Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/358



THE next morning (19th February) Ned Land entered my room. I rather expected him.room. He wore a very disapointed look.

“Well, Monsieur,” he said.

‘Well, Ned, fate was adverse yesterday.”

“Yes, because that damned captain stopped exactly at the hour we were about to get into the boat.”

“Yes, Ned; he had some business to transact with his banker.”

"His banker!”

“Or rather, I should say his banking-house. I mean by that this ocean, in which his treasures are more safe than in the coffers of a state.”

I then narrated the occurrences of the previous evening, in the secret hope to bring him back to the idea not to abandon the captain, but my recital had no other result than to cause him to regret, in the most energetic manner of which he was capable (which was something), of not having been able to make a little excursion on his own account into the “ battle-field” of Vigo.