The Cruise of the Thetis Part 15

From Don Ramon's house Jack made his way to the British Consulate, where he bade farewell to the Consul, explaining to that gentleman that he was tired of sh.o.r.e life, and intended to go to sea for a change; and that, further, he did not in the least know whether he should return, or whether he should decide to go home.

"If you will take my advice, young gentleman," said the Consul, "you will go home--and stay there; or, at least, you will stay away from Cuba until all these troubles are over."

Jack promised that he would give that advice his most careful consideration; after which he bade his fellow-countryman adieu, and made his way aboard the yacht, where Milsom was found busily arranging to take the _Thetis_ alongside a coal hulk as soon as the water lighter had cast off. The remainder of that day was a busy time for both men, for Milsom still had his clearance to effect, and all the stores to receive; while Jack spent the afternoon at the railway station awaiting the arrival of the baggage, the due dispatch of which Calderon had notified to him by telegraph. It arrived late in the afternoon, and was taken straight aboard the yacht, where it was placed at haphazard in the cabins lately occupied by the various members of the Montijo family.

Then, when at length the bustle of preparation was ended, and the yacht was in condition to leave at a moment's notice, Jack and Milsom adjourned to the chart-house to discuss those matters which were to ensue upon the departure of the _Thetis_ from Havana harbour.

"Now," said Singleton, as he took from a drawer in the chart case a large-scale chart of Cuba, and laid it on top of the case, "how long do you suppose it will take you to effect the transmogrification of this ship by means of that disguise of yours?"

"Well," answered Milsom, "seeing that I have never yet rigged the arrangement, I am not prepared to say, to half an hour or so, just how long it will take. I reckon that, under favourable conditions, it ought to be done in about four hours; but, to make all certain, suppose we call it twelve hours. That ought to suffice and at the same time leave a sufficient margin for any small alterations that may be necessary.

You seem just a little bit inclined to sneer at my 'wonderful' disguise, Master Jack; but you had better wait until you have seen it before you do that. I venture to remind you that I am a Navy man, and, as such, I know a thing or two about disguising ships: I've had a little experience in that direction during the carrying out of manoeuvres; and I am prepared to make a bet that if you--not knowing anything about the arrangement, mind you--were to pa.s.s this vessel, in her disguised condition, within half a mile, you would never recognise her."

"All right, Phil, old chap, don't get your back up! I'll take your word for it that the thing is all right," said Jack. "And if I seemed to speak disparagingly of your contrivance, forgive me, old man, will you?

I've had a good deal to worry me lately, and I'm afraid that both my nerves and my temper are a bit on edge; but I daresay I shall feel better when we get to sea again and can start to circ.u.mvent the Spanish Government, or at least that part of it which is responsible for the misrule and shameful injustice which are rampant in Cuba. Now, I think I understood you to say that you require quiet water to enable you to rig this disguising arrangement, so I propose to go to sea to-morrow-- which will be Thursday--and run down the coast to the eastward in search of a secluded spot in which we can effect our transformation without being interfered with or overlooked by anybody. Now, let us have a look at the chart."

"There ought not to be very much difficulty in finding a suitable spot,"

remarked Milsom, as the pair bent over the sheet. "Ah," he continued, laying his finger upon the paper, "here we are! This should be a perfectly ideal place; just sufficient water, a lee to shelter under, and very little likelihood of being disturbed at our work. We can go in here through the Boca de Sagua la Grande, haul up to the south-east, and come to anchor in this little bight in two and a quarter fathoms of water. And when our preparations are complete we can go out to sea again by way of the Boca de Maravillas, thus avoiding the observation of the people who tend the light on Hicacal Cay, who will be sure to notice us as we go in. By the way, I picked up a rather useful little item of information while I was ash.o.r.e this afternoon. I fell in with the harbour-master, who seems quite a decent sort of chap, as Spaniards go; he and I have gradually grown to be rather chummy since we have been in harbour here, and upon the strength of the fact that I was clearing for sea I took him into that place on the quay yonder and cracked a farewell bottle of wine with him. As we emptied the bottle we yarned together upon various topics; and by and by he made some casual mention of the _Maranon_, to which I replied by saying that she had the appearance of being rather a fast vessel, and that I thought it a pity that her skipper did not take a little more pride in her appearance and smarten her up a bit by giving her a lick of paint occasionally. He shrugged his shoulders and asked: What would I? The ship was a convict ship, and her appearance was a matter of no consequence. As to her speed, she could steam twelve knots, but her most economical speed was eight, and he opined that eight knots would therefore be her pace on the trip to Fernando Po, for which reason he rather pitied the unfortunate convicts who were doomed to travel in her, for she had the reputation of being a most uneasy ship in a seaway. I also ascertained from him that she is timed to sail at two o'clock on Sunday afternoon, which should bring her off our hiding-place about--let me see--yes, about seven o'clock on Monday morning. Now, if her skipper should chance to keep the coast pretty close aboard, as he possibly may, we ought to catch a glimpse of her from our masthead as she goes past: but if, on the other hand, he should push her off into mid-channel, to get the full benefit of the current, I think our best plan will be to allow her, say, four hours for delay in starting, and then follow until we sight her, when our further actions can be governed by circ.u.mstances. So I have instructed Perkins to pa.s.s the word round among the deck hands for everybody to take a good look at her, so that they may know her again when they see her."

"Good!" exclaimed Jack. "That is excellent; the news is well worth a bottle of wine. You don't think, I suppose, that your friend had any suspicion of our intention, and deliberately told you all that for the purpose of misleading you?"

"Not he," answered Milsom confidently; "he is too simple a chap to conceive any such suspicion as that. Besides, why should he? We have done nothing to lead even the most suspicious Spaniard to connect our departure with that of _El Maranon_. Oh, no! what he told me slipped out in the most casual way in the ordinary course of conversation, and you may be sure that I was particularly careful not to question him, or to say anything which might lead him to suppose that I took the least interest in the movements of the ship."

"Well," said Jack, "we must hope for the best; but I am horribly anxious, Phil, lest anything should go wrong with this scheme of ours.

So much depends upon its success, you know. By the way, what about a pilot for this place where we are going to transform the ship? How shall we manage about him?"

"We shall not need to 'manage' at all," answered Milsom, "for the simple reason that we shall not take a pilot. If we get under way at about eight o'clock to-morrow morning we shall reach our destination with several hours of daylight in hand; and with the help of this chart, a hand aloft on the foremast, and two leadsmen in the forechains, I will guarantee to take this little hooker in and out of that berth without so much as scratching her paint. Oh, no, we shall not take a pilot, who might possibly go back to Havana and set people wondering what the mischief was our object in slipping in behind Esquivel del Norte cay!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE RESCUE.

With all due observance of the courtesies of the sea the graceful, white-hulled _Thetis_ dipped a farewell salute to the Spanish warships in Havana harbour as she next morning swept past them, outward bound, shortly after nine o'clock in the morning of a glorious April day. Jack was on the navigating bridge with Milsom, and as the beautiful little ship, looking as spick and span as though just fresh from the stocks, and with all her bra.s.swork gleaming and flashing like burnished gold in the brilliant morning sunlight, brought the lighthouse abeam and gaily plunged her keen, shapely bows into the heart of the first blue, wind- whipped, foam-crested surge that met her, and in joyous greeting playfully flung a shower of diamond-tinted spray over her starboard cathead, the young man sighed a sigh of relief, and flung from his shoulders the heavy load of care and anxiety that had of late been wearing him down a great deal more than he knew or even suspected: for now, at last, the expedition that meant so much to him had actually begun, and very soon he would know the best and the worst that was to be known; and perhaps, after all, the worst might prove to be not nearly so bad as he had been led to believe. Alvaros, he was convinced, was not only a blatant braggart, but also an unmitigated liar, and it might be that the foul deed of which he had boasted had never happened, and that the boast was merely another lie.

Milsom, regarding his companion with a sympathetic eye, noted how Jack straightened up and flung back his shoulders like a fighter preparing for the fray, and how his eye brightened and his cheek flushed as the strong, salt breeze met his nostrils and swept into his lungs, exhilarating as a draught of wine--and chuckled, for he knew now that the worst was over, and that the collapse which he had been half- dreading would not now come. As for himself, he was as happy as a man can be who is unable to forget that a calamity has befallen certain of his friends. But he was a keen, light-hearted sailor, intensely fond of his profession, and he was now fairly started upon an expedition that very strongly appealed to his professional instincts; he felt like a hunter, and the exhilarating excitement of stalking and running down his prey tended to very largely obliterate the memory of everything else.

And he was throwing himself heart and soul into this mad undertaking of Jack's for the deliverance of their friends; he saw the difficulty and recognised the extreme danger of the adventure, and with keen zest he laid himself out to conquer the one and evade the other. Even now, when the yacht had but barely cleared the harbour mouth, he adopted his first ruse for the mystification of the foe, for he understood that it was quite possible that some curious eye might follow the course of the vessel and possibly suspect something if it were seen that she was going the same road that the convict steamer would be following a few days later; he therefore instructed the helmsman to make a very wide and gradual sweep to the eastward, hauling up almost imperceptibly at the rate of a point every quarter of an hour, and thus rendering it absolutely impossible for an observer to guess whether the _Thetis_ was going out through the Florida Strait or down the Nicholas and Old Bahama channels. Also, for the first hour he allowed her to travel at the sober pace of fourteen knots; after which he spoke down the voice tube to Macintyre in the engine-room, and the next instant the little craft was shearing through the long, foam-flecked surges like a chasing dolphin, as the Scotchman gave her all the steam that her engines could take.

It was about seven bells in the afternoon watch when, the yacht running in toward the land on a south-easterly course, the head of the mast from which the light on Hicacal Cay is shown appeared dead ahead, and Milsom at once gave orders for the engines to be slowed down to fourteen knots.

Then, turning to Jack, he said: "Now, young man, I shall want your a.s.sistance, for I am going to personally undertake the job of piloting the little hooker into her hiding-place. The chart still lies spread out on the chart-house table, where we left it last night, and with that before you you ought to be able to con the ship into the Boca without the slightest difficulty. Once she is there, I will take charge again, and give you my directions from the fore-masthead, whither I am about to go; and I shall want you to stand by the engine-room telegraph and transmit my orders to the engine-room smartly. You had better keep that mast yonder fair and square over the bowsprit end until the Boca opens out clearly; then you can ease your helm over to port and head her straight in. Now, I'm off."

And, therewith, Milsom left the bridge and ran down on to the fore deck, from which he was presently hoisted to the fore-masthead in a boatswain's chair bent on to a whip rove through the sheave-hole at the masthead. By the time that he was up there the low, mangrove-clothed cays were visible from the bridge; then Jack gave orders for the helm to be ported, and a quarter of an hour later the yacht shot into smooth water between Bushy and Hicacal Cays, and Milsom took in hand the conning of the craft, following the trend of the channel by eye from his lofty lookout, with a couple of leadsmen in the forechains to further help him. But there was no difficulty, for, once inside the cays, the water was both smooth and clear, and Milsom was able to follow unerringly the line of deepest water. As he had antic.i.p.ated, the unwonted spectacle of so trim and handsome a little vessel as the _Thetis_ attracted the interested attention not only of the lightkeepers but also of the fishermen inhabiting the little cl.u.s.ter of huts near the cottage of the former; but that could not be helped, and, after all, they probably concluded that the yacht was bound to Sagua la Grande, and would think no more about her. And a quarter of an hour later she had slipped round a projecting point, out of sight, and was safely riding at anchor in her hiding-place.

As Milsom had foreseen, they reached their destination with some hours of daylight in hand, and the moment that the anchor was down all hands went to work and routed out from the secret recesses of the ship a heterogeneous a.s.sortment of light iron rods, bars, angles, and sheets; wood framing and planking; and great rolls of canvas, painted a light, smoky-grey tint, which Milsom a.s.serted would render a vessel practically invisible at a distance of three miles, and the precise composition of which had cost him weeks of anxious thought and study. Then the crew were divided into three gangs; and while one party busied itself, under Macintyre, in sorting out, bolting together, and fixing in position those portions which were to effect a transformation in the appearance of the yacht's bows, another party, under Milsom, was similarly employed in altering the appearance of the vessel's handsome stern, and the third party, under Perkins, was clothing the brightly varnished masts in tight-fitting canvas coats, painted in the all-pervading grey which was to be the colour of the vessel when the work of disguising her should be complete; fixing a bogus fighting top on the ship's foremast; enclosing the chart-house in a casing which should give it the semblance of a conning tower; getting a couple of light signalling yards aloft; and painting the several boats grey. When the men knocked off work at sunset, a great deal had been done; but it was not until six bells in the forenoon watch next day that the work of transformation was finally completed to Milsom's satisfaction, and then the _Thetis_--temporarily re-christened the _Libertad_--so strongly resembled a modern two- funnelled torpedo gunboat that she might easily have deceived even a professional eye at a distance of half a mile; and when, further, a long pennant flaunted itself from the main truck, and the flag of Cuba Libre waved from the ensign staff, the gallant skipper, critically surveying his transmogrified ship from the dinghy, confidently announced that he would defy anybody to trace the most remote resemblance between the vessel upon which his eyes rested and the trim English yacht which had steamed out of Havana harbour on the previous day.

On the following Monday morning at daylight the furnace fires were lighted on board the disguised yacht, and at the same time a man with sharp eyes was sent aloft to the fore-masthead to watch the offing over the tops of the low mangrove trees, and give notice of the pa.s.sage of the _Maranon_, should she happen to heave in sight; but hour after hour pa.s.sed with no sign of her, unless one of the eastward-going trails of smoke that showed on the horizon during the forenoon happened to emanate from her. They waited patiently until noon, and then, nothing having been seen of the convict ship, Jack and Milsom agreed that it was quite useless to wait any longer; and half an hour later the fishermen outside the Boca de Maravillas were astonished to see a craft, which some of them described as a cruiser, while the others spoke of her as a gunboat, sweep through the pa.s.sage and head away north-east, as though to clear the eastern extremity of Cay Sal Bank on her way northward through the Santaren Channel. The vessel showed no colours, but was flying a pennant, and the general opinion was that she was an American man-o'- war; though what she had been doing in Sagua la Grande harbour, or how she had got there, n.o.body seemed able to guess.

But although, to the unsophisticated fishermen of Sagua la Grande, the mysterious warship appeared to be bound north, she was really bound south-east through the Nicholas and Old Bahama channels: and when the yacht had made an offing of some fifteen miles--by which time she was of course out of sight of the fishermen's boats, Milsom ordered the helm to be ported and the engines sent full speed ahead, she having by that time run on to a line which the ex-Navy man had pencilled on his chart as the probable course of the convict steamer; and if that craft had left Havana at the hour arranged, and were steaming at the rate which the harbour-master had antic.i.p.ated would be her pace, she must now be nearly sixty miles ahead. That was a fairly long lead, certainly; but there is a big difference between a speed of eight knots and that of twenty-four, and Milsom calculated that, if the _Maranon_ were really ahead of them, they ought to overtake her in something like three hours. As a matter of fact, they sighted the craft dead ahead about five bells in the afternoon watch, identified her to their entire satisfaction about half an hour later, and pa.s.sed her, some sixteen miles to the southward, about one bell in the first "dog."

"Now," said Milsom, when he came down from aloft after personally satisfying himself as to the ident.i.ty of the great, dirty-white, rust- streaked hull crawling along in the northern board, "let me make a little calculation. Our plan is to appear ahead of her, steaming to the northward and westward--to meet her, in fact, instead of overtaking her; and the proper time to do this will be about a quarter of an hour before sunset. I take it that she is steaming at about the pace which my friend the harbour-master allowed her--that is to say, about eight knots. At that rate she will be about eight miles farther to the eastward at a quarter of an hour before sunset. That means that--um-- um--yes, that will be about right. Now, Jack, my hearty, cheer up! for unless something goes very radically wrong with our scheme, our friends ought to be safe and snug aboard this dandy little hooker in a couple of hours' time. Now, it is you, my friend, who are going to play the giddy pirate and wrest our friends, at the sword's point, out of the hands of the oppressor, so cut away down below, my lad, and get into your disguise; and while you are doing that the deck hands can be doing the same, so as to render it impossible for them to be identified at any future time, should they be met in the streets of Havana, or elsewhere, by anybody belonging to the _Maranon_."

Half an hour later Jack re-appeared on deck, his already well-bronzed face and hands stained to the darkness of a mulatto's skin, and his corpus arrayed in an old, weather-stained, and very-much-the-worse-for- wear Spanish naval lieutenant's uniform, which Don Ramon had caused one of his servants to procure for him at a second-hand wardrobe dealer's in Havana; his disguise being completed by the addition of a black wig and a ferocious moustache and whiskers, obtained through the same channel at a theatrical wig-maker's shop. To say that his own mother would not have known him in this get-up is to put the matter altogether inadequately; and his appearance on deck was the signal for a roar of mingled admiration and mirth from all hands. Meanwhile, the crew had pinned their faith to burnt cork and their working slops as a disguise, except the five who were to form Jack's boat's crew; these having discarded their working slops and donned dungaree overalls, ancient cloth trousers, rusty with salt-water stains, and stiff with tar and grease, big thigh-boots, and worsted caps. A cutla.s.s belted to the waist, and a knife and brace of revolvers in the belt gave the finishing touch of realism to the get-up, and obviated any possibility of doubt as to the seriousness of their mission.

By this time the moment had arrived when, according to Milsom's calculations, the yacht ought to be turned round to meet the _Maranon_, now out of sight astern; the helm was accordingly put hard over, and the nimble little craft swept round until she was heading direct for the spot where it had been calculated that the two ships should meet. No combination of circ.u.mstances could possibly have been more favourable for the adventure than were those at that moment prevailing. There was no craft of any description in sight as far as the eye could see; the trade wind was blowing quite a moderate breeze; and the sea was not sufficiently formidable to render the task of transferring the rescued people from one ship to the other by means of an open boat at all difficult or dangerous. Moreover, the sun, fast dropping toward the horizon, was quickly losing his intensity of light, and as rapidly plunging all objects into a delicious soft golden haze, in which all detail was lost; it was therefore in the highest degree unlikely that even the keenest eye on board the convict steamer would be able to detect the imposition that was being practised upon them.

Presently, a smudge of brown smoke soaring above the horizon broad on the port bow showed that the unsuspecting quarry was approaching; and a minute or two later her masts, fine as spiders' webs, began to rise against the warm, golden glow of the western sky, then her funnel appeared, and finally her bridge and chart-house--appearing as completely detached and isolated objects in the rarefied atmosphere-- suddenly showed themselves on the horizon, alternately appearing and disappearing with the rise and fall of the ship over the swell. Then Milsom rang down to the engine-room for half speed; and a little later, when the _Maranon_ was hull-up and the two vessels were closing fast, he ordered the forward port twelve-pound quick-firer to be loaded with a blank charge. Then, when the two craft were about a mile apart, he ordered the Cuban flag to be run up to the main gaff-end, and the gun to be fired as a polite invitation to the other craft to heave-to, at the same time stopping his own engines.

Apparently the skipper of the _Maranon_ did not know what to make of it; for, beyond hoisting Spanish colours, he took no notice of the summons, making no attempt to stop his engines.

"Mr Perkins," shouted Milsom, "just heave a shot across that chap's fore-foot, will ye? and we will see whether he understands that language. But for goodness' sake take care that you don't hit him by mistake. We don't want to have the destruction of that vessel on our consciences."

Bang! barked the twelve-pounder for the second time, and there was now a vicious tone in the bark which said unmistakably that the gun was shotted; while, if anybody on board the _Maranon_ had any doubt about it, that doubt was a moment later dispelled by the sudden up-leaping of a fountain of foam some twenty fathoms ahead of the vessel. That proved conclusively that the mysterious gunboat flying the Cuban flag was in no humour to be trifled with; and the Spanish captain, objurgating vehemently, rang down for his engines to stop. Thereupon the "gunboat", which by this time had swung round, presenting a view of her stern, with the name _Libertad_ emblazoned upon it in gold letters, lowered a boat, into which four seamen, a c.o.xswain, and a big, black-bearded officer dropped. When the frail craft, propelled by the four st.u.r.dy oarsmen, pushed off, and went dancing, light as an empty eggsh.e.l.l, over the purple swell toward the convict ship, the officers on the bridge of which did not fail to note that the crew of the stranger had carefully trained two long, beautifully polished guns and a couple of Maxims on them, "as a gentle hint that there was to be no nonsense," as Milsom put it.

Meanwhile, the crew of the _Maranon_, seeing the boat approaching, busied themselves with the task of lowering their side ladder, which they got into position just as the boat dashed alongside and her crew tossed their oars. Although the swell was by no means high, the convict ship rolled heavily upon it as soon as she lost her way, and Jack had to watch his opportunity to spring out of the boat on to the ladder without accident; but he managed it cleverly, and the next moment stood upon the deck of the _Maranon_, where he found the captain of the ship and his chief officer awaiting him. As he stepped in through the gangway he courteously lifted his cap in salute; but the other man was far too angry to acknowledge or return the salute. Instead, he made a step forward, with corrugated brow and clenched fist, and exclaimed:

"Senor, I demand to know the reason of this outrage! Who are you; and why have you dared to stop my ship upon the high seas?"

By way of reply to the man's menacing demeanour, Jack allowed his left hand to drop on to the b.u.t.t of one of the pair of revolvers which he carried in his belt. And, instead of answering the very reasonable question which had been put to him, he said:

"Captain, I greatly regret to trouble you, but I must ask you to have the goodness to muster your prisoners on deck. Please do it at once; for the light will soon be gone, and I am anxious to complete my; business with you before the darkness falls."

"Muster my prisoners on deck?" stormed the captain. "For what reason, Senor? And again I ask, Who are you; and by what authority--?"

Jack raised his hand deprecatingly. "My good sir," he exclaimed, "why waste time in asking foolish and useless questions, when I have already intimated to you that I am in a hurry? Will you have the very great goodness--and, I may add, the wisdom--to comply with my request? Or will you compel me to shoot you, in the hope that this gentleman--who, I presume, is your chief officer--will be more reasonable and obliging than yourself?"

This hint had the desired effect; the skipper turned away, and, giving certain instructions to his companion, made his way up on to the bridge again, while the other went below. Ten minutes later the prisoners, under the charge of a strong guard of soldiers, began to make their way up on deck; and presently the officer who had gone below to carry out the skipper's instructions re-appeared, with the information that the prisoners were now all paraded forward, and ready for the inspection which he presumed the Senor wished to make of them. Whereupon Jack, calling the c.o.xswain up out of the boat alongside for the purpose of keeping an eye upon things generally, and seeing that no trickery was attempted, went forward to the fore deck, where about three hundred men, women, and children were drawn up in four lines or ranks, two on each side of the deck. The chief officer, or mate, accompanied him.

The first face he recognised was that of his friend and chum Carlos, but oh, how shockingly changed! The poor fellow was thin as a skeleton, ghastly pale under the almost vanished tan of the sun, dirty, dishevelled, and in rags. But that was not the most shocking change that Jack noticed in him; it was the look of mingled fear, hate, and horror that gleamed in the young man's eyes, the kind of look that tells of systematic and long-continued cruelty.

"Take him aft," said Jack to the officer who was attending him, laying his hand lightly on Carlos' shoulder as he spoke; and he noted with horror how, as he lifted his hand, the poor youth shrank and cowered, as though he expected to be struck. Then presently he came to Senora Montijo, who, poor soul, looked into Jack's face vacantly and laughed, as he directed her, too, to be taken aft! It was clear that she was quite mad; and Jack ground his teeth as he inwardly vowed fresh vows of vengeance against the infamous ruffian who was the author of such unspeakable misery and ruin. A little farther on he found Don Hermoso, whose condition seemed even worse than that of his son. But the Senorita Isolda he could not find, although he searched the remainder of the prisoners twice over. Then he walked aft to where Don Hermoso and his wife and son were standing listlessly together, exchanging an occasional word or two with each other, but apparently too utterly wretched to take notice of anything, or to engage in continuous conversation.

Jack addressed himself to Carlos, in English. "Carlos, old chap," he said, "don't start, or look surprised, or appear to recognise me; but you know me, old fellow, don't you? I am Jack--Jack Singleton; that is the yacht over yonder, disguised as a gunboat; and I have come to take you all away out of this wretched ship, and restore you to your home.

But I cannot find your sister. Is she not with you?"

This apparently simple question had the most extraordinary effect upon Don Hermoso and Carlos. The former, suddenly dropping his face in his hands, began to sob and moan hysterically, while Carlos as suddenly dropped on his knees on the deck, and, lifting his clenched hands skyward, began to call down bitter curses upon the head of Alvaros.

Jack shuddered as he listened, and again ground his teeth in impotent fury, for he soon gathered, from his friend's wild words, that the cruelty of which the Spaniard had boasted had indeed been true. But he could gather no information as to the whereabouts of Senorita Isolda from the now frenzied ravings of her brother; and it was only with the utmost difficulty that he at length drew from Don Hermoso the dreadful tidings that his daughter, who had been brought on board the ship a raving maniac, had that very morning contrived to elude the guard, and, rushing on deck, had thrown herself overboard and never been seen again!

Poor Jack was so utterly overwhelmed at this awful confirmation of his worst forebodings that several minutes elapsed ere he could speak, and even then he could find no words wherewith to soothe the despair of his friends: but presently he managed to tell them again that he was there to restore them to liberty, and that there were plenty of friends who would stand by them upon their return to their home; then he asked them whether they knew of any more prisoners on board who, like themselves, were the victims of Spanish injustice and tyranny, suggesting that, if so, those poor wretches should also be restored to freedom; whereupon Don Hermoso mentioned that he believed there were two or three more political prisoners on board, and, at Jack's request, accompanied him forward and pointed them out. These also Jack ordered aft, and when they came abreast of the gangway he directed them down into the boat, whither Don Hermoso and his bereaved family followed them, Jack going last, and informing the skipper of the _Maranon_ ere he left that he might now proceed on his voyage, which that individual forthwith did; while, as soon as the released prisoners were on board the yacht, and the boat hoisted to the davits, that craft continued her course to the westward--until the convict steamer was out of sight, when the bows of the _Thetis_ were again turned eastward and her speed reduced to dead slow, for she now had to be stripped of her disguise and restored to her normal appearance again, and some convenient spot for the performance of this operation had to be found, Milsom not deeming it wise to return and effect it in the spot from which they had so recently come. This spot was eventually found, in the shape of a tiny cove near Point Lucrecia; and into it they steamed at daylight next morning, leaving it again the same evening, an hour before sunset, when the _Thetis_ again showed as the trim, white-hulled English yacht, with all her boats bright varnished as of yore, neither yacht nor boats bearing the slightest trace of ever having been even remotely connected with the mysterious "gunboat" that had been seen by the fishermen to steam out of Sagua la Grande harbour.

When at length, by the exercise of illimitable patience, Jack succeeded in persuading his friends to believe that their troubles were over, and had induced them to settle down in peace and comfort aboard the yacht, and also to ease their aching hearts by telling him what they had undergone since that day when they so blithely parted from him at the railway station at Havana, it was a really heartrending story of cruel oppression and shameful, irresponsible tyranny to which he felt himself obliged to listen. There is no need to give the full details here; it is sufficient to simply state that upon their arrival at Bejucal, the first station beyond Santiago, they were accosted by a sergeant, who ordered them to leave the train, and who, with the a.s.sistance of a couple of files of soldiers, conveyed them back to Havana by goods train late that same night, marching them all off to La Jacoba prison about three o'clock the next morning, where each of them was confined in a separate cell. Later in the day--that is to say, about eleven o'clock in the morning--Don Hermoso was visited by a file of soldiers, who informed him that the governor demanded his presence, and roughly commanded him to follow them. Having obeyed this command, the Don presently found himself in a kind of office, and confronted with Alvaros, who ordered the two guards to leave him alone with their prisoner. Then, this having been done, Alvaros informed Don Hermoso that, in consequence of certain information supplied to the Government, his house had been searched during his absence, and sufficient treasonable correspondence found therein to send the entire family to the penal settlements for life. Next he reminded Don Hermoso that he had on a certain occasion paid him and his family the compliment of proposing for the hand of Dona Isolda, and that the Don had seen fit to reject the proposal with scorn and contumely; yet such, he said, was his generous and forgiving nature that he was quite willing not only to overlook that affront, but also to secure the pardon of Don Hermoso and his family for their treason to the Spanish Government, if the said Don Hermoso would now withdraw his refusal and give his consent to his daughter's marriage with him, Don Sebastian Alvaros, a scion of one of the most n.o.ble families in Old Spain. Don Hermoso's reply to this suggestion was the repet.i.tion of a categorical and uncompromising refusal; whereupon Alvaros fell into a paroxysm of rage and swore that he would either compel Don Hermoso to give his consent, or certain very dreadful things would happen to every member of the family, Dona Isolda included. And certain very dreadful things had happened, among which floggings and starvation might be mentioned, the whole culminating in their condemnation to transportation for life to the horrors of the penal settlement of Fernando Po, when Don Hermoso persisted in his refusal and declared that he would rather see his daughter dead than wedded to such a scoundrel as Don Sebastian Alvaros. These were the bare outlines of the story, as told by Don Hermoso, but there were details of words said and deeds done that caused Jack Singleton to "see red", and to wonder how it was that a man, made in G.o.d's image, could ever become degraded to a condition so much lower than that of the beasts that perish; and how it was that such fiends in human form were permitted to live and to work their wicked will upon others. "However,"

he comforted himself by saying, "such atrocities as Senor Alvaros has committed do not go unpunished, and the time will come when he will wish that he had shot himself rather than yield to the suggestions of his own evil heart!" How truly he prophesied, and how awful was the retribution that was to fall upon Don Sebastian Alvaros, Jack little knew, otherwise it is possible that even his righteous anger might have been mitigated, his craving for vengeance drowned in the fountain of pity!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

RETRIBUTION.

It was a trifle over thirty-six hours from the moment of the deliverance of Don Hermoso and his wife and son when the _Thetis_, brilliant in all the bravery of white enamel paint, gilt figurehead and ornamental scroll-work, freshly varnished boats, and scintillating bra.s.swork, steamed into Guantanamo harbour and let go her anchor off the little town--or village, for it is scarcely more--of Caimamera. The visit of the yacht to this out-of-the-way spot was ostensibly for the purpose of enabling that erratic and irresponsible young Englishman, her owner, to enjoy a day or two's fishing, Guantanamo harbour being noted for the variety of fish with which its waters teem, and the excellent sport which they afford; but Jack's first act was to go ash.o.r.e and pay an early visit to the telegraph office, from which he dispatched a cipher wire to Don Ramon Bergera, briefly acquainting that gentleman with the bare facts of the rescue and Dona Isolda's death. Then he allowed the crew to take a couple of boats and go fishing, while he devoted himself to the arduous task of comforting and consoling his friends as best he could; indeed, that had been his chief occupation from the moment when the Montijos had first come on board the yacht from the convict ship.