As a result, the enthusiastic boys could scarcely wait to eat breakfast the next morning, but hurried ashore with Rawlins and found the ponies, which the diver had ordered through one of the native boatmen the night before, waiting for them.
Even their boyish imaginations had never prepared them for the beauties, the constant surprises, the strangeness and the interests of that ride. They passed for miles beside the tumbling, roaring river through endless lime orchards; they climbed steep grades that wound around hillsides glorious with masses of brilliant flowers; they rode under arches of giant bamboos rising fifty feet above their heads, and as they mounted higher the way led through forests of stupendous trees, enormous tree ferns, and tangled, cable-like lianas, where even at midday, it was like twilight. Often the narrow road wound around the verges of terrific precipices and, involuntarily, the boys shuddered and drew back as the sure-footed mountain ponies picked their way so close to the brink that stones, dislodged by their passage, went crashing down to the dark forest a thousand feet beneath. Sometimes too, they halted for brief rests and listened to the flute-like songs of the “mountain whistler” or watched humming birds flashing like living gems among the flowers of orchids or begonias.
Then at last they came out upon the topmost mountain ridge and as the heavy mist, which Rawlins told them was a cloud, drifted away, they looked upon a vast sea of forest-covered mountains with a glimmering little lake nestled among the verdure in a bowl-like crater at their feet. Here, above the clouds, they ate their lunch and, heedless of the drenching rain, returned down the mountains late in the afternoon. As they came out upon the waterfront, they saw smoke pouring from the funnels of the destroyer.
“Holy mackerel!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They must have heard something. They’ve got steam up.”
Scarcely had the three scrambled into the waiting cutter, when the little craft was speeding towards the destroyer and to Rawlins’ questions the petty officer in command replied that the Commander was only awaiting their arrival before sailing.
No sooner had the cutter left the dock than the roar of the winch engines and the incoming cable told of the anchor coming in, and scarcely were the diver and the two boys over the little ship’s side and the cutter hooked to the davit falls before the destroyer was forging ahead and making for the open sea.
“What’s up?” cried Rawlins as he gained the deck. “Get a message?”
“Yes, an hour ago,” replied Mr. Pauling. “Here it is.”
The diver and the two boys glanced eagerly over the slip, and read: “Devonshire and crew held according to request. May, Inspector Police. Port of Spain.”
“Hurrah!” cried the boys in unison. “They’re caught!”