“The launch is waiting for us, Captain Reyes,” she called out impatiently. “Are you ready?”
The Baracoan hesitated a moment. Then, with sudden decision, he whispered a few words to Gale, stepped to the girl’s side, and assisted her down the ladder. As they got into the boat, Gale followed them. “Guess I’m going ashore, too,” the reporter said, with a grin. “I have some business which needs my immediate attention.”
Virginia glanced at her escort’s face. She observed with concern that he did not seem to resent this intrusion.
CHAPTER XLI.
A BOLD ATTEMPT.
About fifteen minutes after the gray steam launch containing Virginia, Reyes, and Gale had left the battleship, another of the Kearsarge’s hooded fifty-footers darted away from the starboard gangway apparently, from the course she took, bound for the landing at Puerto Cabero. But after this little craft had gone far enough away to be out of sight of the battleship, it suddenly changed its course, and, making a wide detour, sped toward the fortress of El Torro.
Presently the lone sentry, pacing the narrow strip of land in front of that ugly gray building, brought his rifle smartly down from his shoulder as the boat reached the beach and a tall figure stepped ashore.
“Halt! Who goes there?” the picket demanded. But without waiting for an answer he abandoned his menacing attitude and respectfully presented arms. For, although it was dark, he was able to discern that the man who had stepped ashore from the battleship’s launch wore the uniform of a captain of the army of Baracoa, and that his eyes were screened by a pair of familiar blue spectacles. The newcomer stiffly acknowledged the salute, then turned to shake hands with the natty young American naval officer in charge of the launch’s crew. “Well, good-by, Captain Reyes,” the sentry heard the naval officer say, addressing the bespectacled man in Spanish. “Sorry that you are obliged to leave us before the fun is all over. I trust we shall meet again soon.”
The launch started back toward the battleship, whose gayly illuminated outline the sentry had been gazing at wistfully all night, wishing that he wore epaulets so that he, too, might be wining and dining instead of doing wearisome picket duty; but after the little boat had gone a short way it stopped, as though something might be the matter with its machinery.
The sentry might have paid more attention to this maneuver if the bespectacled man in the captain’s uniform had not at that moment addressed him.
“You can go,” the latter announced. “You are relieved. I will take your place.”