Fitz the Filibuster Part 54

"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, pa.s.s 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 ash.o.r.e, 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, pa.s.sed 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 sh.o.r.e. 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?"