“And what then?”
“Get everybody on board the schooner and make sail for the north. Get into Velova Bay, and you could take the town with ease.”
“And what about the gunboat?” said Poole.
“Ah! That’s the awkward point in my plan. But the gunboat is not obliged to be there, and even if she were you could take the town if you managed to get there in the dark; and once you’ve got the town you could hold it, even if she knocked the fort to pieces.”
“Hum!” grunted the carpenter.
“It’d be a tight fit getting everybody here on board our schooner.”
“Nonsense!” said Fitz. “I could get a hundred men on board easily; and besides, we should all be saved.”
“And besides, we should all be saved,” said Poole, half aloud. “Yes, that’s true. It does seem possible, after all, for there would be no defenders hardly left at Velova, and we could fit up a defence of some kind to keep off the enemy when they found we had gone and old Villarayo came raging back; and that wouldn’t be for another two days. Yes, there’s something in it, if we could dodge the gunboat again.”
“Humph!” grunted the carpenter once more. “No; there’s a hole in your saucepan, and all the soup is tumbling out. The enemy is bound to have some fellows on the watch, and likely enough not a hundred yards from here, and they would soon find out that we were evacuating the place, come and take us at a disadvantage, and perhaps shoot the poor fellows crowded up in the boat. Oh no, my lad; it won’t do at all.”
“Humph!” grunted the carpenter again.