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We should despise them, monsieur, but I fear many of us will envy their lot." The Antiguo Mahones was threading her way through a fleet of small fishing-boats, as I could tell by the reduced speed, the hooting of the siren, and the constant and prolonged rattle of the steering rods. Soon she would bring up to the quay in Palma harbour.
"And as," I added, "the port captain at Ciudadella wires that he has had no single incoming vessel during the last ten days, and we know that none have come into Port Mahon except the fleet and the Antiguo Mahones and ourselves, we've arrived at the most unpickable deadlock that two grown men ever scratched their heads over."
Indiscriminate shooting on the part of the troops followed, and cables were sent to all parts to watch for escaping assassins. The affair happened after the Antiguo Mahones sailed, so far as I can make out; but, of course, to the Spanish official mind that is a mere matter of detail. In these cases Spain expects that every man this day will exceed his duty.
Now this was all understandable enough; but when that inquisitive tombstone artificer deliberately affirmed, in spite of many attempts to shake his memory, that the spoiling of the Talayot had taken place on the night immediately preceding our arrival in Mahon and the arrival of his most Catholic Majesty's mail steamer Antiguo Mahones, then it seemed to Haigh and myself either that somebody was lying most blackly, or that we ourselves could not believe certain of our own senses which we had hitherto considered strictly reliable.
There, do you see that steamer just opening out from the Hospital island? That's the Antiguo Mahones, the mail-boat from Barcelona. Unless he's broken down somewhere, your man Weems should be on board." "I'm afraid not. According to the book of Steamer Sailings I looked at in Genoa, he ought to have left Barcelona three days ago." "Precisely; but, old chappie, you don't know the Antiguo Mahones.
The articles of dress were grass-cloth, thick as matting, and tamarcos, or smock-frocks, of poorly tanned goatskins. They had also rough cords of palm-fibre, and they seem to have preferred plaiting to weaving; yet New Zealand flax and aloes grow abundantly. Their mahones correspond with Indian moccasins, and they made sugar-loaf caps of skins.
He inquired what these mahones were, and was told that they were not mahones, but galeases; the very vessels, in fact, which he had been led to believe had been separated from the enemy, and whose formidable artillery he did not expect to encounter. He now saw that the victory was not to be so easy as he had anticipated, and that he must neglect no means that might avert defeat.
Slowly the Antiguo Mahones swung parallel to the quay wall, and then a derrick chain was hauled out and I heard the scrape of the big gangway as it drew along the gravel, and the thud of its iron-shod heel as it fell on deck and bridged the intervening two fathoms of water.
And so, as the Antiguo Mahones has been getting kicked about in big swell ever since she left Barcelona inner harbour, it's pretty safe to bet that Master Weems has had the business part of his little soul churned completely out of him, and that he'll go and lie up at Bustamente's Hotel for a day or two to recruit. He'll never guess we're here, and consequently will see no cause for hurry.
One hundred and three swift galleys, thirty-five galleasses, besides smaller craft, and 107 transports, "naves, fustes, mahones, tafforées, galions, et esquirasses," formed a noble navy, and Rhodes fell, after an heroic defence, at the close of 1522.
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