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Fitz the Filibuster, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 37. Political Questions |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. POLITICAL QUESTIONS Happily for them, the boys saw little more of the horrors of the petty war. Aboard the schooner what met their eyes were the triumphs of peace. The next day flags were flying, bells ringing, guns firing, and the whole of the inhabitants of the town were marching in procession and shouting _Vivas_. Crowds gathered upon the shore nearest to where the schooner was moored, to shout themselves hoarse; and not content with this, they crowded into boats to row out round the little English vessel and shout themselves hoarser there, many of the boats containing women, who threw flowers which floated round. "I am getting rather tired of this," said Fitz, at last. "I suppose it's very nice to them, and they feel very grateful to your father for bringing the guns and ammunition to beat off this other President fellow; but keeping on with all this seems so babyish and silly. Why can't they say, 'Thank Heaven!' and have done with it?" "Because they are what they are," said Poole, half contemptuously. "Why, they must have been spoiling their gardens to bring all these flowers. They are no use to us. I should call that boat alongside-- that big one with the flag up and all those well-dressed women on board." "No, don't!" cried Fitz excitedly. "Why, they'd come and shout more than ever, and begin singing again. What's the good of doing that?" "I'll tell you," said Poole; "and I should tell them that it would be a deal more sensible to go back and fetch us a boat-load of fruit and vegetables, and fowls and eggs." "Ah, to be sure," cried Fitz. "It would please old Andy too; but--but look there; they are more sensible than you think for." "Well done!" cried Poole, "Why, they couldn't have heard what I said." "No," said Fitz, "and if they had there wouldn't have been time. You must have telegraphed your thoughts. Why, there are two boat-loads." "Three," said Poole. And he was right, and a few minutes later that number of good-sized market-boats were close alongside, their owners apparently bent upon doing a good stroke of trade in the edibles most welcome to a ship's crew after a long voyage. "Well, boys," said the skipper, joining them, "who's going to do the marketing? You, Poole, or I?" "Oh, you had better do it, father. I should be too extravagant." "No," said the skipper quietly. "The owners of the _Teal_ and I don't wish to be stingy. The lads have done their work well, and I should like them to have a bit of a feast and a holiday now. Here, boatswain, pass the word for the cook and get half-a-dozen men to help. We must store up all that will keep. Here, Burgess, we may as well fill a chicken-coop or two." "Humph!" grunted the mate surlily. "Want to turn my deck into a shop?" "No," said the skipper good-humouredly, "but I want to have the cabin-table with something better on it to eat than we have had lately. I am afraid we shall be having Mr Burnett here so disgusted with the prog that he will be wanting to go ashore, and won't come back." "All right," growled the mate, and he walked away with the skipper, to follow out the orders he had received. "I say," said Fitz, "I wonder your father puts up with so much of the mate's insolence. Any one would think that Burgess was the skipper; he puts on such airs." "Oh, the dad knows him by heart. It is only his way. He always seems surly like that, but he'd do anything for father; and see what a seaman he is. Here, I say, let's have some of those bananas. They do look prime." "Yes," said Fitz; "I like bananas. I should like that big golden bunch." "Why, there must be a quarter of a hundredweight," said Poole. "Do you think they'll take my English money?" "Trust them!" said Poole. "I never met anybody yet who wouldn't." They made a sign to a swarthy-looking fellow in the stern of the nearest boat, and Fitz pointed to the great golden bunch. "How much?" he said. The man grinned, seized the bunch with his boat-hook, passed it over the bulwark, and let it fall upon the deck, hooked up another quickly, treated that the same, and was repeating the process, when Poole shouted at him to stop. "Hold hard!" he cried. "I am not going to pay for all these." But the man paid no heed, but went on tossing in fruit, calling to the lads in Spanish to catch, and _feeding_ them, as we say, in a game, with great golden balls in the shape of delicious-looking melons. "Here, is the fellow mad?" cried Fitz, who, a regular boy once more, enjoyed the fun of catching the beautiful gourds. "We shall have to throw all these back." "Try one now," said Poole. "Right," cried Fitz. "Catch, stupid!" And he sent one of the biggest melons back. The man caught it deftly, and returned it, shouting-- "No, no, no! Don Ramon--Don Ramon!" Something similar was going on upon the other side of the schooner, where, grinning with delight, the Camel was seizing the poultry handed in, and setting them at liberty upon the deck, while now an explanation followed. The three boat-loads of provisions were gifts from Don Ramon and his people to those who had helped them in their time of need, while the Don's messengers seemed wild with delight, eagerly pointing out the good qualities of all they had brought, and chattering away as hard as ever they could, or laughing with delight when some active chicken escaped from the hands that held it or took flight when pitched aboard and made its way back to the shore. It was not only the men in the provision-barges that kept up an excited chorus, for they were joined by those in the boats that crowded round, the delivery being accompanied by cheers and the waving of hats and veils, the women's voices rising shrilly in what seemed to be quite a paean of welcome and praise. "What time would you like dinner, laddies?" came from behind just then, in a familiar voice, and the boys turned sharply round to face the Camel, who seemed to be showing nearly all his teeth after the fashion of one of his namesakes in a good temper. "Ma word, isn't it grand! Joost look! Roast and boiled cheecan and curry; and look at the garden-stuff. I suppose it's all good to eat, but they're throwing in things I never washed nor boiled before. It's grand, laddies--it's grand! Why, ma word! Hark at 'em! Here's another big boat coming, and the skipper will have to give a great dinner, or we shall never get it all eaten." "No," cried Poole, "it's a big boat with armed men, and--I say, Fitz, this doesn't mean treachery? No, all right; that's Don Ramon coming on board." The tremendous burst of cheering from every boat endorsed the lad's words, every one standing up shouting and cheering as the President's craft came nearer, threading its way through the crowd of boats, whose occupants seemed to consider that there was not the slightest risk of a capsize into a bay that swarmed with sharks. But thanks to the management of Don Ramon's crew, his barge reached the side of the schooner without causing mishap, and he sprang aboard, a gay-looking object in gold-laced uniform, not to grasp the skipper's extended hand, but to fall upon his neck in silence and with tears in his eyes, while directly afterwards the two lads had to submit to a similar embrace. "Oh, I say," whispered Fitz, as soon as the President had gone below with the skipper; "isn't it horrid!" "Yes," said Poole; "I often grumble at what I am, only a sort of apprentice aboard a schooner, though I am better off through the dad being one of the owners than most chaps would be; but one is English, after all." "Yes," said Fitz, with a sigh of content; "there is no getting over that." Further conversation was ended by the approach of Burgess, the mate, who at a word from the captain had followed him and the President below, and who now came up to them with a peculiar grim smile about his lips, and the upper part of his face in the clouds, as Poole afterwards expressed it, probably meaning that the mate's brow was wrinkled up into one of his fiercest frowns. "Here," he growled, "you two young fellows have got to go below." "Who said so?" cried Fitz. "The skipper?" "No, the President." "But what for?" cried the middy. "Oh, I dunno," replied the mate grimly, and with the smile expanding as he recalled something of which he had been a witness. "I thinks he wants to kiss you both again." "Then I'll be hanged if I go," cried Fitz; "and that's flat!" "Haw haw!" came from the mate's lips, evidently meant for a laugh, which made the middy turn upon him fiercely; but there was no vestige of even a smile now as he said gruffly, "Yes, you must both come at once. The Don's waiting to speak, and he said that he wouldn't begin till you were there to hear it too." "Come on, Burnett," said Poole seriously, and then with his eyes twinkling he added, "You can have a good wash afterwards if he does." "Oh," cried Fitz, with his face scarlet, "I do hate these people's ways;" and then, in spite of his previous remark about suspension, he followed the skipper's son down into the cabin, with Burgess close behind, to find the President facing the door ready to rise with a dignified smile and point to the locker for the boys to take their seats. This done, he resumed his own, and proceeded to relate to the skipper as much as he could recall of what had been taking place, the main thing being that Villarayo's large force had completely scattered on its way back through the mountains _en route_ to San Cristobal, while Velova and the country round was entirely declaring for the victor, whose position was but for one thing quite safe. "Then," said the skipper, as the President ceased, "you feel that if you marched for San Cristobal you would gain an easy victory there?" "I know my people so well, sir," replied the President proudly, "that I can say there will be no victory and no fight. Villarayo would not get fifty men to stand by him, and he would either make for the mountains or come to meet me, and throw himself upon my mercy. And all this is through you. How great--how great the English people are!" Poole jumped and clapped his right hand upon his left arm, while Fitz turned scarlet as he looked an apology, for as the middy heard the President's last words and saw him rise, a thrill of horror had run through him, and he had thrown out one hand, to give his companion a most painful pinch. But the President resumed his seat, and feeling that there was for the moment nothing to mind, the boy grew calm. "Ah," said the skipper gravely. "Then but for one thing, Don Ramon, you feel now that you can hold your own." "Yes," was the reply bitterly. "But I shall not feel secure while that gunboat commands these seas. It seems absurd, ridiculous, that that small armour-plated vessel with its one great gun should have such power; but yet after all it is not absurd. It is to this little State what your grand navy is to your empire and the world. While that gunboat commands our bays I cannot feel safe." "But you don't know yet," said the skipper quietly. "How will it be when her captain hears of Villarayo's defeat? He may declare for you." "No," said the President. "That is what all my friends say. He is Villarayo's cousin, and has always been my greatest enemy. He knows too that my first act would be to deprive him of his command." "Then why do so?" said the skipper. "He need be your enemy no longer. Make him your friend." "Impossible! I know him of old as a man I could not trust. The moment he hears of the defeat he will be sending messages to Villarayo bidding him fortify San Cristobal and gather his people there, while at any hour we may expect to see him steaming into this bay. That is the main reason of my coming to tell you now to be on your guard, and that I have been having the guns you brought mounted in a new earthwork on the point yonder, close to the sea." "Well done!" cried the captain enthusiastically. "That was brave and thoughtful of you, Don Ramon," and he held out his hand. "Why, you are quite an engineer. Then you did not mean to forsake your friend?" "Forsake him!" said the Don reproachfully, and he frowned. But it was for a moment only. "Ah," he continued, "if you had only brought me over such a gunboat as that which holds me down, commanded by such a man as you, how changed my position would be!" "Yes," said the skipper quietly. "But I did not; and I had hard work to bring you what I did, eh, Mr Burnett? The British Government did not much approve of what it called my filibustering expedition, Don." "The British Government does not know Villarayo, sir, and it does not know me." "That's the evil of it, sir," replied the captain. "Unfortunately the British Government recognises Villarayo as the President of the State, and you only as the head of a revolution; but once you are the accepted head of the people, the leader of what is good and right, Master Villarayo's star will set; and that is bound to come." "Yes," said Don Ramon proudly; "that is bound to come in the future, if I live. For all that is good and right in this little State is on my side. But there is the gunboat, captain." "Yes," was the reply; "there is the gunboat, and as to my schooner, if I ventured everything on your side at sea, with her steaming power she would have me completely at her mercy, and with one shot send me to the bottom like a stone." "Yes, I know," said the Don, "as far as strength goes you would be like an infant fighting against a giant. But you English are clever. It was due to the bright thought of this young officer here that I was able to turn the tables upon Villarayo." The blood flushed to Fitz's forehead again--for he was, as Poole afterwards told him, a beggar to blush--and he gave a sudden start which made Poole move a little farther off to avoid a pinch. "What say you, Don Burnett?" If possible Fitz's face grew a deeper scarlet. "Have you another such lightning stroke of genius to propose?" "No, sir," said the boy sharply; "and if I had I must recollect that I am a neutral, a prisoner here, and it is my duty to hold my tongue." "Ah, yes," said the Don, frowning a little; "I had forgotten. You are in the Government's service, and my good friend Captain Reed has told me how you happen to be here. But if the British Government knew exactly how things were, they would honour you for the way in which you have helped me on towards success." "Yes, sir, no doubt," said the lad frankly; "but the British Government doesn't know what you say, and it doesn't know me; but Captain Glossop does. He's my government, sir, and it will be bad enough when I meet him, as it is. What will he say when he knows I've been fighting for the people in the schooner I came to take?" "Hah!" said the President thoughtfully, and he was silent for a few moments. Then rising he turned to the skipper. "I must go back, Captain Reed," he said, "for there is much to do. But I have warned you of the peril in which you stand. You will help me, I know, if you can; but you must not have your brave little schooner sunk, and I know you will do what is best. Fate may favour us still more, and I shall go on in that hope." Then without another word he strode out of the cabin, and went down into his barge amidst a storm of cheers and wavings of scarves and flags, while those on deck watched him threading his way towards the little fort. "He's the best Spaniard I ever met, Burgess," said the skipper. "Yes," said the mate. "He isn't a bad sort for his kind. If it was not for the poor beggars on board, who naturally enough all want to live, I should like to go some night and put a keg of powder aboard that gunboat, and send her to the bottom." "Ah, but then you'd be doing wrong," said the skipper. "Well, I said so, didn't I? I shouldn't like to have it on my conscience that I'd killed a couple of score fellow-creatures like that." "Of course not; but that isn't what I mean. That gunboat's too valuable to sink, and, as you heard the Don say, the man who holds command of that vessel has the two cities at his mercy." "Yes, I heard," said Burgess; "and t'other side's got it." "That's right," said the skipper; "and if we could make the change--" "Yes," said Burgess; "but it seems to me we can't." "It seems to me we can't. It seems to me we can't," said Poole, repeating the mate's words, as the two lads stood alone watching the cheering people in the boats. "Well," cried Fitz pettishly, "what's the good of keeping on saying that?" "None at all. But don't you wish we could?" "No, I don't, and I'd thank you not to talk to me like that. It's like playing at trying to tempt a fellow situated as I am. Bother the gunboat and both the Dons! I wish I were back in the old _Tonans_ again." "I don't believe you," said Poole, laughing. "You're having ten times as much fun and excitement out here. I say," he added, with a sniff, "I can smell something good." And strangely enough the next minute the Camel came smiling up to them. "I say, laddies," he said, "joost come for'ard as far as the galley. I don't ask ye to come in, for, ma wud, she is hot! But just come and take a sniff as ye gang by. There's a dinner cooking as would have satisfied the Don. I thot he meant to stay, but, puir chiel, I suppose he dinna ken what's good." _ |
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