Amyntas discovered Captain Thorman of the good ship _Calderon_ drinking
rum punch in a tavern parlour. In those days all men were heroic.... He
gave him the parson's letter.
'Well, my boy,' said the captain, after twice reading it; 'I don't mind
taking you to Cadiz; I daresay you'll be able to make yourself useful on
board. What can you do?'
'Please, sir,' answered Amyntas, with some pride, 'I know Latin and
Greek; I am well acquainted with Horace and Tully; I have read Homer and
Aristotle; and added to this, I can read the Bible in the original
Hebrew.'
The captain looked at him.
'If you talk to me like that,' he said, 'I'll shy my glass at your
head.' He shook with rage, and the redness of his nose emitted lightning
sparks of indignation; when he had recovered his speech, he asked
Amyntas why he stood there like an owl, and told him to get on board.
Amyntas bowed himself meekly out of the room, went down to the harbour,
and bearing in mind what he had heard of the extreme wickedness of
Plymouth, held tightly on to his money; he had been especially warned
against the women who lure the unwary seaman into dark dens and rob him
of money and life. But no adventure befell him, thanks chiefly to the
swiftness of his heels, for when a young lady of prepossessing
appearance came up to him and inquired after his health, affectionately
putting her arm in his, he promptly took to his legs and fled.
Amyntas was in luck's way, for it was not often that an English ship
carried merchandise to Spain. As a rule, the two powers were at daggers
drawn; but at this period they had just ceased cutting one another's
throats and sinking one another's ships, joining together in fraternal
alliance to cut the throats and sink the ships of a rival power, which,
till the treaty, had been a faithful and brotherly ally to His Majesty
of Great Britain, and which our gracious king had abandoned with unusual
dexterity, just as it was preparing to abandon him....
As Amyntas stood on the deck of the ship and saw the grey cliffs of
Albion disappear into the sea, he felt the emotions and sentiments which
inevitably come to the patriotic Englishman who leaves his native shore;
his melancholy became almost unbearable as the ship, getting out into
the open sea, began to roll, and he drank to the dregs the bitter cup of
leaving England, home, beauty--and _terra firma_. He went below, and,
climbing painfully into his hammock, gave himself over to misery and
_mal-de-mer_.
Two days he spent of lamentation and gnashing of teeth, wishing he had
never been born, and not till the third day did he come on deck. He was
pale and weak, feeling ever so unheroic, but the sky was blue and the
ship bounded over the blue waves as if it were alive. Amyntas sniffed in
the salt air and the rushing wind, and felt alive again. The days went
by, the sun became hotter, and the sky a different, deeper blue, while
its vault spread itself over the sea in a vaster expanse. They came in
sight of land again; they coasted down a gloomy country with lofty
cliffs going sheer into the sea; they passed magnificent galleons laden
with gold from America; and one morning, when Amyntas came on deck at
break of day, he saw before him the white walls and red roofs of a
southern city. The ship slowly entered the harbour of Cadiz.