Fitz the Filibuster Part 55

"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."

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

A NIGHT'S EXCITEMENT.

Every one seemed bent on celebrating that day as a festival. The fight was a victory, and all were rejoicing in a noisy holiday, while for some hours the crew of the schooner had their turn.

Not all, for after a few words with the skipper, the two lads went aloft with the binocular to keep a sharp look-out seaward, and more especially at the two headlands at the entrance to the bay, which they watched in the full expectation of seeing the grim grey nose of the gunboat peering round, prior to her showing her whole length and her swarthy plume of smoke.

Arrangements had been made below as well, and the schooner was swinging to a big buoy--head to sea, the sails ready for running up or dropping down from her thin yards.

"A nice land wind," the skipper had said, "and if she came it would not be long before we were on equal terms with her."

"But it won't last," said Burgess gruffly. "It'll either drop to a dead calm at sundown, or swing round and be dead ahead."