Like Kent, he vowed that "freedom lies hence, and banishment
is here." And he had always hated Brixton, which was unjust to that
pleasant suburb, but the days of his sojourn there had been days of
bondage.
He was among the first to secure a seat in the Continental mail. Having
registered those superb trunks through to Marseilles, and reserved a
comfortable corner by depositing his valise there, he strolled up and
down the platform, and quietly scrutinized his fellow passengers. So
far as he could judge, none of the earlier arrivals were prospective
shipmates. Two bronzed men, of free gait, with that trick of carrying
the hands back to front which singles out the sailor from the rest of
humanity, drew him like a lodestone. But he soon discovered that they
were P. & O. officers, bidding farewell to a friend bound for Egypt.
At last he came upon a man and a woman, a remarkable pair under any
circumstances, but specially interesting to him, seeing that the man
gripped an ancient carpet bag on which was pasted a label with the
glaring superscription: "Captain John Stump, yacht _Aphrodite_,
Marsails.
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