Although Holcombe met Carroll several times during the following day, the latter obviously avoided him, and it was not until late in the afternoon that Holcombe was given a chance to speak to him again.  Carroll was coming down the only street on a run, jumping from one rough stone to another, and with his face lighted up with excitement.  He hailed Holcombe from a distance with a wave of the hand.  “There’s an American man-of-war in the bay,” he cried; “one of the new ones.  We saw her flag from the hotel.  Come on!” Holcombe followed as a matter of course, as Carroll evidently expected that he would, and they reached the end of the landing-pier together, just as the ship of war ran up and broke the square red flag of Morocco from her main-mast and fired her salute.

“They’ll be sending a boat in by-and-by,” said Carroll, “and we’ll have a talk with the men.”  His enthusiasm touched his companion also, and the sight of the floating atom of the great country that was his moved him strongly, as though it were a personal message from home.  It came to him like the familiar stamp, and a familiar handwriting on a letter in a far-away land, and made him feel how dear his own country was to him and how much he needed it.  They were leaning side by side upon the rail watching the ship’s screws turning the blue waters white, and the men running about the deck, and the blue-coated figures on the bridge.  Holcombe turned to point out the vessel’s name to Carroll, and found that his companion’s eyes were half closed and filled with tears.

Carroll laughed consciously and coughed.  “We kept it up a bit too late last night,” he said, “and I’m feeling nervous this morning, and the sight of the flag and those boys from home knocked me out.”  He paused for a moment, frowning through his tears and with his brow drawn up into many wrinkles.  “It’s a terrible thing, Holcombe,” he began again, fiercely, “to be shut off from all of that.”  He threw out his hand with a sudden gesture toward the man-of-war.  Holcombe looked down at the water and laid his hand lightly on his companion’s shoulder.  Carroll drew away and shook his head.  “I don’t want any sympathy,” he said, kindly.  “I’m not crying the baby act.  But you don’t know, and I don’t believe anybody else knows, what I’ve gone through and what I’ve suffered.  You don’t like me, Holcombe, and you don’t like my class, but I want to tell you something about my coming here.  I want you to set them right about it at home.  And I don’t care whether it interests you or not,” he said, with quick offense; “I want you to listen.  It’s about my wife.”

Holcombe bowed his head gravely.