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moment had come to act as Captain Paxton and his crew would have done. The rowboat was only a few toises away, and, since it was necessary that someone be there to receive the passengers, Harry Markel advanced toward the starboard ladder.
“Captain Paxton!”
It goes without saying that he had put on the uniform of the unfortunate captain, and that all of his companions were wearing the clothing found in their quarters.
The sailors from the skiff then hailed the Alert, and Corty threw a line that was caught with a grappling hook and then fastened at the bow.
Tony Renault and Magnus Anders, climbing first up the rope ladder, jumped onto the bridge. Their classmates followed them. Then it was Mr. Horatio Patterson’s turn, whom John Carpenter helped very courteously to clear the railing.
Next, they began unloading the luggage, simple suitcases, light and unobtrusive—only a matter of a few minutes.
The sailors of the boat did not come aboard, then. Already paid by Mr. Patterson and rewarded with a good tip, they turned the boat and headed back to the port.
At that moment, the mentor, always proper, bowed and said: “Captain Paxton?”
“It is I, sir,” answered Harry Markel.
Mr. Patterson then made a second greeting marked by an eloquent politeness, adding: “Captain Paxton, I have the honor to introduce to you the boarders of the Antillean School, and to offer you assurance of my total consideration and my most humble respects.”
“Signed Horatio Patterson,” that rascal Tony Renault whispered into the ear of Louis Clodion, who, with all his classmates, also greeted the captain of the Alert.
8 On Board
The voyage had gotten off to a good start for Mr. Patterson and the students of the Antillean School. They were taking a strong interest in even the slightest incidents along their route. A veritable flock of birds who had broken out of their cages—birds that were completely tamed and would come back. And this was only the beginning!
Indeed, it was not as if these young men were going on their first train or boat journey. They had all crossed the Atlantic Ocean when they had come from the Antilles to Europe, but this was not to say that the sea held no more secrets for them. They barely had any recollections of that voyage. The oldest of the group was at the most about ten years old when he first set foot in England. Sailing on board the Alert would be, then, something completely new for them. As for their mentor, it was the first time he would venture onto this treacherous element, to his extreme delight.
“Hoc erat in votis!”1 he repeated, eighteen hundred years after Horace. At five o’clock, upon descending from the train in Bristol, the small troupe boarded the steamship with regular service between England and Ireland, a distance of about two hundred miles.
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