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Updated: May 6, 2025
"I wonder which way we'd better go," Hawtry said, as he climbed up with some difficulty, aided by the Spaniard, on to one of the mules. "My goodness, Jack, this is horribly uncomfortable. I never can stand this. Hi, there! help me down. It would be better a hundred times to ride barebacked."
There was a gust fiercer than usual, accompanied by a crack like the sound of a pistol, followed by a stifled shout. "There's a tent down!" Hawtry exclaimed, "and I shouldn't wonder " He did not finish, for at the moment the pole of their own tent broke asunder like a pipe, and in an instant the four were buried beneath the folds of the canvas.
"I don't believe," Hawtry said, after a short silence, "that they can have any idea of cutting our throats. Midshipmen are not in the habit of carrying much money about with them, but I have heard of Guerillas carrying people off to the mountains and getting ransoms. There, we are at the place where that fellow said the road turned. It doesn't turn.
They calculated that they must have twenty-five miles to row, as the point at which they were captured was, Hawtry had judged by the sound of the gun, fully fifteen miles distant from it, and they had walked another ten before arriving at the brigands' encampment. All night they rowed, until the moon sank, this being, as they were aware, about three o'clock.
Upon the day after Jack returned to duty, he and Hawtry were told off with a party of seamen to go down to cut firewood. Each man carried his rifle in addition to his chopper, for, although they had never been disturbed at this occupation, the Russians were known not to be far away. The sailors were soon at work hacking down the undergrowth and lopping off branches of trees.
To Jack's great pleasure, he happened to meet in the streets of London, two or three days before his wedding, his friend Hawtry, whom he had not seen since they parted on the Polish frontier, as their ships had never happened to be on the same station. Hawtry was rejoiced to hear of his friend's good fortune, and officiated at the wedding as Jack's best man.
"Why, my dear Jack," he exclaimed, "the men all reported that both you and poor Hawtry were killed. They said they saw him shot, and, looking back, saw you killed over his body. It was never doubted a moment, and your names appeared in the list of the killed." "Well, sir, we are alive nevertheless, and Dick is by this time at home with his people.
And Jimmie proceeded leisurely into the house. "But I don't have to set off the fireworks," Cecelia Anne explained happily. "Jimmie says I don't have to if I don't want to. He's going to do it for me." "Kind brother," ejaculated Mr. Hawtry. And across the bright gold braids of her little Atalanta, Mrs. Hawtry looked at her husband. "Did he know?" she questioned, "or did he not?
Then they came down, paid a flying visit to the various fortifications and to the galleries, whence the guns peer out threateningly across the low, sandy spit, known as the neutral ground. When all this was finished, it was only natural that they should go to the principal hotel and eat a prodigious luncheon, and then Hawtry proposed that they should sally out for a ramble into Spain.
Hawtry answered with a grunt, and devoted himself to his kid. Presently Jack spoke again. "Look here, Hawtry, I vote that to begin with we both pretend to be in an awful funk. If they think that we are only two frightened boys, they won't keep as sharp a watch over us as if they thought we were determined fellows, likely to attempt our escape.
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