The train which the boys boarded was a very slow one, with, apparently,
a maximum speed of about fifteen miles an hour; nevertheless it seemed
heavenly to them to have a mode of locomotion other than that supplied
by their own legs. Then, too, they were alone in the compartment, and
hoped they would continue to be alone all night. They judged it was
quite likely that they would be, for they observed that nearly all
the passengers on the train went third class. Raymond declared that
that was where they belonged also, for with the exposure and hardships
of their long journey their clothes had become very disreputable in
appearance.
Sidney had expected to try to send a cable from Tiflis to their mother
in New York, but the station agent had exhibited such density regarding
the English language that he decided to wait until they reached Batum.
He believed that in a seaport they would almost certainly find some
one who could speak English and who would be willing to help them, even
if the official of the telegraph office could not be made to understand.
It was fortunate that they did not wait in Tiflis, for when they
arrived at Batum they learned that the train they were on was the first
one in several days that had been allowed to carry the general public.
It was not known either how long it would be before it was followed by
another.
Nearly all the trains were being used by the Government to transport
troops that were being massed at the various Black Sea ports it was
supposed in anticipation of the opening of hostilities with Turkey.
That country, the boys learned, still remained neutral, though her
purchase from Germany of two cruisers that had fled for shelter within
the Dardanelles had already nearly precipitated trouble with Russia.
Sidney and Raymond found their blankets quite as necessary in a Russian
railway coach as on a Russian mountain. While the air of the coach was
not so cold as that of the mountain, the surface on which they had
to lie was even harder than the surface of the Caucasus. With their
blankets and their cloaks and their soft Daghestan rug, however, they
made very comfortable beds on the long seats which extended in their
compartment across the coach. And with their acquired ability to sleep
wherever they might make their beds, they were ignorant of everything
that occurred all night, not being aroused by any of the jolting of
stopping and starting.
In early morning the train approached the coast of the Black Sea at
Poti, several hours before its arrival at Batum. From that point the
railway ran near the shore and the boys found much of interest and
amusement in watching the varied scenes of the waterfront. Upon the
arrival of the train at Batum the boys made their way at once to the
docks, and, with their rolls of blankets slung over their shoulders,
they felt quite as they imagined emigrants must feel.
There was much freight on the docks, great stacks of lumber and bales
of hides waiting to be shipped, but there were very few boats tied up
there. The first ship which they came to was a small steamer where
there were a couple of sailors talking in a language that sounded
strangely familiar to the boys, and yet which did not seem, after all,
to be one with which they were acquainted. They stopped and listened
and were more puzzled than ever. Some words sounded like Spanish spoken
with a strong foreign accent, but the next words would be entirely
strange to them.
“What in creation are they talking, Sid?” asked Raymond. “Is it Spanish
they are trying to get at?”
“It’s mighty curious Spanish, if it is,” replied Sidney. “I tell you
what, Ray,” he continued, after a moment of thought, “it must be
Italian. I think that sounds a good deal like Spanish. I believe I can
talk with them.”
Sidney then asked one of the men in Spanish where they were going, and
the man replied promptly in his own tongue that they were going to
Rome, a reply of which the boys gathered the meaning very clearly.
“Gee, Sid,” exclaimed Raymond, “that’s swell! You talk Spanish and he
talks Italian, and you both understand. Try him again.”
The next attempt, however, was not so successful, possibly because
Sidney embodied too much in his question. He asked the sailor when they
were going to leave, and if he thought their captain would take some
passengers. The man looked puzzled for a moment, and then replied in a
statement that sounded very long and intricate to the unlearned ears
of the boys. While they were considering and trying to select words at
whose meaning they might guess, a voice spoke behind them in perfectly
plain English.
“Where do you young gentlemen want to go?”
The boys wheeled and saw a stocky, middle-aged man. He wore side
whiskers, and there was something decidedly English in his appearance.
“We don’t care much where we go,” said Sidney, “so long as it is west.
We want to get back to New York, but I don’t suppose we’ll find a ship
here for that port.”
“No, you will not, but perhaps I can help you out. I am Captain Foster,
of the Princess Mary, and I clear in the morning for Venice.”
“Oh, captain,” cried Sidney eagerly, “can you take us?”
“Well, I don’t carry passengers; I have no place for ’em; but I’d
do anything I could to help Americans to get home. I fancy you are
Americans?”
“Yes, we are,” replied Sidney, “and our mother is waiting in New York
for us.”
Captain Foster looked at the boys curiously. “If I may be so bold,” he
said, “you are pretty young to be in a country like this alone, and you
look as though you had traveled some.”
“I should say we had traveled some,” broke in Raymond, “we came over
the Caucasus.”
“By the Dariel Pass, in a motor-car, I fancy,” said the captain.
“Not much! We hoofed it, by way of Bezheeta to Tiflis.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you came over that trail on foot at this
time of year?” And the captain looked at the boys in amazement.
“We sure did,” replied Raymond, “every step of the way. Don’t those
shoes look like it?”
And Raymond held up a foot on which the shoe was barely holding
together.
“You see,” said Sidney in explanation, “we came down the Volga from
Nizhni to Petrovsk, and then across from there. We started out with
horses, but an army officer took them away from us the first day.”
“Yes, I expect so,” said the captain; “no man outside of the army can
travel horseback in Russia now.”
“We haven’t heard a thing about the war,” said Sidney, “since we left
the boat. How is it going?”
“Well, nobody knows yet. It’s a bad war.” And the captain looked very
grave. “I’d be helping, but I’m too old. And it begins to look pretty
nasty with Turkey; that’s why I’m clearing in the morning. But weren’t
you with a party?”
“We went with our father to Nizhni to see the Fair,” replied Sidney,
“and father was arrested as a German spy just because he speaks German.
We were afraid if we waited we shouldn’t be able to leave Russia at
all, so my brother and I came south, expecting to go through the Dariel
Pass. But at Petrovsk we were told that troops were thick in the pass,
and were advised not to go that way. So we came over by the trail, and
it was a tough tramp.”
“Didn’t your father have a passport?”
“Yes, he had a passport from the Secretary of State at Washington.”
“I’m sure he got out all right, then,” said the captain. “Americans can
go anywhere in the belligerent countries, if they can only prove they
_are_ Americans. But how did you young men get away without a passport?”
“The clerk of the hotel, who spoke English, took my father’s passport
down and showed it to the purser of the boat. And the chief of police
at Petrovsk gave us a sort of a passport, but it’s in Russian.” And
Sidney took the paper from his pocket and handed it to the captain.
“I fancy I can read it if it is in Russian,” said Captain Foster, as
he took the paper and glanced over its contents. “I think that’ll get
you out all right. I’ll take it to the American Consul and have it
viséed, and then to the chief of police for his O.K. Now, if you young
gentlemen want to make any purchases,”--and the captain looked the boys
over with amusement in his eye,--“you can do it while I’m getting this
fixed up.”
“I wish we could buy new suits,” said Sidney, “and shoes; in fact, new
outfits right through, for both of us.”
“You come with me then,” said the captain, “and I’ll show you a good
shop. We must have everything ready to-day, for I shall get off in the
morning before daylight.”
Captain Foster conducted the boys to a clothing shop that was kept by
an Armenian Jew who spoke English. Before allowing the boys to enter,
the captain detained them for final instructions.
“This man has a very good stock of clothes,” he said. “After you have
selected what you want and got his price for everything, offer him
exactly half what he asks. If he objects, pretend you’re going to leave
and he’ll come to time fast enough. When you get through, wait for me
here, and I’ll take you to the ship.”
The boys entered the shop, and informed the merchant what they wished.
They found, as Captain Foster had said, that the shop contained an
excellent stock of clothing, and they soon made their selections of a
complete wardrobe for each of them. Then Sidney asked the merchant how
much it all amounted to.
“As the gentlemen can see,” said the man, rubbing his hands together
and smirking, “the clothing is most excellent quality.”
“Yes,” said Sidney, “the clothes are all right. How much are they?”
“I am sure,” said the merchant, “the young gentlemen are well pleased.”
“Of course, or we shouldn’t take the things. Now, tell me how much
everything is, we’re in a hurry.”
The man regarded his customers shrewdly for a moment, and then said,--
“The gentlemen may have all of this clothing, all of the most excellent
garments which they have selected, for the small sum of one hundred ten
rubles.”
“I’ll give you just fifty-five rubles for everything we’ve picked out,”
said Sidney.
The man threw up his hands in supplication, and raised his eyes in
horror.
“Would your lordship rob a poor defenseless man?” he asked, most humbly.
“My lordship doesn’t intend to rob anybody,” said Sidney, while Raymond
snickered. “But if you don’t want to sell the things, all right. Come
on, Ray.”
The man interposed hastily. “Business is so bad with the cruel war,
that I am willing to take much less than the clothing is worth. But
fifty-five rubles!” And he raised his hands in protest.
“All right,” said Sidney, “we’ll go somewhere else.” And he started
toward the door.
“If the gentleman insists,” interposed the merchant again in a tone of
agony, “he shall have the excellent clothing at his own price, though I
lose half the value of the goods.”
“Very well,” said Sidney; “now show us a place where we can put the
things on.”
“Do you want to change your clothes here, Sid?” objected Raymond.
“Yes; we’d better do the whole thing up now.”
Thereupon the merchant conducted the boys to a room at the rear of
the shop where he apparently lived. When the boys were alone Sidney
explained to his brother.
“You see, Ray, my money is all under my clothes, and I didn’t want to
take it out and let that fellow know how much we’ve got. Besides, we
may as well leave all these old rags here, they’re good for nothing.
I was ashamed to jew him down that way, but I guess we paid all the
things were worth, or he wouldn’t have let them go.”
When the boys had changed their clothes they returned to the shop,
and Sidney informed the merchant that he might have their old clothes
which they had left lying in the other room. That seemed to satisfy the
man, who was looking as though the boys had literally robbed him of
everything he possessed. In a few minutes Captain Foster returned.
“Everything is all right,” he announced, as they walked toward the
docks, “and when I told your consul, Mr. Davis, what you boys had done,
he said that if you needed money to get home with to call on him. I
told him you wouldn’t need any money as far as I went.”
“That’s fine of both of you,” said Sidney, “but I think we have enough
money to pay our way home. I took your advice about paying for the
clothes, so they didn’t cost us much, but I felt pretty cheap to beat
the man down.”
“You needn’t feel cheap,” said the captain; “if you paid half what he
asked, you paid enough. You don’t look like the same young men.” And he
regarded the boys with satisfaction.
“I’m glad we look better,” said Sidney, “and we’ll feel better after
we’ve had a good scrub.”
“You can have a tub,” said the captain, “as soon as we get to the
Princess Mary.”
“There is one other matter,” said Sidney. “I would like to send a
cable to our mother in New York. We couldn’t make the man at Tiflis
understand, and she must be awfully anxious about us.”
“I doubt if you can do that,” replied Captain Foster. “I don’t believe
the Government will allow a message to be sent to a foreign country,
but I’ll go around to the telegraph office with you and we’ll find out.
You see, when there’s trouble, I don’t have to wire any owners, for I
own the Princess Mary myself, so I don’t know whether the wires can be
used now or not.”
“What sort of a cargo do you carry, Captain Foster?” asked Sidney, as
they walked along.
“I load with crude oil for Venice.”
“Isn’t that an awfully messy cargo?” asked Raymond.
The captain laughed. “Oh, no; you wouldn’t know what I had aboard.
There are tanks built into the ship, and the oil is pumped into them,
and pumped out.”
By that time they had arrived at the telegraph office and the
captain interviewed the man in charge, who spoke no English. After
a short conversation the captain turned to the boys, and announced,
regretfully,--
“He says you can’t send any message of any kind out of the country.”
“Poor mother, she will be sick with anxiety.” And Sidney’s eyes looked
suspiciously moist. “She didn’t want us to come, Captain Foster. We had
a bad time last winter getting away from the war in Mexico, and mother
was sure something would happen to us this time, too. But that was
before the war over here began.”
“Well, you know the old saying, ‘No news is good news.’”
“I’m afraid that mother wouldn’t agree to that. But I guess there’s
nothing we can do.”
“I fancy you can send a cable from Venice,” said the captain; “you know
Italy is neutral, like the United States.”
“I do hope we can.” And Sidney looked somewhat relieved.
They were two rather dejected boys, however, who turned back to the
docks with Captain Foster. It was very hard to be obliged to give up
all present thought of communicating with their mother. It seemed
ages since they said good-bye to her in New York. The anticipation of
sending a message had been so pleasant, and when that hope was suddenly
dashed, their loneliness and homesickness were greater than ever.
When they arrived at the docks the boys saw a small, dingy steamer,
that ordinarily would have appeared anything but attractive, but to the
boys then she seemed finer than a big Atlantic liner. They were taken
on board, and were shown to a tiny cubby-hole of a cabin that adjoined
the captain’s own stateroom.
“This is not much of a cabin,”--and the captain looked about
apologetically,--“but, you see, the Princess Mary was not intended to
carry passengers.”
“Oh, I think it’s fine,” protested Sidney; and Raymond declared,--
“It’s perfectly swell! You may have the lower berth, Sid, and I’ll take
the upper one.”
When the boys had thrown their blankets into the berths, the captain
said,--
“Now, you come into my cabin; I’ve got a tub there, and I’ll have the
cook bring you some hot water, and you can scrub as long as you want
to.”
“It’s good of you, Captain Foster,” said Sidney, “to let us use your
bath.”
“Well, you see, the Princess Mary is not very modern, though she’s
as stanch a little craft as was ever built, and she hasn’t got any
bathrooms. Now you young gentlemen take your time, and come up on deck
when you’re through. I shan’t come down till I see you out there.”
Captain Foster’s bath was a funny little short tub that the bather
could just sit down in. The boys did not try even to sit down, but
stood up, one at a time. There was plenty of water, however, and soap,
and the scrubbing that followed was very thorough, and resulted in two
well-renovated boys.