Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
He distributed kindly words and affectionate grasps of the hand. The repairs were going to be finished the following day.... Very good! He was entirely content. Soon they would be on the sea again. In the galley he greeted Uncle Caragol.... That man was a philosopher. All the women in the world were not in his estimation worth a good dish of rice.
But their common affection for the captain, all being from the same land, and the employment of the Valencian dialect as the language of intimacy, made the two seek each other's company instinctively. For Toni, Caragol was the most congenial spirit aboard ... after himself.
"I knew well enough that you were here, in spite of the fact that these men were assuring me to the contrary.... My heart told me so.... How do you do, Ulysses!" Caragol turned his eyes toward the place where he supposed the mate must be, as though imploring his pardon.
Abundance reigned equally between bridge and forecastle where were the sailors' quarters and the galley, the space respected by every one on the boat as the incontestable realm of Uncle Caragol.
The pilot was opposed to these dockings which left the passage free to the curious and the importunate. By the time he had finished announcing her arrival, the lady was already on deck near the staterooms. She remembered well the way to the saloon. She had wished to go straight in, but it had been Caragol who had stopped her, while Toni went to advise the captain. "Cristo!" murmured Ulysses.
And this general gayety induced Caragol to bring forth liquid treasures that had been piling up in former voyages under Ferragut's careless and generous administration. The strong alcoholic wine of the coast of the Levant began falling into the glasses like ink crowned with a circle of rubies. The old man poured it forth with a prodigal hand.
It was running with all its possible surface speed; but the Mare Nostrum was also going at the utmost limit of its engines and the distance was widening between the two boats. "They are shooting!" said Ferragut with the glasses to his eyes. A column of water spouted near the prow. That was the only thing that Caragol was able to see clearly and he burst into applause with a childish joy.
The following morning, while Toni was in his cabin adjusting the accounts of the crew, astonished by the munificence of their paying-off, Uncle Caragol came into the saloon, asking to speak to Ferragut. He had placed an old cape over his flapping and scanty clothing, more as a decoration for the visit than because the cold of Brittany was really making him suffer.
From Genoa he went to Rome, and from there to Naples, with the foolhardiness of the innocent, employing Spanish and Catalan words to reinforce his scanty Italian vocabulary acquired at the opera. The only positive information that guided him on his quest of adventure was the name of the albergo on the shore of S. Lucia which Caragol had given him as his father's residence.
Upon coming close to it, he saw that it was a man; as it drifted away, he recognized Uncle Caragol. He was swimming like a drunken man with a super-human force which made half of his body come out of the water at each stroke.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking