ofessor had told him, a few
days before the breaking out of the war, that in another month or
two he should discontinue his lessons.

"It would be well for you to have one or two mornings a week, to
keep up your accent. You can find plenty of practice talking to the
people. I see you are good at making friends, and are ready to talk
to labourers at work, to boys, to the market women, and to anyone
you come across; but their accent is bad, and it would be well for
you to keep on with me. But you speak, at present, much better
Spanish than the people here and, if you were dressed up as a young
Spaniard, you might go about Spain without anyone suspecting you to
be English."

Indeed, by the professor's method of teaching--assisted by a
natural aptitude, and three hours' daily conversation, for five
months--Bob had made surprising progress, especially as he had
supplemented his lesson by continually talking Spanish with Manola,
with the Spanish woman and children living below them, and with
everyone he could get to talk to.

He had seen little of Jim, since the trouble began; as leave was,
for the most part, stopped--the ships of war being in readiness to
proceed to sea, at a moment's notice, to engage an enemy, or to
protect merchantmen coming in from the attacks of the Spanish ships
and gunboats, across at Algeciras.

Bob generally got up at five o'clock, now, and went out for two or
three hours before breakfast; for the heat had become too great for
exercise, during the day. He greatly missed the market, for it had
given him much amusement to watch the groups of peasant women--with
their baskets of eggs, fowls, vegetables, oranges, and fruit of
various kinds--bargaining with the townspeople, and joking and
laughing with the soldiers. The streets were now almost deserted,
and many of the little traders in vegetables and fruit had closed
their shops. The fishermen, however, still carried on their work,
and obtained a ready sale for their catch. There had, indeed, been
a much greater demand than usual for fish, owing to the falling off
in the fruit and vegetable supplies.

The cessation of trade was already beginning to tell upon the
poorer part of the population; but employment was found for all
willing to labour either at collecting earth for the batteries, or
out on the neutral ground--where three hundred of them were
employed by the Engineers in levelling sand hummocks, and other
inequalities in the ground, that