At 9.30 I saw a boat coming, which, when half a mile away, I recognized as containing the chief of police and several of his subordinates; ten minutes after Braga and one of the bank officials came, the only passengers in their boat, and at once joined the police on the after deck and stood with them waiting and watching the boats as they arrived. In the mean time babel reigned around the ship. About three score boats surrounded her, the owners selling to the passengers everything from oranges to monkeys, snakes and parrots.
I determined to conceal from George and Mac that Braga and the police were on the ship, and about every twenty minutes I would slip down and report "All's well;" but soon after 10 o'clock the enemy were joined by the ticket agent from shore, and I could see they were contemplating some movement. Slipping down to the cabin, I said: "Boys, everything is all right; keep perfectly cool. Braga and the police are pulling to the ship and may search it; if so, it will take half an hour to get here. I will keep everything in my eye and give you ample notice." I then returned on deck and stood among the officials. They conversed in Portuguese, which was Greek to me; soon the agent dived below and reappeared with the manifest of the passengers, and an enormous heap of passports. After some conversation they sent the passports back; then, headed by the agent and purser, manifest in hand, they began to verify the list and scrutinize the passengers in the staterooms. Once more I hurried below and reported.
Mac was naturally very dignified, but divesting himself of coat, vest and dignity at the same time, he planted himself under the berth. Very close and very hot quarters he found it, and we put the bags of oranges in front, disposing of them so as to make it appear as if they filled the whole space, when in reality they were a mere screen.
Then we opened the door to the fullest extent. We had taken off our coats—it being frightfully hot—and with a bottle of claret and a bowl of ice standing on the little washstand and two glasses all in full view, we awaited the arrival of our friends, the enemy.
Our door was flat against the partition, giving a full sweep of the room to the eye of the passerby, and George and I waited confidently for the inspection we knew was inevitable. I sat on the foot of the lower berth, smoking and swinging my feet. George sat on a folding camp-stool, with his face toward the door, but not obstructing the view. Soon the procession arrived, with the ticket agent in front. When he saw George he at once recognized him as the Mr. Wilson who had bought the ticket, and he simply said: "How do you do, Mr. Wilson?" and passed on without looking in the room. Braga and the police followed, casually glanced at us two, and were gone. I put on my coat and followed the procession, and at 11.30 they went up on the after deck, evidently satisfied that their man was not on the ship, and contented themselves with watching new arrivals. I flew down, gave them the good news that the search was over, and poor Mac, half-roasted, came from behind the bags of oranges. Declaring he was roasted alive and dying of thirst, he finished the bottle of iced claret.
Ten minutes before 12 the bell was rung and all people for shore were warned to leave. Soon we heard the pleasant sound of the steam winch lifting the anchor, and at noon precisely, to our relief, the screw began to revolve at quarter speed, and the Ebro to respond by forging slowly ahead. All boats fell off but ours and the police boat. At last, after giving a good look up and down the bay, Braga and the police entered the boats, and, casting off, soon were left behind. Once more and for the last time I flew down to the cabin. They saw the good news in my face; then, shaking Mac's hand in hearty farewell, we ran to the upper deck, down the ladder into our boat, and a moment later the big ship, putting on full steam, left us astern, we ordering the boatman to pull hard after the ship. Mac soon appeared on the after deck, and waved his handkerchief to us in farewell. We gave him three cheers, and, excited and happy, with our long anxiety over, we returned to the shore.
With Mac sailing northward ho! with Wilson's passport and ticket in his pocket, and all our money save two thousand pounds in his trunk, our buccaneering expedition on the Spanish Main was over and all but a failure when comparing the £10,000 we had captured with our magnificent expectations.
Here was a gigantic and well-conceived scheme which had almost collapsed through trifles, which, to an honest enterprise would have been light as air, but which to us and to our plans were of crushing force, built up, as all schemes of wrong doing are, on foundations of sand.
To conclude very briefly the narrative of this expedition, I will here add that the day after Mac's departure, altering his passport to fit George's description, we sailed on the Chimborazo south to Montevideo. Upon our arrival we, with all other passengers for the town, were promptly put in quarantine for ten days in a vile little island called in irony the Isle of Flowers; but the mails were fumigated and sent through, as were two additional mails arriving from Europe and Rio. When our quarantine was over we were permitted to enter the city. We found that some advice or rumor had reached there, and we feared to venture our letters of credit for money. So, destroying all documents save our passports, we paid a visit to Buenos Ayres, and then we embarked on a French steamer for Marseilles, arriving there without any particular adventure, and the next day had a happy meeting with Mac in Paris.