"Who goes there?" called Dynamite in a whisper, as the boat shot under the steamer's quarter.
"Independencia," came the prompt reply, and in a second the dark form amidships tossed over a rope ladder. In a moment more the man in the stern of the small boat had scrambled over the rail of the Mariella and strode rapidly aft. He sprang lightly up the steps to the quarter-deck, and seizing the hand of Captain Dynamite, who met him at the companionway, shook it vigorously.
"Captain Morgan, sure it's glad I am to see ye again."
"God bless you, O'Connor. Another of your dare-devil expeditions safely ended. We didn't look for you for two nights yet."
"Fair weather and only one little brush with a small gunboat. Altogether, quite an uneventful trip. And how goes the cause of independence, Captain?"
"We still hold our own, O'Connor, despite the butcher's boasts. We left them two hundred dead and wounded at our last three meetings, while our loss was only five killed and ten wounded."
"Bravo, Morgan, we'll wear them out yet. Let them pour their troops into Cuba by the thousand. Disease, our insidious ally and insurgent bullets will take care of all they can send."
"Aye, but the bullets are getting scarce, O'Connor."
"Ah, but there are enough here to do for ten thousand Spaniards," cried Dynamite, stamping excitedly on the deck, "and there will always be enough to go around so long as O'Connor lives, and the planks of the Mariella hold together."
The woolly head and grinning countenance of George Washington Jenks showed above the top step of the companionway.