Chapter Thirty Five.
The contraband.
The evening was coming on fast as the schooner sailed on towards the little port with her overburdened decks.
“Are we going to run right in, Poole?” asked Fitz, as he watched the excitement of the crowd on deck, where every one of Don Ramon’s followers was busy polishing up his rifle, to the great amusement of the carpenter, who slouched up to where the lads were standing. “Just look at ’em,” he said. “They thinks they’re soldiers; that’s what they have got in their heads. Rubbing up the outsides of them rifles! I’ve been watching of them this last half-hour. They’re just like an old farmer I used to know. Always werry pertickler, he was, to whitewash the outsides of his pig-sties; but as to the insides—my!”
That last word sounded like a bad note on a clarionet, for, as he spoke, Winks was holding his nose tightly between his finger and thumb.
Fitz laughed, and asked the question that begins the second paragraph of this chapter.
“Seems like it,” said Poole, “but I don’t know whether it’s going to be safe.”
“Won’t be safe for them,” continued the carpenter, “if they don’t run their loading-rods and a bit of rag through them barrels. Sore shoulders for some of them. My word, how they will kick! Soldiers!” he chuckled. “I say, Mr Burnett, have you ever seen them there recruiting-sergeants about Trafalgar Square, London?”
“Yes, often,” said Fitz. “Why?”
“Nice smart-looking, well-built chaps, as looks as if their uniforms had growed on ’em like their skins.”