"Bernard Woodward, Esquire!" sang out the distributor of the mails with marked emphasis upon the "Esquire".
A titter rippled through the crowd. Some of the hands guffawed.
The lad's face flushed scarlet. His surprise at receiving anything at all from the mail-bag was smothered by his astonishment at the amusement of the hands. Rather resentfully he realized that he was not responsible for the faux pas of the sender.
He glanced at the handwriting. It was his mother's. Instantly the frown of annoyance vanished.
"Thank you, sir!" he exclaimed firmly and distinctly and placed the envelope in his pocket, though it was a hard task to contain his impatience to retire to a secluded part of the ship and read the correspondence.
Before the general distribution of the contents of the tray ended Bernard had four letters handed to him. Geoff came off even better with half a dozen. Yet, since no one left the crowd of on-lookers, the chums had perforce to follow the example of the others.
Followed the contents of a second mail-bag. These were not so numerous as those of the first and consisted mainly of small parcels, newspapers, and letters addressed to the ship at Rio. Consequently these had passed through the hands of the Brazilian postal officials. Judging by the torn and ragged state of many of the packages the Rio post office people had literally had a finger in them; for in some cases the contents had been extracted either wholly or piecemeal.
"Your own fault, Jeffries," commented the Chief Officer, as he handed an elderly shellback the mutilated wrappings of a purloined parcel. "If you don't know by this time how to have a parcel sent you never will."
"I knows right enough, sir," replied the aggrieved one. "It's they wot sends 'em as don't," and he ruefully examined his "mail", speculating as to the nature of the missing contents.
It did not take long to distribute the contents of the second mail-bag, then by tacit consent officers and men dispersed either to devour their letters and newspapers or else to grouse over the callous neglect of their people at home in not writing at all.
Amongst Geoff's correspondence was a letter from his father—one with a decidedly lawyer-like tone about it, and containing similar sentiments to those which Mr. Ensor had expressed himself to The Yachtsman's Fortnightly reporter:
"I have no doubt that by this time"—it ran—"you will have regretted the results of your hare-brained adventure. Unfortunately I see no way to extricate you from your plight. You will have to make the best of things till the ship returns home. Then, I trust, you will recognize the advantage offered by the legal profession and study hard for your Law examinations. If your ambitions coincide with mine—and I trust they do—my hopes for the firm of Ensor & Son will become an accomplished fact."
Geoff read the letter thoughtfully. Then his eyes roamed across the deck to the sight of Rio Harbour bathed in the brilliant tropical sunshine.
"Not if I know it," he soliloquized oracularly.
It was not sheer selfishness or rebellion on the lad's part. Long since, he had been forced to come to the conclusion that the more or less humdrum existence in an office was not for him. He was a lover of the open air—preferably the salt air of the five oceans. Boat-sailing and yachting had strengthened his desire for a life afloat and now, after his experience in the Golden Vanity, and an as yet limited acquaintanceship with foreign parts, his resolution to follow the sea as a profession was stronger than ever.
But could he?
Bernard, too, had a letter from his father. While congratulating his son on his narrow escape, Mr. Woodward expressed a hope that Bernard would make full use of his opportunity offered by the sea voyage.
"I know you have no bent for Art in the strictest sense," he continued. "Perhaps it is as well; you will never be plagued by that bugbear, an artistic temperament, which in most cases is but another name for voluntary inertia. So if you like your present job, stick to it."
"What does the pater mean by my present job?" wondered Bernard.
He showed the letter to his chum. Geoff was equally puzzled.
"It seems as if your governor has something up his sleeve, old son," remarked Geoff. "Well, you're lucky. At any rate, your father gives you a free hand. What does he mean by saying you should make full use of the opportunity?"
Bernard shook his head.
"I don't know," he replied. "At any rate, I'm doing it. No time like the present, you know. By Jove! Isn't this top-hole? Wonder when the Old Man'll let us go ashore?"
The period of "stand easy" came to an end. The Chief Officer set the hands to work to whip off the hatches and rig yard-arm tackle for the purpose of unloading the holds. Two large lighters were expected alongside almost immediately.
So far there was no sign of Captain Corbold and the Company's agent. They were still conferring in the Old Man's cabin, the deck being left in charge of the Chief Officer.
The cadets of both Watches under Third Officer Kelso were told off to clear the after-hold and man the gear for working the necessary tackle. In a medley of old clothes and badly worn dungarees, the lads set to work notwithstanding the fact that the temperature was well over a hundred in the shade.
With a dilatoriness characteristic of tropical South American ports, the lighters put in a belated appearance. They were large open boats, save for a short deck fore and aft, and were manned by negroes under the orders of half a dozen mulattos. In each lighter was a Brazilian clerk, whose duty it was to make entries of all cargo received from the ship; while, as far as the Golden Vanity's after-hold was concerned, Senior Cadet Fairclough performed a similar office on behalf of the consignors.
"All ready, there?" sang out the Third Officer. "Look smart, my lads! Sooner we've cleared the hold, sooner you'll be given leave! Roundly there! Stand from under! Up with her!"
The tackles creaked. From the cavernous depths of the hold came the first consignment—crates of hardware.
It was hard work. Clouds of dust rose from the now open cavity, mingled with the reek of impure air. Barked knuckles, aching limbs, and lungs strained almost to bursting point, were the lot of Geoff and his fellow workers. But what mattered? Was there not as a reward the promise of liberty ashore?
In the midst of the turmoil the Old Man and the Company's agent came from under the break of the poop.
Bernard, who happened to be guiding a bulky crate clear of an angle of the deck-house, caught sight of the Captain pointing to Geoff.
"That's one of them," remarked the Old Man. "The other is knocking about somewhere."
There was little wonder that Captain Corbold had failed to recognize the youth working close to him. Bernard was literally as black as a tinker.
"All right," replied the agent. "Bring them up to the office at nine to-morrow morning. I'll have the papers ready."
CHAPTER XVII. At the Café Babylonia
It was close on sunset when the work of clearing the after-hold was completed. The cadets had toiled like galley slaves, and it was fortunate for them that the negroes in the lighter were harder workers than those who were stowing the cargo removed from the main-hold. As a matter of fact, the main-hold was but half cleared when daylight failed. In the absence of electric arc-lamps—which would have been available had the Golden Vanity berthed alongside the quays—the completion of the task had to be left till the morrow.
"Leave till midnight, you fellows!" announced the Senior Cadet. "Clear and shift as fast as you can. Boat leaves at One Bell (6.30 p.m.)."