“Why then did you permit it, sir?”
“Orders, my boy, orders. It was not the old boatswain who suggested the plan to a naval officer, but a captain in the artillery arm who went to headquarters. John Longmore told the people in the palace at Lima of his plan, and I was sent down here to oversee the operations.”
“Then you do not approve of what has been done?”
“Orders, my boy, orders,” was his only reply.
CHAPTER XVII.
JOHN LONGMORE’S REVENGE (continued).
When the sun was an hour high the mist faded away; the gray mantle disappeared, and Callao Bay became of two colors, a green within the space of an imaginary arc extending from the tip of La Punta to Los Baños, and a blue beyond, as far as San Lorenzo, where it merged into the indigo of the immensity of waters.
Upon the surface of the green, circling around occasionally when caught by a surface current, but steadily moving with the tide, was a market gardener’s lighter, crowded from keel to gunwales with every variety of produce. Such a sight had not been witnessed for more than six months, not since those ships, discernible far in the offing, had enforced the closing of the port. Before that time these lighters had been frequently rowed and sailed over the bay, moving toward the heart of the city from the fertile region of the Rimac on the north.
When men saw what manner of craft was adrift they rubbed their eyes, to make sure that sleep was not with them and conjuring a fanciful vision in a dream. No, the boat was still there, rising and falling on the slowly undulating rollers and moving ever toward the open. Then between La Punta’s tip and the northern shore perhaps a dozen persons sprang into skiffs, whitehalls, and wherries, and let fall oars to race for the prize.
“Halt!” called a soldier standing on the beach near the big, smooth guns on The Point.
“Halt!” An infantryman levelled his rifle beneath the forts at Chucuito.