They, too, were going to Nassau.
Rectus had gone on board, and I was just about to follow him, when our old Minorcan stepped up to me.
"Goin' away ?" said he.
"Yes," said I, "we're off at last." "Other feller goin' ?" "Oh, yes," I answered, "we keep together." "Well now, look here," said he, drawing me a little on one side.

"What made him take sich stock in us Minorcans?
Why, he thought we used to be slaves; what put that in his head, I'd like to know?
Did he reely think we ever was niggers ?" "Oh, no!" I exclaimed.

"He had merely heard the early history of the Minorcans in this country, their troubles and all that, and he----" "But what difference did it make to him ?" interrupted the old man.
I couldn't just then explain the peculiarities of Rectus's disposition to Mr.Menendez, and so I answered that I supposed it was a sort of sympathy.
"I can't see, for the life of me," said the old man, reflectively, "what difference it made to him." And he shook hands with me, and bade me good-bye.

I don't believe he has ever found anybody who could give him the answer to this puzzle.
The trip over to Nassau was a very different thing from our voyage down the coast from New York to Savannah.

The sea was comparatively smooth, and, although the vessel rolled a good deal in the great swells, we did not mind it much.