"
"At any rate," Geoffrey said smiling, "I insist that my money be
now thrown into the common fund. I have offered it several times
before, but you always said we had best keep it for emergency. I
think the emergency has come now, and these ten English pounds in
my belt will enable us to take some step or other. The question is,
what step? They might last us, living as we do, for some three or
four months, but at the end of that time we should be absolutely
penniless; therefore now is the time, while we have still a small
stock in hand, to decide upon something."
"But what are we to decide upon?" Gerald Burke asked helplessly.
"I have been thinking it over a great deal," Geoffrey said, "and
my idea is that we had best go to Cadiz or some other large port.
Although Spain is at war both with England and the Netherlands,
trade still goes on in private ships, and both Dutch and English
vessels carry on commerce with Spain; therefore it seems to me
that there must be merchants in Cadiz who would be ready to give
employment to men capable of speaking and writing both in Spanish
and English, and in my case to a certain extent in Dutch. From
there, too, there might be a chance of getting a passage to England
or Holland. If we found that impossible owing to the vessels being
too carefully searched before sailing, we might at the worst take
passage as sailors on board a Spanish ship bound for the Indies,
and take our chance of escape or capture there or on the voyage.
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