“Well done!” cried the captain enthusiastically. “That was brave and thoughtful of you, Don Ramon,” and he held out his hand. “Why, you are quite an engineer. Then you did not mean to forsake your friend?”
“Forsake him!” said the Don reproachfully, and he frowned. But it was for a moment only. “Ah,” he continued, “if you had only brought me over such a gunboat as that which holds me down, commanded by such a man as you, how changed my position would be!”
“Yes,” said the skipper quietly. “But I did not; and I had hard work to bring you what I did, eh, Mr Burnett? The British Government did not much approve of what it called my filibustering expedition, Don.”
“The British Government does not know Villarayo, sir, and it does not know me.”
“That’s the evil of it, sir,” replied the captain. “Unfortunately the British Government recognises Villarayo as the President of the State, and you only as the head of a revolution; but once you are the accepted head of the people, the leader of what is good and right, Master Villarayo’s star will set; and that is bound to come.”
“Yes,” said Don Ramon proudly; “that is bound to come in the future, if I live. For all that is good and right in this little State is on my side. But there is the gunboat, captain.”
“Yes,” was the reply; “there is the gunboat, and as to my schooner, if I ventured everything on your side at sea, with her steaming power she would have me completely at her mercy, and with one shot send me to the bottom like a stone.”
“Yes, I know,” said the Don, “as far as strength goes you would be like an infant fighting against a giant. But you English are clever. It was due to the bright thought of this young officer here that I was able to turn the tables upon Villarayo.”
The blood flushed to Fitz’s forehead again—for he was, as Poole afterwards told him, a beggar to blush—and he gave a sudden start which made Poole move a little farther off to avoid a pinch.
“What say you, Don Burnett?”