“No, no, no! Don Ramon—Don Ramon!”
Something similar was going on upon the other side of the schooner, where, grinning with delight, the Camel was seizing the poultry handed in, and setting them at liberty upon the deck, while now an explanation followed.
The three boat-loads of provisions were gifts from Don Ramon and his people to those who had helped them in their time of need, while the Don’s messengers seemed wild with delight, eagerly pointing out the good qualities of all they had brought, and chattering away as hard as ever they could, or laughing with delight when some active chicken escaped from the hands that held it or took flight when pitched aboard and made its way back to the shore. It was not only the men in the provision-barges that kept up an excited chorus, for they were joined by those in the boats that crowded round, the delivery being accompanied by cheers and the waving of hats and veils, the women’s voices rising shrilly in what seemed to be quite a paean of welcome and praise.
“What time would you like dinner, laddies?” came from behind just then, in a familiar voice, and the boys turned sharply round to face the Camel, who seemed to be showing nearly all his teeth after the fashion of one of his namesakes in a good temper. “Ma word, isn’t it grand! Joost look! Roast and boiled cheecan and curry; and look at the garden-stuff. I suppose it’s all good to eat, but they’re throwing in things I never washed nor boiled before. It’s grand, laddies—it’s grand! Why, ma word! Hark at ’em! Here’s another big boat coming, and the skipper will have to give a great dinner, or we shall never get it all eaten.”
“No,” cried Poole, “it’s a big boat with armed men, and—I say, Fitz, this doesn’t mean treachery? No, all right; that’s Don Ramon coming on board.”
The tremendous burst of cheering from every boat endorsed the lad’s words, every one standing up shouting and cheering as the President’s craft came nearer, threading its way through the crowd of boats, whose occupants seemed to consider that there was not the slightest risk of a capsize into a bay that swarmed with sharks. But thanks to the management of Don Ramon’s crew, his barge reached the side of the schooner without causing mishap, and he sprang aboard, a gay-looking object in gold-laced uniform, not to grasp the skipper’s extended hand, but to fall upon his neck in silence and with tears in his eyes, while directly afterwards the two lads had to submit to a similar embrace.
“Oh, I say,” whispered Fitz, as soon as the President had gone below with the skipper; “isn’t it horrid!”
“Yes,” said Poole; “I often grumble at what I am, only a sort of apprentice aboard a schooner, though I am better off through the dad being one of the owners than most chaps would be; but one is English, after all.”
“Yes,” said Fitz, with a sigh of content; “there is no getting over that.”
Further conversation was ended by the approach of Burgess, the mate, who at a word from the captain had followed him and the President below, and who now came up to them with a peculiar grim smile about his lips, and the upper part of his face in the clouds, as Poole afterwards expressed it, probably meaning that the mate’s brow was wrinkled up into one of his fiercest frowns.