Jack. "We have plenty; and it will look more in keeping."
"Very well, Senor; I agree with you there," acquiesced Morillo. "And
now, as you are doubtless anxious to make an immediate start, I will bid
you good-bye; and trust that the expedition will be completely
successful. You have full instructions how to proceed, Senor," he added
to his lieutenant; and then, cap in hand, bowed himself through the
gangway and down the side.
As the cruiser's boat shoved off, Milsom ascended to the bridge and,
laying his hand on the engine-room telegraph, rang "Stand by!"
"Are you all ready to slip, there, Mr Perkins?" he demanded.
"All ready, sir," answered Perkins.
"Then let go!" ordered Milsom, moving the handle to "Half speed ahead!"
"Lay aft, some hands, and stow the gangway ladder. Quartermaster, stand
by to dip our ensign to the cruiser as we pass her; and when she has
acknowledged it, haul it and the burgee down and stow them away in the
flag locker!"
"Are you acquainted with Senor Montijo and his family?" asked Jack
politely, addressing himself to Lieutenant Villacampa, who looked as
though he felt slightly uncomfortable and out of his element.
"I have not that honour, Senor," answered Villacampa, looking still more
uncomfortable.
"Then come up on the deck-house, and let me introduce you," said Jack.
"They are most delightful people, and I am sure they will be pleased to
know you. Your men had better consider the after deck as their end of
the ship, and make themselves as comfortable as they can there. She is
a fairly dry little ship, and I think they will be all right there."
Whereupon Villacampa gave a brief order to his men, and then followed
Jack up the ladder to the top of the deck-house, where he was duly made
known to its occupants--to the great gratification of Morillo, who
witnessed the little ceremony as the yacht swept past his boat. The
lieutenant was very cordially received, as had already been agreed upon
by those principally concerned; and, being a very pleasant-mannered and
agreeable young fellow, soon found that he was enjoying himself
amazingly.
"You have a fine, speedy little ship under you, Senor," he said, anxious
to make himself agreeable, as the yacht, having passed the cruiser and
opened out the harbour's mouth, quickened up her pace to fourteen knots.
"Y-es," admitted Jack, in that grudging, depreciatory tone of voice
which, for some inexplicable reason, so many Englishmen use when
speaking of their own property; "she is not bad, for her size. But a
knot or two more would be welcome, just now; for we are late in
starting, and we shall have our work cut out to make Mulata Bay before
dark. I have been taking a look at my chart, and I see that the place
lies inside a reef. Are you acquainted with the pilotage of that part
of the coast, Senor?"
"Oh yes, Senor!" answered the lieutenant; "I have been in and out of
Mulata Bay several times. That was chiefly why Captain Morillo selected
me to command the expedition. The navigation, however, is not
difficult; and, once through the Cayo Blanco passage, we shall be all
right."
"No doubt," agreed Jack. "But it is just the getting through that
passage that I have been feeling unhappy about. We draw eight feet of
water aft, and my chart says that there are only nine feet in the
passage."
Villacampa admitted that the depth of water shown on the chart was about
right, and confessed that the situation, now that one came to look at
it, was somewhat awkward; still, he was of opinion that if they could
but arrive off the mouth of the pass before dark everything would be all
right.
At five o'clock the stewards brought up the tables and proceeded to
serve tea; and Villacampa, who somehow found himself seated between
Senorita Isolda and Capitan Milsom, told himself that he had missed his
vocation, and that he ought to have been skipper of an English steam-
yacht--with a lovely and fascinating Spanish Senorita as a passenger--
instead of second lieutenant of a dirty Spanish cruiser.
They were running along the coast and steering a course of west by south
half-south, which gave them a gradually increasing offing, and was a
nice, safe course to steer, for it would take them well clear of all
dangers; the result being that when at length they arrived off the Cayo
Blanco passage, the yacht was quite ten miles off the land, and about
five miles distant from the edge of the reef. If Villacampa had noticed
how wide an offing was being maintained, he would probably have
suggested the desirability of hauling in a point or two; but he did not,
for he was being made much of by the ladies, while Jack had artfully
placed him with his back toward the land. Milsom, meanwhile, had been
watching the coast as a cat watches a mousehole, and the moment that he
saw certain marks come "on" he raised his cap and proceeded to mop his
perspiring forehead with a large bandana handkerchief; whereupon
Perkins, who had been for some time keeping an unostentatious eye upon
the party on the top of the deck-house, turned and sauntered aft to the
engine-room door, sneezing violently as he walked past it. The next
instant there arose a perfectly hair-raising clatter and clash of metal
down in the engine-room, and the engines abruptly ceased to revolve! So
sudden and startling was the clatter that both ladies screamed, and
clasped their hands convulsively, in the most natural manner possible;
while Jack and Milsom, starting to their feet and capsizing their chairs
with magnificent dramatic effect, dashed, one upon the heels of the
other, down the ladder toward the engine-room, the steam from the blow-
off at the same moment roaring through the safety valves with violence
enough to scare a nervous person out of his wits. The quartermaster,
keeping a level head in the midst of the hubbub, promptly ported his
helm and turned the yacht's head toward the open sea, and the little
craft at once, as though entering thoroughly into the spirit of the
thing, began to roll her rails under as the sea caught her square abeam.
The Spanish seamen and marines, startled into sudden activity by the
commotion, sprang to their feet, and, after glancing about them for an
instant with scared faces, made a dash with one accord for the boats,
and were only with difficulty restrained from lowering them, and driven
away from the davits by a strong party of the yacht's crew, under
Perkins, aided by Jack and Villacampa. Taking the affair "by and
large", Macintyre had certainly very effectively fulfilled his promise
to produce "a perfectly gorgeous breakdown!"
Lieutenant Villacampa was, of course, naturally very anxious to learn
the extent of the damage, and how far it was likely to interfere with
his execution of the duty confided to him by his superiors; and the poor
fellow wrung his hands in despair when Macintyre presently came on deck
with a big bolt smashed in two in his hand and, with a great show of
indignation, informed the Spaniard in broad Scotch--of which, of course,
the poor fellow did not understand a word--that some unknown scoundrel
had surreptitiously withdrawn nine such bolts from a certain coupling,
and that the other three had, as a natural consequence, gradually
sheered through under the excessive strain thrown upon them; and that
for his part he was only surprised that the machinery had brought them
as far as it had without giving out: and that, furthermore, since it
would be necessary to make twelve new bolts to replace those missing and
destroyed, it would be several hours, at the earliest, before the yacht
could again be brought under control. All of which Jack, struggling
valiantly against a violent disposition to laugh uproariously,
translated to the unhappy Spanish lieutenant. Then, to add still
further to that officer's chagrin and disappointment, the yacht, with
the Spanish ensign and pennant snapping from gaff-end and masthead in
the roaring trade wind, drove slowly but steadily past the mouth of
Mulata Bay, and the young man had the mortification of catching, through
a powerful pair of binoculars lent him by Jack, a brief glimpse of the
_James B. Potter_ at anchor in the bay, surrounded by a whole flotilla
of boats, with steam winches hard at work, and great cases swinging over
the side from all three hatchways at the same moment. It was a scurvy
trick of fate, he explained to Jack, that he should have been so very
near to making a capture important enough to have insured his promotion,
and to have had success snatched from him at the moment when it was all
but within his grasp. Jack emphatically agreed with him that it was,
but rather spoiled the effect immediately afterward by asking: "What
about the damage to his engines?" It was, however, obviously a case in
which nothing could be done but wait patiently until the necessary
repairs could be effected; and, after all, there was, as Jack pointed
out, just one solitary grain of comfort in the situation, in that the
breakdown had occurred while the yacht was still far enough from the
shore to be safe from the peril of stranding. Had the accident been
deferred until the vessel was on the point of entering the passage
through the reef, the yacht would undoubtedly have been flung by the sea
upon the sharp coral and dashed to pieces; when the furious surf, which
was at that moment foaming and swirling over the reef, and to which Jack
directed Villacampa's attention, must have inevitably drowned every soul
on board. This was a fact so patent to the meanest comprehension that
the Spanish lieutenant speedily forgot his disappointment, and hastened
up on to the deck-house to explain to the ladies how narrow had been
their escape from a terrible shipwreck, and to congratulate them upon
the circumstance that they were still alive.
Meanwhile, the deck hands, under Milsom's supervision, had been busily
engaged in getting up on deck and rigging a sea anchor, which was
dropped overboard when the yacht had drifted some three miles to the
westward of the Cayo Blanco passage; and as there was a strong current
setting eastward at the time, the effect was not only to bring the yacht
head to wind and sea, and cause her to ride very much more easily and
comfortably, but also to effectually check her further drift to the
westward. Then came dinner in the saloon, and as Villacampa took his
seat at the elegantly appointed table, and noted with keen appreciation
the prompt and orderly service of the luxurious meal, he felt fully
confirmed in his previous conviction that he had missed his proper
vocation.
The rising moon had just cleared the horizon and was flooding the
weltering waters with her silvery light when, the saloon party being
once more assembled on the top of the deck-house for the better
enjoyment of the grateful coolness of the night air, a large steamer,
which could be none other than the _James B. Potter_, was seen to come
out of Mulata Bay and head for the passage, steaming thence out to sea
and away to the eastward at a rapid pace, though not so fast but that
Villacampa, unconsciously biting his finger nails to the quick in the
excess of his mortification, felt convinced that the yacht could have
caught her, had that vessel only been under way at the moment. She was
not, however, and it was not until the American craft had sunk beyond
the eastern horizon a good hour and a half that Macintyre came up on
deck to report that he had completed his repairs and was ready to once
more start his engines. Whereupon the sea anchor was got inboard and,
since there was nothing else to be done, the yacht returned to Havana
harbour at a speed of fourteen knots--her engines working as smoothly as
though they had never broken down--arriving at her former berth and
picking up her buoy at about two o'clock a.m. Captain Morillo, who had
been anxiously awaiting her return, promptly made his appearance
alongside in the cruiser's cutter, for the purpose of taking off his men
and learning the result of the expedition; and great was his wrath and
disgust on hearing that it had failed, after all, in consequence of a
breakdown of the yacht's engines. He was most searching and minute in
his enquiries as to the nature and cause of the accident, which, he
eventually agreed with Jack, had undoubtedly been brought about by the
miscreants who were responsible for the disablement of the Spanish
warships, and who, it was perfectly evident, had determined to ensure
the success of the American undertaking by tampering with the machinery
of every vessel in the harbour which could by any possibility be
employed to frustrate it. Ere taking his leave he ventured to express
the hope that Jack and Captain Milsom would do him the favour to
accompany him when he went ashore, a few hours later, to report to the
Capitan-General the failure of the expedition, as it would be his duty
to do: but Jack courteously yet very firmly declined to do anything of
the kind, pointing out that Lieutenant Villacampa, who had commanded the
expedition, was perfectly able to furnish every particular that the
General might require; while, further, Jack considered that very unfair
pressure had been brought to bear upon him to induce him to lend his
yacht for the purpose of the expedition, and he therefore felt perfectly
justified in declining to afford any further assistance to the local
representative of the Spanish Government. Whereupon Captain Morillo
expressed his profound regret that Senor Singleton should have cause to
feel himself aggrieved, and departed, taking his men and his flags with
him. The _Thetis_ steamed out of Havana harbour again at eight o'clock
that same morning.
It is unnecessary to follow in detail the course of the voyagers during
the pleasure cruise upon which they had embarked; for while they
thoroughly enjoyed themselves the cruise was absolutely uneventful.
Suffice it to say that, proceeding in a very leisurely fashion, they
completely circumnavigated the island of Cuba, calling in at Matanzas,
Cardenas, Nuevitas, Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Trinidad, Xagua,
Batabano, and other more or less interesting ports on the coast;
sometimes remaining only a few hours, at other times spending as many
days in harbour, while Don Hermoso made certain mysterious excursions
inland and had secret conferences with more or less mysterious people,
during the progress of which Jack, Carlos, and the two ladies enjoyed
themselves amazingly in the steam pinnace, in which craft they made
excursions up rivers, and prowled about among romantic cays to their
hearts' content. Then they crossed to Jamaica, where they enjoyed ample
opportunity to compare the condition of that island, under British rule,
with Cuba under the government of the Spaniards, as also to learn how
the Jamaicans construe the word "hospitality". Dances, picnics, dinners
at Government House and elsewhere, balls at Up-Park camp and on board
the battleships at Port Royal succeeded each other with bewildering
rapidity; while they were positively deluged with invitations to spend a
week or more on various sugar estates dotted about here and there in
some of the most beautiful parts of the lovely island: small wonder was
it, therefore, that six full weeks slid away ere the _Thetis_ again
steamed out to sea from Port Royal. Thence, coasting along the southern
shores of San Domingo, the travellers visited Porto Rico, where Don
Hermoso again had much business to transact with mysterious strangers,
occupying a full fortnight; after which Saint Kitts, Antigua,
Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Barbados,
Saint Vincent, Grenada, and finally Trinidad (to see the wonderful Pitch
Lake) were visited: by which time the month of February in the year 1895
had arrived, and Don Hermoso became anxious to be at home again, as
certain very important and momentous events were pending, the progress
of which he was anxious to watch as closely as might be. Wherefore, on
a certain evening, the yacht weighed her anchor shortly before two bells
in the first dogwatch, and, steaming close past the Five Islands, the
Diego Islands, Gaspar Grande, and Mono Island, swept out through the
Boca de Navios, and shaped a course north-west by west for Cape Tiburon,
in the island of Hayti, which was passed at daybreak on the morning but
one following; the yacht finally entering Havana harbour and making fast
to a buoy at eight o'clock on the morning of the succeeding day. The
Montijo family landed immediately after breakfast, and took the first
available train to Pinar del Rio, hoping to arrive home the same
evening: but Jack remained on board the yacht, as she was by this time
so exceedingly foul that it had been decided to dock her and have her
cleaned in readiness for any emergency; and, Singleton being her
ostensible owner, it was deemed a wise and prudent thing that he should
remain at Havana to personally arrange for the work to be done, lest
suspicion as to the genuineness of his ownership should arise in the
minds of any of the Spanish officials.
As Jack went hither and thither about his business, after having seen
his friends off by train, he was astonished at the change that had taken
place in the appearance of Havana since he had last seen it on that
memorable day when the Capitan-General had visited the _Thetis_ and
persuaded--or, rather, practically compelled--him to lend that vessel
for the purpose of attempting the capture of the _James B. Potter_.
Then, Havana was simply a busy seaport; now, it was a fortress preparing
for war. The streets were full of troops, fresh landed from the
transports in the harbour and marching to the railway stations to
entrain for various parts of the island; guns, ammunition and ambulance
wagons were rumbling and rattling over the cobbles; excited aides-de-
camp were furiously spurring hither and thither, the air was clamourous
with the strains of martial music and the incessant shouting of military
words of command; the Alameda was an armed camp; and the cafes and
restaurants were crowded with arrogant, boasting, posturing military and
naval officers, with a small sprinkling of civilians who were made to
clearly understand that they were there only on sufferance. Jack could
not help noticing the scowls with which the soldiery regarded him, and
many an insulting epithet and remark reached his ears; but he was not
such a fool as to permit himself to be provoked into a quarrel, single-
handed, with thousands, and he therefore went calmly and steadily on his
way, taking no more notice of the offensive words than if they had not
been spoken, and following the narrow side streets as much as possible.
In course of time he arrived at the office of the British Consul, and
turned in to pay a call upon that gentleman. He found the official in
question up to his eyes in business, but nevertheless received a very
cordial greeting, if not a particularly hearty welcome.
"Hillo, Singleton, what are you doing back here, and at this moment,
above all others?" exclaimed the Consul, rising and holding out his
hand. "I was in hopes that you were safely back in the old country long
ago."
"Indeed?" said Jack, taking the other's proffered hand. "Why safely
back? Is Cuba, then, an especially dangerous place for an Englishman
just now?"
"Well, I will not go so far as to give an unqualified answer in the
affirmative to that question," replied the Consul; "but this I will say,
that I would certainly not recommend any Englishman to remain on the
island at this juncture, unless he is fully prepared to prove to the
authorities that he has good and sufficient reasons for so doing. The
fact is that Cuba is the crater of a political volcano at the present
moment, and nobody quite knows what is going to happen. For some years
now, in fact ever since '68, the Cubans have been in a state of more or
less unrest, and in more or less open revolt against the Spanish rule;
and the indications have for some time past been that the events of '68
to '78 are about to be repeated, possibly in a more aggravated form. It
is well-known that large consignments of arms, ammunition, and military
stores have recently been smuggled into the country, yet, strangely
enough, so great has been the vacillation of the Government mind that,
although they have done their utmost to put a stop to the smuggling,
they have finished there; no effort has been made to discover what has
become of the smuggled cargoes, and, beyond vaguely and generally
suspecting all who have not openly declared themselves in favour of the
continuance of Spanish rule, no serious endeavour has been made to
discover the identity of the conspirators. The fact is, that the
Spanish Government is acting precisely like the fabled ostrich; it is
burying its head in the sand and refusing to see the coming trouble.
Even now, although two armed risings have very recently taken place, one
in the province of Santiago and the other in that of Mantanzas--the
latter, by the way, having been promptly suppressed--the official mind
persists in asserting that the movement is nothing more than an attempt
on the part of a few bandits to commit robbery and outrage of every
description under the mask of patriotism! Yet you may have observed, as
you passed through the streets to-day, that, despite all their
assertions, they are behaving very much as though they were in a state
of mortal terror. And another symptom of scare is the marked suspicion
and distrust, not to say aversion, with which they regard strangers,
especially Americans and Englishmen, in the island. The Americans, as
you may possibly be aware, have not taken very much trouble to conceal
the fact that their sympathies are distinctly on the side of the Cubans,
and Spanish intelligence seems unable to differentiate between an
American and an Englishman. That is why I say that I would not
recommend an Englishman to remain in Cuba just now unless he possesses
the means of satisfying the Spaniards that he is not inimical to them."
"Well," said Jack, "if there is an Englishman in the whole island who
can do that, I think I ought to be that man; for did I not place my
yacht at their service for the purpose of smashing up one of those gun-
running expeditions that you were speaking of just now, at the moment
when every one of their warships in the harbour had been disabled?"
"Ah, yes!" said the Consul, "I remember hearing something of that
affair, although the authorities did their best to hush it up. You
failed, I believe, in consequence of your engines breaking down?"
"Yes," said Jack, "just off Mulata Bay, the precise spot where the
American steamer was landing her cargo. As a matter of fact, we
actually saw her at it."
"A most extraordinary affair!" remarked the Consul. "When the vessels
were subsequently docked, it was discovered that their propellers had
been rendered immovable by being locked with stout chains, from which it
was surmised that the outrage must have been perpetrated by means of
some kind of diving vessel; but where such a craft could have come from
heaven only knows, for nothing of the kind has been discovered or got
wind of in any of the harbours of Cuba--although I suppose it would not
be a very difficult matter for people acquainted with the working of
such a vessel to conceal her very effectually at the bottom of some out-
of-the-way bay. I remember reading, some years ago, the story of a
gigantic craft that was either airship or submarine, at the will of her
crew, and which was capable of doing some very wonderful things; but I
regarded the yarn as nothing more than the flight of a romancer's vivid
imagination. Yet it must have been some such vessel that disabled the
Spanish warships; which goes to prove again the soundness of the old
adage that `truth is stranger than fiction'. But your yacht's
disablement was an entirely different matter, as I understood, for you
actually steamed several miles before you broke down. Did you ever
discover to whom you were indebted for your mishap?"