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Fitz the Filibuster, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 24. On The Wrong Side |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. ON THE WRONG SIDE An anxious look-out had been kept up all through those early hours on board both schooner and boat, for during the long delay caused by the accident, it seemed highly probable that as the gunboat did not come in sight she must have passed them in the darkness, gone on, and hence might at any moment come into view. A man was sent up to the cross-trees, and a sharp look-out was kept up as well from the deck for the missing crew who were got safely on board, and the schooner sailed away towards the south and west, and still with no danger in sight. "You've given me a bad night, young fellows," said the skipper, as he stood looking on at the lads enjoying their morning meal, one over which the Camel seemed to have taken extra pains, showing his large front teeth with a smile of satisfaction as he brought it in relays of newly-made hot cakes, before retiring to slip fresh slices of bacon in the pan. "Yes, father," said Poole; "but see what a night we had!" "Ah, but yours was merely physical, my boy; mine was mental." "I thought ours was both; eh, Burnett?" said Poole, laughing. "Oh, yes, it was," cried the middy. "You don't know what a night we had, Captain Reed." "Well, I suppose you did not have a very pleasant time, my lads.--Oh, here's Mr Burgess. Well, they don't seem much the worse for it, do they? Nothing in sight?" "No, nothing. I don't think she could have followed us out. Have you any more to say to me about the course?" "No," said the skipper. "I think we pretty well understand about the bearings as given in the letter. The Don put it all down pretty clearly, and in very decent English too." Fitz looked up sharply, for the mention of the letter brought to mind the light fishing-boat with the bird-wing-like lateen sail and the rapidity with which the bearer of the despatch delivered it to the skipper and went overboard again. Captain Reed noticed the boy's inquiring look, and said quietly-- "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." _ |
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