Others, black and dirty, with the pitchy plaster of hasty reparation and a consumptive smokestack on an enormous hull, plowed along, coughing smoke, spitting ashes, panting with the jangle of old iron.

The flags of the Allies and those of the neutral navies waved on the different ships.

Reuniting, they formed a convoy in the broad bay.

There were fifteen or twenty steamers, sometimes thirty, which had to navigate together, adjusting their different speeds to a common pace.

The cargo boats, merchant steamers that made only a few knots an hour, exacted a desperate slowness of the rest of the convoy.
The _Mare Nostrum_ had to sail at half speed, making its captain very impatient with these monotonous and dangerous peregrinations, extending over weeks and weeks.
Before setting out, Ferragut, like all the other captains, would receive sealed and stamped orders.