"Perhaps we had better say no more about that with an enemy present."
Fitz was in the act of helping himself to some more of the hot bread,
but at the skipper's words he flushed warmly, put down the cake without
taking out of it a semi-circular bite, and rose from his seat.
"I don't wish to play the spy, sir," he said haughtily. "I will go on
deck till you have finished your business."
"Sit down!" cried the skipper. "Sit down! What a young pepper-castor
you are! Mayn't a man think what he likes in his own cabin?"
"Certainly, sir; but of course I cannot help feeling that I am an
intruder."
"That's just what I feel, my boy, for coming in and disturbing you at
your meal. Sit down, I say. If anybody is going to leave the room, I
am that person; but I am not going to leave my cabin, so I tell you."
The skipper gave his son a peculiar look, his eyes twinkling the while.
"Think we can trust Mr Burnett here?" he said.
Fitz gave a start.
"Oh yes, father. He won't go and tell tales. He won't have a chance.
What was in that letter?"
"Just a few lines, my boy, to say that everything was going very wrong
at present, and begging me whatever I did to keep the schooner's cargo
out of Villarayo's hands, and to join Ramon as soon as I possibly can."
"But where, father? Both the towns are in the enemy's hands."
"At his hacienda at the mouth of the Oltec River."
"Hacienda?" said Poole. "That means a sort of farm, doesn't it,
father?"
"Yes, my boy, and of course that's just the sort of place to deliver a
cargo of such agricultural implements as we have brought on board. What
do you say, Mr Burnett?"
"Agricultural implements, sir? Why, Captain Glossop had notice that you
had taken in guns and ammunition."
"Oh yes; people do gossip so," said the skipper dryly. "I didn't
examine them much myself, but I know there were things with wheels."
"But there was a lot of powder, sir--kegs of it, I heard."
"Chemical manure perhaps, my lad; potash and charcoal and sulphur
perhaps to kill the blight. Must be innocent stuff, or else my old
friend Don Ramon would not want it at his farm."
"I don't understand," said the middy.
"Well, it doesn't matter," cried Poole, laughing. "Go on, father."
"That's what we are doing, my boy. But you go on with your breakfast,
Mr Burnett, and make a good one while you have a chance. We may be
getting news any minute that the gunboat is in sight; and if it is,
there's no knowing when we shall get a square meal again."
"But whereabouts is this Oltec River, father?"
"Well, as near as I can tell you, my boy, it's on the coast about thirty
miles by sea from Velova, though only about half the distance through
one of the mountain-passes by land. We ought to have been there now,
and I dare say we should have been if Mr Burgess had not run us on to a
rock. But that fellow going overboard quite upset my plans. It was a
great nuisance, and I seemed to be obliged to heave-to, and wait to see
if you people would come back on board."
"Yes, father, I suppose so," said Poole coolly.
"Done eating, you two?"
The lads both rose, and the whole party went on deck to scan their
position, the lads finding the schooner gliding along southward before a
pleasant breeze, while miles away on the starboard-bow a dim line marked
the coast, which seemed rugged and broken up into mountain and vale; but
there was no sign of gunboat nor a sail of any kind, and Poole breathed
more freely.
"One's so helpless," he said to his companion, "on a coast like this,
where one time you have a nice sailing wind, and the next hour it has
dropped into a calm, so that a steamer has you quite at its mercy."
"Yes," said Fitz dryly; "but I don't see that it matters when you have
nothing on board but agricultural implements and chemical manures. What
business is it of the gunboat?"
"Ah, what indeed?" cried Poole, laughing. "It's a piece of impudence,
isn't it, to want to interfere! But I say, Burnett, what father says
sounds well, doesn't it--a hacienda at the mouth of a river, and a
mountain-pass? That means going ashore and seeing something, if we are
in luck. I do know that the country's glorious here, from the peep or
two I once had. My word! People think because you go sailing about the
world you must see all kinds of wonders, when all the time you get a
peep or two of some dirty port without going ashore, and all your
travels are up and down the deck of your ship--and nothing else but
sea."
"I wish I could get landed at some big port," said Fitz bitterly. "I
wouldn't call it dirty."
"My word, what a fellow you are!" said Poole. "Grumbling again!"
"Grumbling!" cried Fitz hotly. "Isn't it enough to make any one
grumble, dragged off my ship a prisoner like this?"
"No," cried Poole. "Why, some chaps would call it grand. Now you've
got about well again it's all a big lark for you. Every one's trying to
make you comfortable. Look at the adventures you are going through!
Look at last night! Why, it was all fine, now that we have got through
it as we did. You can't say you didn't like that."
"Well, no," said Fitz; "it was exciting."
"So it is now. The gunboat's safe to be after us, and here we are,
going to take refuge up a river in perhaps no end of a wild country at
the Don's hacienda. Who knows what adventures we are going to have
next!"
"Not likely to be many adventures at a muddy farm."
"How do you know?"
"Because I pretty well know what a farm is."
"Not a Central American one, my fine fellow. I dare say you will have
to open your eyes wider than you think."
"Perhaps so," said Fitz, who was growing more good-humoured over his
companion's frank, genial ways; "but I feel more disposed to shut my
eyes up now, and to have a good sleep."
"Oh, don't do that! There will be plenty of time when it gets dark, and
before then I hope we shall be off the river. We are slipping along
pretty quickly now, and old Burgess is creeping closer in. That's his
artfulness; it means looking out for creeks and islands, places where we
could hide if the gunboat came into sight, or sneaking into shallows
where she couldn't follow. The old man knows what he is about, and so
does father too. Here, let's go and fetch a glass and get up aloft. I
want to make out what the coast is like."
The binocular was fetched from the cabin, and the lads mounted the
rigging as high as they could to get comfortably perched, and then
shared the glass, turn and turn, to come to the conclusion that every
knot they crept along through the shallow sea brought them more and more
abreast of a district that looked wild and beautiful in the extreme: low
mountain gorge and ravine, beautiful forest clothing the slopes, and
parts where the country was green with the waving trees almost to the
water's-edge.
And so the day slipped by, and the sun began to sink just as they glided
into a narrow sheltered estuary, which, as far as they could make out,
ran like a jagged gash inland; and an hour later the schooner was at
anchor behind a headland which completely bid them from the open sea.
"There," cried Poole, turning to the middy, who was sweeping the
forest-clad slopes on either hand, "what do you think of this?"
"Lovely!" cried Fitz enthusiastically, forgetting all his troubles in
the wondrous tropic beauty of the golden shores.
"Come on, then. I don't know what Andy has got us for supper, but it
smells uncommonly good."
"Supper!" said the middy, in tones of disgust. "Why, you can't leave a
scene like this to go and eat?"
"Can't I?" cried Poole. "Do you mean to tell me that you are not hungry
too?"
"Well, no," said Fitz, slowly, closing the glass; "I don't think I can.
I didn't know how bad I was until you spoke."