“Well, it’s hard to say,” replied the officer. He and the two boys of the battleship were off by themselves, on a quiet street leading up from the water front. For the time being none of the other men who had shore leave were around. “There is a peculiar situation here,” he said to Frank and Ned. “The captain has given orders that we must be very careful, and not go out to the place where we blew the tops off the hills, or, rather, where you did,” and he nodded at Frank.
“Why is that?” asked Ned, again displaying his impulsiveness.
“I can’t tell you,” was the smiling answer. “But you may learn in a few days.”
Frank and Ned knew better than to argue the point. They had a feeling that something momentous might occur at any time, and they wanted to be ready for it.
Deprived thus of permission to go out to the hills where the big guns had wrought the damage, they strolled about the town, looking with interest on the sights they saw.
They stopped for chocolate in a quaint little place, and bought some souvenirs to send to their uncle, thinking thus to cheer him in his loneliness.
But with all their looking about they saw nothing of any of the business enterprises in which Mr. Arden had told them their money, as well as his own, was invested. Later they learned that the mines, and the places where the natural products of the country came from, were some distance out in the little republic.
“What strikes me as queer,” said Ned, as they walked back toward the boat landing, for their time was nearly up, “what strikes me as queer is that every one we’ve seen—that is, the natives, if you can call them such—seem to be expecting something.”
“You mean something to happen?” asked Frank.
“Yes. They keep looking off there to the hills where you blew the top off, and talking to themselves in their queer lingo.”