"OLD CHAP"--"OLD FELLOW."
Days of slow sailing through calm blue waters, with quite an Archipelago
of Eden-like islands showing one or another in sight.
Very slow progress was made on account of the wind, which was light and
generally adverse.
Fitz passed his time nearly always on deck with the skipper's glass in
hand, every now and then close enough in to one of the islands to excite
an intense longing to land, partly to end his imprisonment, as he called
it, partly from sheer desire to plunge into one or another of the
glorious valleys which ran upward from the sea, cut deep into the side
of some volcanic mountain.
"Lovely!" was always on the boy's lips. "I never saw anything like this
before, Poole. But where's the port we are sailing for? Are we never
going to land?"
"Oh, it's only a little farther on," was the reply. "If this wind only
gets up a little more towards sundown I expect we shall soon be there."
"That's what you always keep saying," was the impatient retort.
"Yes," said Poole coolly; "but it isn't my fault. It's the wind."
"Oh, hang the wind!"
"You should say, blow it!" said Poole, laughing. "But I say, old chap,
I don't want to damp you, but you really had better not indulge in any
hope of seeing any consul or English people who will help you to get
away. San Cristobal is a very solitary place, where the people are all
mongrels, a mixture of native Indians and half-bred Spaniards. Father
says they are like the volcano at the back of the city, for when it is
not blowing up, they are."
"Well, I shall learn all that for myself," said Fitz coldly.
"You will, old fellow, and before long too."
"What do you mean by that?" said Fitz sharply. "Only that we shall be
there for certain to-night." As it happened, the wind freshened a
little that evening, while the sunset that Poole had prophesied was
glorious in the extreme; a wondrous pile of massive clouds formed up
from the horizon almost to the zenith, shutting out the sun, and Fitz
watched the resplendent hues until his eyes were ready to ache--purple,
scarlet, orange and gold, with flashes in between of the most vivid
metallic blue, ever increasing, ever changing, until the eye could bear
no more and sought for rest in the sea through which they sailed, a sea
that resembled liquid rubies or so much wine.
But the end was coming fast, and like some transformation scene, the
clouds were slowly drawn aside, the vivid tints began to pale till they
died away into a rich, soft, purple gloom spangled with drops of gold.
And a deep sigh escaped from the middy's breast as he stood wondering
over the glories of the rapid change from glowing day into the soft,
transparent, tropic night.
"I never saw anything like that before," sighed the boy.
"No, I suppose not," was the reply. "It was almost worth coming all
this way to see. Doesn't it seem queer to you where all the clouds are
gone?"
"Yes," said Fitz; "I was thinking about that. There is only one left,
now, over yonder, with the sun glowing on it still."
"That's not the sun," said Poole quietly.
"Yes, it is. I mean there, that soft dull red. Look before it dies
out."
"That's the one I was looking at, and it won't die out; if you like to
watch you will see it looking dull and red like that all night."
"Oh, I see," cried Fitz mockingly; "you mean that the sun goes down only
a little way there, and then comes up again in the same place."
"No, I don't," said Poole quietly. "What you see is the glow from the
volcano a few miles back behind the town."
"What!" cried Fitz. "Then we are as close to the port as that?"
"Yes. We are not above a dozen miles away. It's too dark to see now,
or you could make out the mountains that surround the bay."
"Then why couldn't we see them before the sun was set?" cried Fitz
sceptically.
"Because they were all hidden by the clouds and golden haze that gather
round of an evening. Yes, yonder's San Cristobal, and as soon as it is
a little darker if you use the glass you will be able to make out which
are the twinkling electric lights and which are stars."
"Electric lights!" cried Fitz.
"Oh yes, they've got 'em, and tram-cars too. They are pretty wide-awake
in these mushroom Spanish Republic towns."
"Then they will be advanced enough," thought Fitz, "for me to get help
to make my way to rejoin my ship. Sooner or later my chance must come."
Within an hour the soft warm wind had dropped, and the captain gave his
orders, to be followed by the rattling out of the chain-cable through
the hawse-hole. The schooner swung round, and Fitz had to bring the
glass to bear from the other side of the deck to make out the twinkling
lights of the semi-Spanish town.
Everything was wonderfully still, but it was an exciting time for the
lad as he leaned against the bulwarks quite alone, gazing through the
soft mysterious darkness at the distant lights.
There were thoughts in his breast connected with the lowering down of
one of the boats and rowing ashore, but there was the look-out, and the
captain and mate were both on deck, talking together as they walked up
and down, while instead of the men going below and seeming disposed to
sleep, they were lounging about, smoking and chatting together.
And then it was that the middy began to think about one of the four
life-buoys lashed fore and aft, and how it would be if he cut one of
them loose and lowered himself down by a rope, to trust to swimming and
the help of the current to bear him ashore.
His heart throbbed hard at the idea, and then he turned cold, for he was
seaman enough to know the meaning of the tides and currents. Suppose in
his ignorance instead of bearing him ashore they swept him out to sea?
And then he shuddered at his next thought.
There were the sharks, and only that evening he and Poole had counted no
less than ten--that is to say, their little triangular back-fins--
gliding through the surface of the water.
"No," he said to himself, "I shall have to wait;" and he started
violently, for a voice at his elbow said--
"Did you speak?"
"Eh? No, I don't think so," replied the boy.
"You must have been talking to yourself. I say, what a lovely night!
Did you notice that signal that we ran up?"
"No," cried Fitz eagerly.
"It was while you were looking at the sunset. Father made me run up a
flag. Don't you remember my asking you to let me have the glass a
minute?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well--I don't mind telling you now--that was to the fort, and they
answered it just in time before it was too dark to see. I think they
hoisted lights afterwards, three in a particular shape, but there were
so many others about that father couldn't be sure."
"Then I suppose that means going into port at daylight?"
"Yes, and land our cargo under the guns of the fort. I say, listen."
"What to?"
"That," said Poole, in a whisper.
"Oh yes, that splashing. Fish, I suppose."
"No," whispered Poole. "I believe it's oars."
He had hardly spoken when the skipper's voice was heard giving orders
almost in a whisper; but they were loud enough to be heard and
understood, for there was a sudden rush and padding of feet about the
deck, followed by a soft rattling, and the next minute the middy was
aware of the presence of a couple of the sailors armed with capstan-bars
standing close at hand.
Then all was silence once more, and the darkness suddenly grew more
dense, following upon a dull squeaking sound as of a pulley-wheel in a
block.
"They've doused the light," whispered Poole. "It's a boat coming off
from the shore," he continued excitedly, with his lips close to the
middy's ear. "It's the people we expect, I suppose, but father is
always suspicious at a time like this, for you never know who they may
be. But if they mean mischief they will get it warm."
Fitz's thoughts went back at a bound to the dark night when he boarded
with the cutter's crew, and his heart beat faster and faster still as,
leaning outward to try and pierce the soft transparent darkness of the
tropic night, he felt his arm tightly gripped by Poole with one hand,
while with the other he pointed to a soft pale flashing of the water,
which was accompanied by a dull regular _splash, splash_.
"Friends or enemies," whispered Poole, "but they don't see us yet. I
wonder which they are."
Just then the lambent flashing of the phosphorescent water and the soft
splashing ceased.
It was the reign of darkness far and near.