RICARDO PLAYS IT ALONE
Twenty-four hours sufficed to cut a trail with machetes, and pitch the
tents in the cocoanut grove. One of them was promptly occupied by Señor
Bazán, who was elated at seeing things move in such brisk and orderly
fashion. His faith in his yellow-haired captain was restored. There had
been no waiting upon the movements of the interlopers from Ecuador. If
Don Miguel O’Donnell should presume to interfere, so much the worse for
him. Ricardo was the man to conquer him.
Privately Ricardo was not so certain of this. He had his moments of
serious apprehension. He could not quite imagine the resourceful Don
Miguel as sailing away empty-handed if there was the smallest chance of
finding hints or clues more promising than his own. Might was right on
Cocos Island. And the bold O’Donnell had never been hampered by scruples
or lack of wit.
It was difficult to ascertain how many men were in his party. They were
scattered, a few on the schooner, others carrying supplies, the rest in
camp or working on the hydraulic pipe-line along the hillside. They kept
away from the _Valkyrie_’s company, nor did Don Miguel himself display a
neighborly spirit. The inference was that he considered himself too much
the gentleman to intrude. It had been conveyed to him that he was
unpopular with Señor Bazán.
After painstaking measurements, Captain Cary felt satisfied that he had
chosen the likeliest spot to begin digging. To a certain extent it was
guesswork. The “great tree” noted on the chart had disappeared. There
was more than one “big boulder” in the ravine. Three of the bearings,
however, were accurately established, the H.M.S. _Jason_ stone on the
beach, the “hump of the hill,” and the face of the cliff. The compass
and chain helped to fill the gaps. Stakes were driven. Señor Bazán
turned the first shovelful of gravel. Not content with this, he
furiously plied the shovel until he wilted with a touch of fever.
Captain Cary took command of this party, leaving Mr. Duff in charge of
the ship. A dozen men were picked for the hard labor at the camp. No
more could be spared at one time. They were willing and industrious. Why
not? It meant filling their pockets with pirates’ gold. The treasure
would soon be uncovered. _El Capitan_ Ricardo had shown them where to
dig. He knew all things.
With the prevailing breeze the camp was in the sultry lee of the cliff.
This made the days intensely hot and the nights breathless. Señor Bazán
complained of his asthma. Mosquitoes tormented him when he moved out of
his tent. Ricardo urged him to spend a night or two on the ship where
the air had some life. He consented without much argument. A hammock was
slung from a pole, and two stout Colombian sailors bore the old
gentleman over the trail to the beach.
Captain Cary went with him, planning to return in an hour or so. He
wished to find out from Mr. Duff how things were going on board the
ship. Charlie Burnham was left in camp with orders to post a couple of
sentries now that dusk was coming on. Mr. Panchito had appeared for
supper and was delighting the weary sailors with songs and stories of
the raciest description. He was excellent for their morale. He made them
forget aching backs and blistered palms.
There was nothing to cause anxiety. Don Miguel O’Donnell had committed
himself to a policy of watchful waiting. For the present no trouble was
anticipated. The discovery of the treasure might provoke a crisis.
Meanwhile it was prudent to be vigilant.
Mr. Duff was eager for gossip, having been low in his mind for lack of
company. Cary found it refreshing to sit down for a chat with him on the
breezy deck of the _Valkyrie_. There had been no stir on the schooner,
he reported, a few men coming and going, but nothing to indicate an
early departure. A gray-haired, soldierly man had come off in the
afternoon for a brief visit, presumably Don Miguel himself.
Richard Cary was relating the news of the camp when the sound of a rifle
shot made him jump to his feet. It came from the interior of the island.
Another shot, then the staccato reports of a magazine emptied as fast as
a man could pull trigger. They reëchoed from the cliffs like a
fusillade. A rocket soared from the jungle and traced a scarlet line
against the evening sky.
Captain Cary roared a command and two men popped into the boat at the
gangway. He delayed to say to the chief officer:
“Stand by, Mr. Duff. If you need me, blow the whistle. We don’t know
what mischief the schooner may be hatching. We have to divide our
forces. Charlie Burnham is in a mess. Watch out for my signal from the
beach. We may want to shove off in a hurry.”
“You will find the old hooker right here, sir,” hoarsely rumbled Mr.
Duff. “I wish I could go with you.”
The two seamen tugged madly at the oars while Richard Cary, standing in
the stern, listened to the renewed rat-tat-tat of rifle fire. It
subsided before he leaped to the beach and dashed into the narrow trail.
Soon he heard a man cry out with pain, and the ferocious hubbub of
fighting at close quarters. He upbraided himself for his folly in
leaving the camp. He had been caught napping and tricked into a false
sense of security.
Stumbling over roots and stones, he ran with the thin beam of a little
flash-light to reveal the path cut through the undergrowth. He shouted
mightily as he ran. He thought he heard answering voices. There was no
more rifle fire. He was some distance from the camp when he saw a figure
coming toward him. It swayed like a drunken man and fell to the ground.
The fugitive was found to be a Colombian sailor whose sweat-soaked shirt
bore darker stains of blood. Two others came staggering along the trail.
Between them they carried a comrade whose head wagged grotesquely. Cary
flashed his light on the round, pallid features of Mr. Panchito who
dangled a useless arm and was gashed in the thigh. His gayety was
eclipsed.
Behind them came the rest of the _Valkyrie_ party, in tragic disorder.
Charlie Burnharn was limping with the rear guard, using his rifle as a
crutch. He blubbered at sight of Captain Cary and was ashamed to meet
him.
“The b-bastards jumped us, and it’s all my fault,” he sobbed. “They
crept up on us just after dark. One sentry got his, with a machete,
before he could squeak. We put up the best scrap we could, sir, but we
had to beat it. For God’s sake, Captain Cary, get the men from the ship
and we’ll go back and clean up.”
“Steady, Charlie. You couldn’t help it,” said Cary, putting an arm
around him. “Did you leave any men behind?”
“One, sir. We started to lug the sentry, but he croaked a little ways
back yonder and we hid his body in the bushes. I don’t know how many are
hit. They caught us from three sides and rushed us. We couldn’t hold the
camp. These Colombian ginks of ours put up a dandy scrap. You can’t tell
_me_ a South American revolution is vaudeville stuff. I know better.”
Cary had stripped off his shirt and was tearing it into strips. The
able-bodied men were quick to imitate him. As best they could they
bandaged the wounded who laughed and swore and begged cigarettes. For
those unable to walk or faint from loss of blood, litters were contrived
from boughs and saplings, using their leather belts for lashings. Cary
slung Charlie Burnham over his shoulder and strode ahead of the others.
He was sad and silent. It was for him to square the account with Don
Miguel O’Donnell. Now that the thing had happened, he comprehended the
motive. As soon as the _Valkyrie_ party had begun digging, the place
where they expected to find the treasure was clearly indicated. It told
the secret of their own pirates’ chart. Don Miguel had concluded not to
wait, perhaps for weeks and weeks. He preferred to do his own excavating
and make speedy work of it. There was no law on Cocos Island. A little
bloodshed? It was of no great consequence.
Richard Cary spoke his thoughts aloud to the hapless chief engineer who
could not help groaning now and then.
“He out-guessed me, Charlie. He was marking time until we showed him
where to set up that hydraulic squirt-gun of his and get busy again. He
thinks Señor Bazán has a sure thing. He told us so.”
“That’s my notion, Captain Cary. Ouch, I got a hole drilled clean
through my leg. Chasing us into the bushes didn’t bother that sudden
_hombre_ one little bit. He bats ’em high, wide, and lively.”
“I wish I had stopped those bullets myself,” sighed the master of the
_Valkyrie_.
He came out on the open beach well ahead of his forlorn company.
Carefully he laid Charlie Burnham on the sand and flashed a signal to
the steamer. Chief Officer Duff answered with a blast of the whistle. He
must have had the yawl manned and ready. The refugees heard the rattle
of oars. Presently the wounded were lifted in over the bow and stowed
against the thwarts. Mr. Duff handled the boat himself. Efficiently he
transferred this sorry freightage to the deck of the _Valkyrie_. Richard
Cary fairly rocked with exhaustion, a man sick in mind and body.
Doggedly he pulled himself together to act the amateur surgeon. The
colored steward displayed a competency unexpected. Between them they set
about sterilizing and dressing the bullet wounds and machete cuts. One
sailor’s chest had been ripped by a blade and required a dozen stitches.
Poor Mr. Panchito had an ugly fracture to set. A coal-black fireman was
moaning with the torture of a bullet embedded in his back. Captain Cary
had to probe and extract it. He did these things as well as he could,
slowly, carefully, with fingers singularly deft. He had seen them done
by other shipmasters with no surgeon on board. Including those less
seriously hurt, seven men bore testimony that it had been a furious
affray in camp.
Richard Cary dreaded an interview with Ramon Bazán, who was a trifle
flighty with fever. He had emerged from his room and was flitting about
in pajamas, very much in the way, and sputtering questions to which no
one paid the slightest attention. At length, Cary found time to say,
rather roughly:
“Why not thrash this out to-morrow? No use crying over spilt milk. You
ought to be in bed.”
“But I am not blaming you for anything, my son,” was the surprising
answer. It was a chastened, frightened Papa Bazán who, for once, had
forgotten his greed of phantom gold. “It may be true, Ricardo, that the
pirates put a curse on their treasure. It poisons men and makes them
kill each other. You would have been killed in the camp to-night. You
are too big for bullets to miss. And these wounded men—they suffer and
are so brave—and I am the one that brought them to this wicked Cocos
Island.”
The accents were mournful. Señor Bazán was lamenting for his children of
the sea. He was the sinner that repenteth at the eleventh hour.
“You certainly do not seem like yourself, Papa Bazán,” gravely returned
Ricardo. The symptoms were as alarming as one of those sudden heart
seizures. “I’m glad you appreciate the loyalty of your ship’s company.
And it is very decent of you to make it easy for me. What it amounts to,
though, is that Don Miguel O’Donnell was too wise and bold for me. You
were afraid of it, remember?”
“You will try to make him pay for it, Ricardo. I see it in your eyes.
More men will be bleeding with bullets. You yourself may be dead. I made
you come on this voyage when you wished to get out of Cartagena and find
your sweetheart, that girl of mine, Teresa Fernandez.”
“I shall find my girl. The world isn’t big enough to keep us apart,”
said Ricardo, his scowl fading. “But I am not ready to quit Cocos
Island. The only curse on the treasure is Don Miguel O’Donnell. You must
let me work it out, sir. You don’t have to strike your colors yet.”
“Promise me you will not get yourself killed, Ricardo,” implored the
affectionate Papa Bazán. “I would not leave you buried on Cocos Island,
not for the riches of Captain Thompson and Benito Bonito.”
“My own funeral is not on the programme,” replied Ricardo to whom this
was an unfamiliar Papa Bazán. “Please don’t interfere with my orders. I
shall have a good deal on my hands. Don Miguel rubbed me the wrong way.
I don’t like the way he did it.”
The old gentleman consented to go to bed. Captain Cary made a tour of
his patients. With luck he expected to pull them all through. He found
the steward faithfully on duty as nurse. Climbing to the bridge, he
stood gazing at the shadowy outline of the hostile schooner, only a few
hundred feet away. His solid composure of mind had returned. He was
putting his shattered self-confidence together again. It made him wince
to know that Don Miguel was laughing at him. It was his first
humiliating defeat. His men deserved better of him than this.
While he stood musing in the starlit night, he seemed to hear the voice
of Teresa Fernandez as she had told him the tale of the great galleon
_Nuestra Señora del Rosario_ and her ancestor Don Diego Fernandez—the
tale of the two little English ships that had throttled the galleon like
bulldogs.
The little ships of Devon, lubberly, as round as an apple, gaudy
pennants floating from their stumpy masts, wallowing off to leeward,
daring the devil and the deep sea!
The blood coursed through Richard Cary’s veins. He paced to and fro,
head erect, heart beating high. Was he to be balked of Spanish treasure?
He was a Cary of Devon.
This Don Miguel O’Donnell was a worthy foeman. How many of his men were
aboard the schooner? To-night was the time to carry her by boarding,
before Don Miguel could entrench the camp and send more men to his
vessel to hold her against surprise.
The _Valkyrie_ had no Devon lads with hearts of oak, experienced at this
game of swarming over a ship’s side and clearing her decks. The
Colombians had been demoralized by wounds and disaster. A respite was
necessary, to inspire the rest of the crew, to drill them, to show what
was expected of them. They were bewildered, fatigued, and ignorant of
the tactics of such an adventure as this. Another day, and they could be
led against the schooner. Reluctantly the attack was postponed.
Mr. Duff tramped to the bridge and urged his skipper to turn in until
daylight. The ship didn’t need him. The wounded men were quiet.
“All right, Mr. Duff. I’ll go below soon. I am not worried about the
ship. You will look after her, but I feel like a daddy to those poor
fellows that got hurt. It sort of cheers them up if they happen to be
awake when I go the rounds.”
“You take it too hard, Captain Cary,” bluffly replied the battered
veteran of a chief officer. “The men might have been stove up as bad as
this in a shindy ashore in some port. I had a ship in Valparaiso one
time—Lord love you, the police and the sailors fought it to a
fare-ye-well.”
“That wasn’t Cocos Island, Mr. Duff. Now keep this to yourself. If
things break wrong for me, you understand, you are to take this steamer
back to Cartagena, subject to the owner’s orders. And you can keep the
command of her, I have no doubt, if she can be made to earn her way in
coastwise trade. You have made good with me and with Señor Bazán.”
“Thank you, sir. What’s the oration about? Going to run some fool risk,
are you? It isn’t worth it, let me tell you. You are young and husky,
and there’s a fine life and a long life ahead of you. Why get bumped off
in a tuppenny rumpus like this? Hell’s bells, why don’t you let me do
the dirty work? Give me a chance to pay you back, Captain Cary. You
fished me out of the garbage can and put me on my feet. I’ll go up
against this Don Miguel O’Donnell the minute you say the word.”
Richard Cary shook his head. He had said all he had to say. Daylight
found him again on the bridge, intently studying the schooner. He was
astonished and chagrined. Outwitted for the second time! Forestalled and
beaten! During the night two machine guns had been mounted on the
schooner’s deck, one well forward, the other near the after cabin. No
boats could hope to approach the vessel and throw men on board. To
attempt it even by night would be bloody suicide. Richard Cary’s
intentions were snuffed out. The stout lads of Devon never had to reckon
with streams of bullets sprayed from machine guns.
The day passed uneventfully. Men were always loafing near the schooner’s
machine guns. Another midnight hour came. The tide was flooding into the
bay. The sky was slightly overcast. The stars were mistily veiled. The
bay slept in a soft obscurity.
Captain Cary called Mr. Duff aside to confide: “This seems to be up to
me. Please keep the ship quiet. Look and listen. If you hear me yell for
you, bring your men over in the yawl.”
“Blast my picture, sir, what do you mean? Are you going to tackle that
armed vessel alone?”
“You do as I say. Watch me swim for it.”
“The sharks’ll get you. I wish I was big enough to put you in irons.”
“Come along aft and see me off, Mr. Duff.”
They halted at the taffrail. Cary took off his canvas shoes and stripped
himself to the waist. All he had on was a pair of thin khaki trousers.
At his belt was a holster. The flap covered a Colt’s revolver of the old
navy pattern. It was long-barreled, with a heavy butt. The two men shook
hands. Mr. Duff whispered a blessing almost tearful.
Cary footed it down a rope ladder. Mr. Duff peered over and heard a
small splash. For the first time in many years he piously, genuinely
invoked his Maker. He saw Cary come to the surface and swim steadily to
make a wide détour and approach the schooner bows on. Very soon the
swimmer vanished from view. Mr. Duff hurried forward and awoke his men
with orders to be _alerta_, and to jump for the yawl when he said so.
Richard Cary was swimming at a leisurely pace, saving his strength,
taking advantage of the favorable drift of the tide. He held the same
course until he was well inshore and the schooner’s masts were in line.
Then he moved directly toward her, paddling gently and almost submerged,
as silent as a bit of flotsam.
Thus he floated until high above him loomed the bowsprit. He was
screened from discovery. Catching hold of the anchor chain, he steadied
himself and rested for several minutes. He could hear two men talking
somewhere forward.
Hand over hand he hauled himself up the cable until he could grasp a
bowsprit stay. Another effort and he found a foothold, crouching between
the stays directly beneath the heavy timber upon which the folds of a
headsail had been loosely secured.
Again he paused and listened. He had at least two men to deal with up
here near the forecastle. Their conversation still flowed in drowsy
murmurings. They were not far from the forward machine gun, he surmised.
He knew how to operate machine guns. During the war he had been a chief
petty officer of the American Navy.
He took it for granted that the two machine guns were loaded and ready
for instant action. Don Miguel O’Donnell was not a man to be careless in
matters of this sort. To get his hands on one of them, long enough to
sweep the schooner’s deck with it, this was the hazard upon which
Richard Cary was gambling his life.
Clambering over the bowsprit, he crept as far as the anchor winch.
Between him and the two men on watch near the forward machine gun was
the deck-house in which the sailors were quartered. It was his
assumption that most of them were ashore in the camp to hold it against
a possible sortie from the _Valkyrie_. He had first to surprise the two
men just beyond the deck-house. They were standing close to the
starboard bulwark. From where they were, the deck ran flush to the after
cabin and the raised quarterdeck upon which the other machine gun was
mounted.
The intruder was silent and invisible. He took the heavy revolver by the
barrel but, on second thought, shoved it back into the holster. It might
be better to have both hands free.
Like a yellow tiger he leaped from his ambush behind a corner of the
deck-house. His bare feet slapped the deck in three great strides. The
two sailors of Ecuador had no more than time to whirl and face him. He
stooped as he ran and grasped one of them around the legs. The fellow
seemed to rise in the air as if he had wings. He soared over the bulwark
in a graceful parabola. Into the placid waters of the bay he shot as
prettily as a man diving. He was yelling when he went under, and he
yelled when he came to the surface. He made as much noise as a riot.
Meanwhile the active Ricardo had lunged to get a grip on the other
seaman and toss him overboard in the same fashion. This one had a
moment’s warning, however, and he was wonderfully nimble. He dodged like
a rabbit and fled around the machine gun. At this game of tag there was
no catching him. He scudded under Ricardo’s outstretched arm and flew
like mad to seek refuge with his friends in the after part of the
vessel. A bullet might have stopped him, but the yellow tiger had
business more urgent. Every second of time was precious.
He dropped to his knees behind the machine gun. His questing fingers
told him that the belt was filled with cartridges. He swung the weapon
to rake the quarterdeck and drive the enemy from that other machine gun
before they could open fire on him.
He pulled the trigger. Brrrr-r-r—prut—prut—prut—prut, the mechanism
responded in a ferocious tattoo amazingly sharp and loud as the
headlands of the bay flung the reports to and fro. Checking the
fusillade, he looked and listened. He heard shrill shouts, the scamper
of feet, a man wailing that he was killed. The other machine gun was
dumb. In this brief burst of fire he had driven Don Miguel’s men to
cover, but he could not hope to hold them there long. They could snipe
at him with pistols and rifles from the cabin windows, from behind the
mizzenmast, from the rigging.
He was in the open, kneeling at his machine gun, his body naked to the
waist as a target discernible in the darkness. There was this to be said
for him, that the schooner was his, from the bow all the way aft to the
quarterdeck. He glanced behind him at the open doors of the forecastle.
If any seamen were in there, they had too much respect for a machine gun
to poke their heads out.
The voice of Richard Cary rolled out in a tremendous shout of: “Ahoy the
_Valkyrie_! Boarders away! Shake a leg. I can’t hold ’em long. Come over
the bowsprit. Do you understand?”
The jubilant bellow of Chief Officer Duff announced that he understood.
His men were in leash, awaiting the summons to cast off. They had an
account of their own to square. Richard Cary heard their oars bang
against the pins as they shoved clear and put their backs into it while
Mr. Duff hurled profane exhortations at their devoted heads. Captain
Cary saw the shadow of the boat as it surged toward the schooner. It was
for him to maintain the mastery a few minutes longer. What he dreaded
and expected was a swift rally to snatch the after machine gun, find
shelter for it, and sweep the _Valkyrie_’s boat. The possibility of such
a disaster made him desperate. His hands would be stained with the blood
of his own comrades if he should lead them into such a wicked trap as
this.
Now he recognized the voice of Don Miguel O’Donnell who was driving his
men up from the cabin into which they must have piled helter-skelter.
This made the situation more critical than ever. The reckless soldier of
fortune would not hesitate to pistol his own ship’s officers or men if
they refused to do his bidding. They would try to make quick work of it,
reflected Cary.
A rifle flashed and then another. He threw himself flat. A bullet kicked
a splinter from a plank beside his head. Several whined over him. He
watched the flashes. Don Miguel had shrewdly scattered his men in
various hiding-places. Without fatally exposing himself, Ricardo was
unable to look over the bulwark and gauge the progress of the
_Valkyrie_’s boat. He dared withhold his machine gun fire not another
minute. It was the card he held in reserve, but if a rifle bullet should
kill or cripple him, Mr. Duff and his shipmates would be exposed to
slaughter.
He knelt behind the gun and carefully marked the flashes of the rifles.
A bullet grazed his left arm. Another chipped an ear. Then he let drive
with all the cartridges remaining in the belt. It was a sustained,
furious chatter of explosions. He sprayed the quarterdeck from starboard
to port and back again. It silenced the enemy’s fire and granted him a
fleeting opportunity.
Jumping to his feet, he lifted the machine gun in his arms and tossed it
overboard. This one, at least, could not be reloaded and turned against
his own crew. Then he ran aft, jerking out the heavy revolver.
For an instant he halted behind the mainmast, in the middle of the ship,
to reconnoiter. It was as he expected. Don Miguel’s men knew he had
blown away all his ammunition. They were coming out from cover, but not
eagerly. Don Miguel was roaring at them from the cabin roof where he had
been trying to pot Cary with a rifle. It was he himself who leaped down
to aim the after machine gun. He was guilty of a blunder. His intention
was to rake the _Valkyrie_’s boat before it passed from sight under the
schooner’s bows, leaving his men to dispose of Richard Cary.
Instead of this, he saw a tall, glimmering figure dart from behind the
mainmast and come charging aft. His attention was diverted. He
hesitated. Then he opened fire at the swiftly moving wraith of a man,
expecting to crumple him in his tracks. Ricardo was too canny to make
himself an easy target. He ran a zigzag course, on a headlong slant
toward one side of the deck and veering toward the other side. It was a
disconcerting, bewildering onset even to an experienced campaigner like
Don Miguel O’Donnell.
Cary was running like the wind, and as he ran he blazed away with the
revolver which barked like a small cannon. A machine gun on a deck
deeply shadowed was a clumsy weapon with which to stop a man determined
to capture a ship single-handed or perish in the attempt. Don Miguel
stood stoutly at his post, loudly swearing at the men who were ducking
the bullets from that infernal revolver. The yellow tiger swerved again
and bounded to the quarterdeck. He hurled the empty revolver at the man
behind the machine gun. It was a missile propelled by an uncommonly
powerful arm.
Unseen by Don Miguel, it struck him in the face. He reeled and fell. One
of his men stumbled over him. Another lurched into them. In this moment
of confusion, Richard Cary laid hands on the machine gun and wrenched it
around to command the quarterdeck. A touch of the finger and he could
have riddled the nearest group of three, huddled as they were, but the
deed was abhorrent. Don Miguel had shown no mercy for the luckless
_Valkyrie_ party at the treasure camp, but this modern Richard Cary felt
inclined to offer quarter. A machine gun was a detestable weapon for men
who loved good fighting.
“Get below, you swine,” he shouted, “before I turn loose on you!
_Pronto_, now, and drop your rifles.”
The two sailors with Don Miguel dragged him to the companionway, and he
went bumping down into the cabin. Others were still skulking in the
dark. Two or three came forward with hands upraised. They were glad to
surrender. Cary called out a final summons. From the other side of the
deck, a die-hard took a futile snap-shot at him with a pistol. Picking
up the machine gun, Cary climbed to the cabin roof and deliberately
swept the quarterdeck with a hurricane of fire. It smashed through
woodwork and searched out the dark corners. It was the blast of death.
A wounded man came whimpering from his hiding-place. Another sprang up
with a scream and hung limp over the rail. It was enough. Richard Cary
shouldered the machine gun and ran forward with it. He had achieved the
vital purpose. His comrades had been saved from destruction. With a
thankful heart he shouted to them:
“All clear. Come along and take the schooner.”
The first man from the _Valkyrie_’s yawl was just coming over the bow.
Wound about his waist was a rope ladder which he made fast and dropped.
Up they swarmed, so fast that they were treading upon one another’s
shoulders.
Rifles slung on their backs, pistols in their fists, they crowded around
their captain and clamored to be led against the thieves and assassins
from Ecuador. Mr. Duff crawled over the bowsprit, the last man aboard.
His years and his girth had hampered him. The others had rudely shoved
him aside. He was puffing and blowing, and his temper was ruined.
“The scoundrels, they pranced all over me, Captain Cary. Where’s this
scrimmage of yours? Here we stand like a bunch of idiots at a tea party.
What’s that you’re lugging on your shoulder? A machine gun?”
“One of them,” laughed Richard Cary, affectionately thumping his chief
officer. “I had to chuck the other one over the side. You might have got
hurt with it. Hop along aft and finish it up. If you find any loose
_hombres_, throw them into a hatch.”
“Then you didn’t scupper the lot?” eagerly exclaimed Mr. Duff.
“I had no chance to count noses,” answered Captain Cary. “Take a look in
the forecastle first.”
“Let’s go, boys,” thundered Mr. Duff. “_Viva Colombia!_”