captain, and conducted to the deck. It was a cordial greeting on both sides. The governor declared that he had never enjoyed himself more than on the day before, and he should go down the river for the purpose of saying his adieux to the party.

The gunboat would escort the s.h.i.+ps to Cape St. Jacques, and he would return with it. In ten minutes after the call the pa.s.sengers began to come on deck, and the governor greeted them as though they had been his friends for years. He was a jolly old fellow, and made himself as familiar with the tourists as though they had been his intimate friends.

When Miss Blanche came up he rushed to her, and took her by both hands.

Mr. Froler suggested that the governor had come more to see the beautiful women on board than for any other purpose.

The barge was hastily dropped into the water, and sent for the pa.s.sengers of the Blanche, the third officer being in charge of the message. The landlord of the hotel said he had come on board to pay his respects to his late guests, and he would go down the river with them.

The barge returned after some delay, for none of her party were out of their rooms. They warmly welcomed the governor and the captain of the gunboat, who had been one of the guests the day before.

Both s.h.i.+ps got under way at once, for the anchors had been hove short.

Mr. Sage and the cook were set to work. The governor divided his attentions between Mrs. Noury and Miss Blanche; and the pacha was not at all disturbed by his old Mohammedan notions about wives. The rajah took Mrs. Blossom on his arm, and promenaded the upper deck with her under the awnings.

"Faix! Oi belayve the ould feller manes to marry her," said Felix.

"Nonsense, Flix! He is a Mohammedan, and she is a Methodist, and neither of them would consent to marry the other," replied Louis.

"He knows she's a fust-rate nuss, and that's what he needs. Oi'll give my free consint to it," added Felix, as Louis was called away.

The three hours' run to the sea was a continuation of the frolic of the day before, even including the games. At nine o'clock, with the s.h.i.+p in a sheltered bay, breakfast was served; and it was as lively as all the other meals had been. More speeches and a confusion of tongues followed.

The two ladies who had come off in the gunboat were the lady who was said to have detained Mr. Froler so long in Saigon, and her mother; and they were treated with the utmost consideration by all. The band played during the breakfast, having been sent for by the pacha.

Everybody was so happy that Captain Ringgold remained three hours longer than he had intended. Then the time to separate came; and the parting was long and difficult, bringing about another confusion of tongues, but it was over at last. The gunboat received her pa.s.sengers for up the river; but the craft did not go that way, and accompanied the two steamers about five miles to sea, with the American flag flying at the fore.

As the vessels were to separate finally, the gunboat fired a salute of seven guns, which was returned by both s.h.i.+ps; and then they sped on their voyage of eight hundred miles to Manila. The captain gave out the course east by north half-north, and the French flag was hauled down from the topmast. The pa.s.sengers of the Blanche had been sent on board of her, while those of the Guardian-Mother continued to promenade the deck. The commander noticed that some of them were gaping and yawning, and he remembered that they had had only three or four hours' sleep.

"I advise you all to turn in and finish your night's sleep," said he.

"Professor Giroud will give his lecture on the Philippine Islands and Manila to-morrow at half-past nine. There is nothing to do till dinner-time. No lunch will be served to-day in the cabin, for you have but just left the breakfast-table; but any one can ring his bell, and send for whatever is wanted."

The pa.s.sengers seemed to think favorably of this advice, for they all went below. There was nothing to see; for there was not a single island in the course, and the s.h.i.+p was soon out of sight of land, not to see it again till she made Luban Island, off the entrance to Manila Bay. The wind was almost dead ahead, though it blew very gently; but this circ.u.mstance soon attracted the attention of Scott, who had been so busy with the frolics that he had not had time to consult his books and chart.

It was not his watch; and he went to his stateroom, returning very soon with the blue book that goes with the chart of the Indian Ocean. He found that there was an east monsoon which prevailed in the China Sea north of the equator.

"What's the matter, Mr. Scott?" asked the captain when he found him absorbed over his book. "Do you think we are going wrong, or that there is a typhoon within hail?"

"Neither, sir; I was looking to see why the wind was east to-day,"

replied the third officer.

"You have discovered by this time that there is an east monsoon coming in between those from the north-east and south-west."

"But we did not find it coming up from Sarawak to Bangkok," added the young officer.

"Your course carried you within between one hundred and one hundred and fifty miles of the Malay Peninsula. This and the great island of Sumatra doubtless have some influence on the winds. Both of these bodies of land are very hot; and, as the air from them tends to the cooler atmosphere of the sea, they favor the south-west monsoons. All these bodies of land modify to some extent the prevailing winds."

Scott was satisfied with the explanation, for it conformed with what he found in his book. When he carried his authority back to his room, he turned in and took his nap, in order to be ready for his watch at eight bells in the afternoon watch. In fact, all but the watch on deck were asleep.

The pa.s.sengers seemed to be rather logy in their movements and heavy of intellect, perhaps because they had slept so well. It was cool at sea in comparison with the sh.o.r.e, and they had by this time become accustomed to extremely hot weather. But they waked up before the meal was finished, and all the talk was about the frolics of the last two days.

"What do you call the place where we go next, Captain Ringgold?" asked Uncle Moses. "I see it spelled in the books with a single _l_ and with a double _l_. Which is correct?"

"Both," replied the commander. "If you are writing Spanish, you use one _l;_ if you are writing English, you may use two _l's_, though I don't believe in doing so."

"Do the Spaniards ever double the _l?_"

"I will leave the professor to answer that question," replied the captain.

"They never spell Manila with two _l's_ when they spell it correctly; for that would make another word of it,--a common noun instead of a proper, and meaning quite another thing," the professor explained.

"Perhaps I am stupid, Professor, and I know next to nothing of the Spanish language," added Uncle Moses, "but I don't quite understand you.

If a Spaniard spelled the capital of the Philippine Islands with a double _l_ it wouldn't be the capital at all?"

"It would not."

"What would it be?"

"It would be something of which Miss Blanche has a couple in her possession; and I may say the same of every lady at the table," said the professor with a cheerful smile on his face.

"But which no gentleman has?" suggested the worthy trustee.

"I don't say that; for the word means in Spanish a small hand."

There was a general laugh around the table, and all the party held out their paws like dancing bears.

"Then Spaniards must be good spellers," said Dr. Hawkes. "There is very great difference between the capital of the Philippine Islands and Miss Blanche's pretty little hands."

"_Ll_, which we call double _l_, is treated as one letter in Spanish, and it has its own peculiar sound, nearly equivalent to _ly_ in English; and therefore Miss Blanche's small hand would be called mah-nil-ya, which is not the capital spoken off. The name of all the islands is spelled in English with double _p_,--Philippine; but that is not Spanish, though the geographers have generally adopted that orthography.

The Spanish name is _Las Islas Filipinas_."