“how came you here?” was of course the first question the club addressed to the new-comer, as soon as they had made sure of his identity.
“i came in that boat,” replied wilson, who was quite as much surprised to see his friends as they were to see him. “but how did you come here? i heard tomlinson say that he and his crowd had stolen the banner.”
“so they did; but they stole us with her, for we were hidden in the hold. what we want to know is, how you happen to be out here in the country. we left you and chase to watch the yacht.”
“it is a long story, fellows, and i will tell it to you the first chance i get. but just how we have something else to think of. there comes pierre,” said wilson, pointing over the stern. “he is after[232] me. tomlinson and the rest are ashore stealing some provisions.”
“does pierre know where featherweight is?” asked eugene.
“i shouldn’t wonder. he seems to be pretty well acquainted with mr. bell’s plans.”
“then we will see if we can make him tell them to us,” said walter. “eugene, go down and get a lantern; and the rest of us stand by to receive our visitor with all the honors.”
“why, where did you get this?” asked wilson, as eugene placed his carbine in his hands.
“‘thereby hangs a tale;’ but you shall hear it in due time.”
“here he is, fellows,” whispered walter. “keep out of sight until he comes over the side.”
pierre was by this time close aboard of the schooner. he came up under her stern, and sprang over the rail with the yawl’s painter in his hand. “i told you that you shouldn’t go off in this vessel,” said he, looking about the deck in search of wilson. “you needn’t think to hide from me, for i am bound to find you. you will save yourself some rough handling by getting into this yawl and going straight back to shore. we don’t want you here.”
[233]
“but we want you,” exclaimed walter, starting up close at pierre’s side and presenting his carbine full in his face.
the others jumped from their concealments, and at the same moment eugene opened the door of the cabin and came out into the standing-room with a lighted lantern in his hand. for a few seconds the smuggler was so completely blinded by the glare of the bull’s-eye, which eugene turned full upon him, that he could not distinguish even the nearest objects; but presently his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the light, and he was able to take a view of his surroundings. he was much astonished at what he saw. there stood wilson, whom he had expected to drag from some concealment, looking very unlike the cringing, supplicating youth he had met on the jetty. and he was not alone either, for with him were the boys whom he believed he had left ten miles behind him, and also bab, whom he had last seen bound and helpless in the hold. they were all armed too, and were holding their cocked guns in most unpleasant proximity to his face.
“well, if you have anything to say for yourself let’s have it,” said wilson, breaking the silence at[234] last. “you’ll let me go off in this vessel after all, won’t you? there’s a good fellow.”
pierre had not a word to say. he seemed to be overcome with bewilderment and alarm. he did not even remonstrate, when eugene, after placing his lantern on the deck, stepped up, and passing a rope around his arms confined them behind his back. when the operation of tying him was completed, he seemed to arouse himself as if from a sound sleep, and to realize for the first time that he was a prisoner; but then it was too late to resist even if he had the inclination. the knowledge of this fact did not, however, appear to occasion him any uneasiness. as soon as the first tremor, caused by the sight of the cocked weapons, passed away, he began to recover his courage.
“there,” said eugene, taking another round turn with the rope, “i think that will hold you. didn’t i tell you that you would never get far away with the yacht? you’re fast enough now.”
“but i’ll not be so long,” replied pierre, with a grin. “there’s a man-of-war coming, if you only knew it, and she’ll be along directly.”
“well, what of it?”
“nothing much, only she will take you and your[235] vessel, and set me at liberty; that’s all. she is looking for you.”
“she is? we don’t care. we’ve done nothing to make us afraid of her.”
“you’d better be afraid of her,” replied pierre, significantly. “you’ve got no papers.”
“yes, i have,” interrupted walter.
“how does that come?” asked pierre, in a tone of voice that was aggravating to the last degree. “did you clear from port platte?”
“no, because we didn’t get the chance. you stole the vessel and run away with her. but i can show that we cleared from bellville.”
“no, you can’t. and, more than that, you’ve got guns and ammunition aboard intended for the use of the cubans.”
pierre paused when he said this, and looked at the boys as if he expected them to be very much astonished; and they certainly were. they knew now where the carbines came from, and why they had been placed in the hold, and their words and actions indicated that if the guilty party had been within their reach just then, he would have fared roughly indeed. walter was the only one who had nothing to say. he stood for a moment as mute[236] and motionless as if he had been turned into stone, and then catching up the lantern, rushed into his cabin. he opened his desk, and with nervous haste began to overhaul the papers it contained.
“o, you’ll not find them there,” said pierre, “they’re gone—torn up, and scattered about the harbor.”
“what’s the matter, walter?” asked all the boys at once.
“our papers are gone, that’s all,” replied the young captain, calmly. “some one has stolen them. now, pierre,” he added, paying no heed to the exclamations of rage and astonishment that arose on all sides, “i want you to tell me what has been going on on board my vessel this afternoon.”
“well, i don’t mind obliging you,” answered the smuggler, “seeing that it is too late for you to repair the damage, and, in order to make you understand it, i must begin at the beginning. you see, although we cleared from bellville for havana, we did not intend to go there at all. this very bay is the point we were bound for, but it is an ugly place in a gale, and so we put into port platte to wait until the wind and sea went down, so that we could land our cargo. perhaps you don’t know it,[237] but the stella is loaded with just such weapons as these you’ve got.”
“i don’t doubt it,” said walter, “but why did you bring some of them aboard this vessel?”
“i’ll come to that directly. when you set out in pursuit of us, after we left lost island, we knew that you must have found chase, and that he had told you the whole story; but we didn’t feel at all uneasy, for we believed that when we once lost sight of you we should never see you again. as bad luck would have it, however, the storm blew you right into port platte, and of course you found us there. when we saw you come in we knew what you wanted to do, and set our wits at work to get the start of you, and i rather think we’ve done it. we laid half a dozen plans, believing that if one failed another would be sure to work. in the first place mr. bell directed the attention of the custom-house officers to you and your vessel. he is well acquainted with them all, you know, and he has fooled them more than once, as nicely as he fooled the captain of that cutter at lost island. he told them that you were the fellows who were smuggling all the arms into this country for the use of the rebels; that you had intended to land somewhere[238] on the coast, but had been compelled by the gale to come into the harbor, and that you would probably go out again as soon as the wind died away. having excited the officers’ suspicions, the next thing was to do something to back them up; and we thought the best way would be to smuggle some weapons aboard the banner. but in order to do it we had to work some plan to get you away from the yacht, so that we could have a clear field for our operations. mr. bell and captain conway took fred craven up the hill in plain sight of you, and, as we expected, some of you followed him. then the mate found one of don casper’s niggers on the wharf, and used him to help his plans along. he wrote a note to chase, and signed walter’s name to it.”
“aha!” interrupted wilson. “i begin to see into things a little. but how did mr. bell know that chase was left in command of the yacht?”
“he didn’t know it—he only guessed it from seeing him so active in setting things to rights.”
“don casper,” repeated perk. “his name is on those boxes in the hold. who is he?”
“he’s the man to whom we deliver our weapons, and he sends them to the rebels. as i was saying,[239] mr. bell wrote this note to chase, asking him to bring all the crew of the vessel to assist in releasing fred, and another to don casper, and hired the darkey to deliver them and take the boys out to the don’s in his wagon. but when the mate, who had the management of the affair, reached the yacht, he found that tomlinson and his crowd, whom he supposed to be visitors from some neighboring vessel, were a part of the crew, and of course he had to get rid of them in some way; so he invited them down to the stella to get breakfast. then he went back, gave the negro the notes, and he took chase and wilson out to don casper’s. after that, the mate returned to the yacht, and taking some arms and ammunition, stowed them away on board the yacht, and wound up by stealing your clearance papers, which mr. bell destroyed.”
“and much good may the act do him,” exclaimed eugene, angrily.
“all’s fair in war,” replied pierre. “you came here to get us into trouble, and of course if we could beat you at your own game, we had a perfect right to do it.”
“no, you hadn’t,” retorted wilson. “we were engaged in lawful business, and you were not.”
[240]
“no matter; we make our living by it. as time passed, and you did not come back and sail out so that the officers could board you—”
“but why were you so very anxious to have us go out?” asked walter. “simply because you wanted us captured?”
“well—no; we had something else in view. you see, we were in a great hurry to go up to the don’s and land our weapons, but we had a suspicion that some sharp eyes were watching us and our vessel. mr. bell knew by the way the officers acted, that they hadn’t quite made up their minds which vessel it was that was carrying the contraband goods—the stella or the banner. they didn’t like to search us, for they didn’t want to believe anything wrong of mr. bell—they had known him so long and were such good friends of his; just like the captain of that cutter, you know. but yet they couldn’t believe that your yacht was the smuggler, for she didn’t look like one. we wanted the officers to find the arms on board your vessel; and until that event happened, we were afraid to ask for a clearance—that’s the plain english of it. well, as you didn’t come back and take the yacht out, and mr. bell was very anxious[241] that she should go, he thought it best to change his plans a little. learning that tomlinson and his friends had come to cuba to ship aboard a privateer, he hired me to join in with them and steal the banner. he told me that it would be a desperate undertaking, for the officers were all eyes and ears, the fort was ready to open fire on the yacht if she tried to slip out, and if that didn’t stop her, a frigate was near by to capture her. but he offered me a hundred dollars to do the job, and i agreed to smuggle her out. i did it, too. the fort fired more than fifty shots after us—”
“it did!” ejaculated eugene.
“were those guns we heard pointed at my vessel—at us?” demanded walter, in a trembling voice.
“not exactly at us, but in the direction we were supposed to have gone. i brought her through all right, however, and i can take her safely away from under the very guns of the frigate; but you can’t do it, and i am glad of—”
“take this man into the hold and shut him up there!” cried walter, almost beside himself, with indignation and alarm. “i don’t want to hear another word from him.”
“o, you needn’t mind those things,” said pierre,[242] as perk and bab picked up their carbines. “i am willing to go, but i shan’t stay there long. you are as good as captured by that frigate already.”
“take him away!” shouted walter. “stay here, perk, i want to talk to you.”
the young captain began nervously pacing the deck, while the other boys marched their prisoner through the cabin into the galley, and assisted him rather roughly into the hold. they placed him with his back against one of the water-butts, and while eugene was looking for a rope with which to confine his feet, wilson began to question him: “since you have shown yourself so obliging,” said he, “perhaps you won’t mind telling me what was in the note that darkey gave to don casper.”
“there wasn’t much,” was the reply. “it was written by captain conway, who told the don that the bearers were members of his crew, and that he had sent them out there to make arrangements with him about landing our cargo of arms.”
“well, go on. you said you sent chase and me to the don’s, on purpose to have us captured by the spaniards.”
“we thought that perhaps we might get rid of you in that way. we know that the don is suspected,[243] and we believe that if strangers, and americans too, were seen going there in the daytime, they would get themselves into trouble.”
“we came very near it,” said the boy, drawing a long breath when he thought of all that had passed at the plantation, “but the don took care of us.”
“tell us all about it, wilson,” said eugene, coming aft with the rope at this moment. “by the way, where is chase? i haven’t seen anything of him.”
wilson replied that he hadn’t seen him either very recently. he hoped that he was all right, but he feared the worst, for he was still ashore, and might fall into the hands of the spaniards. and then he went on to relate, in a few hurried words, the adventures that had befallen him since he left the yacht at the wharf, to all of which pierre listened attentively, now and then manifesting his satisfaction by broad grins. there were two things he could not understand, wilson said, in conclusion: one was, how the don escaped being made a prisoner when the patrol surrounded the house, and the other, where chase went in such a hurry. in regard to the missing boy we will here remark, that none of our young friends knew what had become of him[244] until several months afterward, and then they met him very unexpectedly, and in a place where they least imagined they would see him. the mystery of the don’s escape was no mystery after all. when he locked the boys in their place of concealment, he made his exit from the house through one of the cellar windows, and hid himself in a thicket of evergreens beside the back verandah. watching his opportunity when the soldiers were busy searching the building, he crept quietly away and took refuge in one of the negro cabins. he kept a sharp eye on the movements of the patrol, and saw that those who left the house took several riderless horses with them. this made it evident that some of their number were still on the premises, and that they had remained to arrest the don when he came back. but of course he did not go back. as soon as it grew dark his overseer brought him his cloak and weapons, and then returning to the house, succeeded in releasing the boys, as we have described.
“now, pierre, there’s another thing that perhaps you wouldn’t object to explaining,” said eugene, when he had finished tying the prisoner’s feet. “didn’t mr. bell know that you and your father took chase to lost island in a dugout?”
[245]
“of course he did.”
“what did you do with the pirogue?”
“we chopped her up and put her into the fire. that’s the reason you couldn’t find her.”
“how did you get aboard the stella? we didn’t see you, and we watched her all the time.”
“not all the time, i guess. there were a few minutes while you were searching the kitchen that you didn’t have your eyes on her, and during that time pap and me came out of the bushes and boarded her. mr. bell knew very well that if you could have your own way you would get him into a scrape, and so he put a bold face on the matter, and bluffed you square down.”
while the boys were asking one another if there were any other points they wanted pierre to explain, they heard a voice calling to them through the hatchway. it was perk’s voice; and when they answered his summons, they were surprised to see that his face was pale with excitement, and that he was trembling in every limb. “hurry up, fellows,” he whispered. “she’s coming.”
“who is?”
“the frigate. we can see her lights. walter[246] is going to give her the slip if he can, and go back to the village.”
“aha!” exclaimed pierre who caught the words. “what did i tell you? it will do you no good to go to town, for mr. bell will be on hand with proof to back up all his charges.”
without waiting to hear what pierre had to say, the boys sprang out of the hold, slamming the hatch after them. walter met them in the standing room, and issued his orders with a calmness that surprised them. he sent bab to the wheel, and with the others went to work to cat and fish the anchor, which, with a few turns of the capstan was heaved clear of the ground. as busy as they were, they found time now and then to cast their eyes toward the gulf. there were the lights that had excited walter’s alarm, in plain sight; and the fact that they stood high above the water, and that the waves communicated but little motion to them, was conclusive evidence that they were suspended from the catheads of some large and heavy vessel. beyond a doubt, the approaching craft was the iron-clad frigate they had seen in the harbor of port platte.
never before had our heroes been placed in a[247] situation like this. conscious that they had done nothing wrong, they felt that they were playing the part of cowards, and disgracing themselves by running away from the frigate, instead of boldly advancing to meet her. but the young captain, and his counsellor, perk, did not know what else to do. had the crew of the man-of-war been composed of his own countrymen, or had they been even honorable people, who would accord to him the treatment that civilized belligerents usually extend to their prisoners, the case would have been different. in spite of the evidence against him, walter, feeling strong in his innocence, would fearlessly have surrendered himself and vessel; but he was afraid of the spaniards, and he had good reason to be. they were so vindictive, cruel and unreasonable. men who could deliberately shoot down a party of young students, for no other offence than defacing a monument, were not to be trusted. the longer walter pondered the matter, the more alarmed he became.
“all gone, bab,” he exclaimed, as the anchor was pulled clear of the ground and the banner began to drift toward the beach, “fill away, and get all you can out of her. heave that lead, eugene, and use it lively, for i don’t know how much water[248] there is here, and we must keep as close to the shore as we possibly can.”
by the time the anchor was taken care of, the banner was flying along the beach through darkness so intense that the anxious young captain, who perched himself upon the bow to act as lookout, could scarcely see a vessel’s length ahead of him. there was now one question that was uppermost in his mind, and it was one to which time only could furnish a solution: was the entrance to the bay wide or narrow? upon this their safety depended. if they could get so far away from the frigate that they could slip by her in the darkness unperceived, their escape could be easily accomplished; but if they were obliged to pass within reach of the sharp eyes of her crew, their capture was certain. with his feelings worked up to the highest pitch of excitement, but to all outward appearances as calm as a summer morning, walter awaited the issue.
the “banner.”
the banner bounded along as silently as if she had been a phantom yacht. she seemed to know the desperate situation of her crew. every inch of the canvas was spread, the top-masts bent like fishing-rods under the weight of the heavy sails, and bab now and then cast an anxious eye aloft, momentarily[249] expecting to see one of them give away under the unusual strain. but every rope held as if additional strength had been imparted to it. not a block creaked; the tiller-rope, which usually groaned so loudly, gave out no sound as bab moved the wheel back and forth; and even the water which boiled up under the bows, and now and then came on deck by buckets-full, gave out a faint, gurgling sound, as if it too sympathized with the boy crew. ten minutes passed, and then walter, who was watching the lights through his night-glass, stooped and whispered a few words to wilson. the latter hurried aft and repeated them to bab, and a moment later the yacht came up into the wind and lay like a log on the waves, drifting stern foremost toward the beach. the lights were scarcely a hundred yards distant. nearer and nearer they came, and presently a high, black hull loomed up through the darkness, and moved swiftly past the yacht into the bay. the young sailors held their breath in suspense, some closely watching the huge mass, which seemed almost on the point of running them down, others turning away their heads that they might not see it, and all listening for the hail from her deck which should announce their discovery.[250] but the frigate was as silent as if she had been deserted. she was not more than a minute in passing the yacht, and then she faded out of sight as quickly as she had come into view. her captain did not expect to find the smuggler in the gulf, but in the bay, and in the act of discharging her contraband cargo; and to this alone the banner owed her escape.
as soon as the frigate was out of sight, wilson carried another whispered order to bab, and once more the banner went bounding along the shore. it may have been all imagination on the part of her crew, and it doubtless was, but every one of them was ready to declare that she moved as if she felt easier after her narrow escape. the blocks creaked, the tiller-rope groaned as usual, the masts cracked and snapped, and the water under the bow roared and foamed like a miniature niagara. her company, one and all, breathed as if a mountain had been removed from their shoulders, but there were no signs of exultation among them. their danger had been too great for that.
“now just listen to me a minute, and i’ll tell you what’s a fact,” said perk, who was the first to find his tongue. “if you were a smuggler, walter, you[251] soon get up a reputation, and you would bother the custom-house fellows more than captain conway ever did. he couldn’t do a neater trick than that, if he is an old—”
crack! went something over their heads, with a report like that of a pistol, bringing perk’s congratulations to a sudden close, and startling every boy who heard it. before they had time to look aloft there was another crash, and the main-topmast, with the sail attached, fell over to leeward, and flapped wildly in the wind. the backstay had parted, and of course the mast went by the board.
“thank goodness! it held until we were out of danger,” said walter, as soon as he had made himself acquainted with the nature of the accident. “a crash like that, when the frigate was alongside, would have settled matters for us in a hurry.”
perk and wilson at once went aloft to clear away the wreck, and walter, being left to himself, began thoughtfully pacing the deck. now that all danger from the frigate was passed, he had leisure to ponder upon that which was yet to come. what would be done with him and his companions when they gave themselves up to the authorities of the port? would they believe their story? if the yacht had[252] been supplied with the provisions necessary for the voyage to bellville he would not have run the risk. he would have filled away for home without the loss of a moment. he had half a mind to try it any how. while he was turning the matter over in his mind, eugene announced that there were more lights ahead of them.
“we had better get out our own lanterns,” said the young commander. “there’s no fun in rushing with almost railroad speed through such darkness as this. some craft might run us down.”
while the captain and his brother were employed in getting out the lights and hanging them to the catheads, perk called out from the cross-trees, where he was busy with the broken mast: “i say, walter, there’s another frigate coming.”
“how do you know?”
“well, she may not be a frigate, but she wants to come alongside of us. i watched her, and just as soon as our lights were hung out she changed her course. she’s coming toward us.”
“i don’t care,” said walter, now beginning to get discouraged. “we might as well give up one time as another. i shan’t try to get out of her way.”
[253]
the captain took his stand by bab’s side, and in order to satisfy himself that perk was right, changed the course of the yacht several times, narrowly watching the approaching lights as he did so. their position also changed, showing that the vessel intended to come up with her if possible. being at last convinced of this fact, walter walked forward again, and in moody silence waited to see what was going to happen.
