The old sea dog hesitated. The Camera Chap saw a grim expression come to his weather-beaten face. It quickly passed away, however. “I am sorry, my boy,” he said, real regret in his tone, “but, as I said before, I can do nothing until you have brought me the snapshot. You see,” he explained, “I am here under sealed orders—I don’t mind telling you that much in return for the information you have given me. In view of what I have learned from you, I now have what some of my junior officers would no doubt term ‘a good-sized hunch,’ as to the nature of those orders. I think it very likely that when the envelope is opened, it will be found to contain official instructions for me to proceed immediately to take the very action you urge.”
“Then why not open it immediately?” the Camera Chap suggested impatiently.
“I am sorry, but that is out of the question. The conditions must first be complied with. I appreciate the danger of delay, my boy, but orders are orders. I would suggest that the best thing for you to do is to hurry ashore, get that picture finished, and bring it to me as quickly as possible. Then, provided my orders permit it, I will promise you prompt action.”
Perceiving that argument would be useless, the Camera Chap proceeded to follow this advice. The commander of the Kearsarge placed a speedy steam launch at his disposal, and also suggested that it would be a good idea for him to have a naval escort when he went ashore. “We don’t want to have any mishaps,” the captain remarked dryly, “and it is just possible that circumstances might arise in which you would find it mighty convenient to be surrounded by an armed guard.”
Hawley immediately grasped his point, for the possibility of an attempt being made ashore to wrest the precious picture from him had already suggested itself to his mind. “Thank you, captain; I shall be glad to take advantage of your kind offer,” he said. “I think, however, that one of your men will be enough, if you can spare Lieutenant Ridder for a little while. He and I are old friends, and if he were along with me, I should feel perfectly safe.”
This request met with a ready response, and a few minutes later Hawley and the husky young lieutenant were speeding toward the shore of Puerto Cabero.
As they landed from the launch, the Camera Chap caught sight of two men skulking in the shadow of the wharf, and when he and Ridder walked toward the railway station, he observed that these men stealthily followed them. By the light of a street lamp he was able to get a good look at their faces, and he recognized one of them instantly. It was his old acquaintance, Señor Lopez, the mysterious individual who had been his fellow passenger on board the steamship Colombia, and who had displayed such a keen interest in his movements. The Camera Chap had not seen the fellow since the day of their arrival at Puerto Cabero. He was not at all glad to see him, now. He had an uneasy suspicion that Lopez’s presence at the wharf was no mere coincidence—that already the tidings of what had happened at the fortress had been flashed to the capital, and that the spy had been sent to await his landing.
Fearing for the safety of his precious snapshot, he was doubly glad, now, that he had brought Ridder along with him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PLATE DEVELOPED.
A train was just about to pull out of the station, when Hawley and his companion arrived there. It was the last train to leave for the capital that night, and the Camera Chap congratulated himself upon his luck in catching it. If he had been half a minute later he might have found himself stranded in the seaport for the night, for at that hour it was difficult to find any kind of conveyance for hire, even a horse; in which case he would have been obliged to wait until morning before developing his plate.