The foreigners on the club veranda looked at one another in amazement; the natives on the beach set up a shout.
“Thank God!” fervently exclaimed Señor Cisneros. “They are going to tow that lighter back to the shore.”
Out steamed the launch, at full speed, sending spray flying at the sides of her stem, and leaving astern a narrow path of white that marked where her propeller had churned the water.
Until this small craft appeared in the bay, the Chileans had evidently given no heed to the lighter that, by this time, had well entered the blue; if it had been sighted by them, no sign to that effect had been made; they continued to steam slowly backward and forward, patrolling the entrance. But when the launch had covered half the distance between the shore and the provision-laden barge, the cruiser Mathias Cousino, which at that time happened to be the nearest to La Punta, changed her course and made toward the harbor. Ten minutes later she fired a bow gun, and the shot plunged into the water not far from the launch.
The Peruvian boat at once put about and made for the Union. A dense cloud of smoke from her stack told that the stoker on board was using all his energy, and that the boiler had been called upon for the highest pressure it could stand.
An expression of disappointment could be seen on the faces of Mr. Dartmoor and Señor Cisneros. The crowd shouted again, and the noise made by the many thousands was like the roar of a train, or the rasping of stones over stones on a beach when the undertow sucks them back. One could not tell whether this shout was in approval or disappointment.
“I do not believe it was ever the intention to have that launch tow the lighter back to port,” said Captain Saunders.
“You do not?”
“No.”
“Why did she go out, then?”