In a week or two extraordinary packages began to arrive in lorries from the distant railway station, extraordinary in size and in shape.
These were safely conveyed into the under room or workshop of the old windmill.
With the help of bold, strong Davie Drake and Barclay Stuart, Antonio undid these, and set them up, as he called it. There had already been arranged a bench, with loops of leather on the wall behind to hold the various sorts of carpenters’ and other stranger tools.
By the side of the bench a lathe was put up.
Other packages contained many different kinds of electric instruments, storage batteries, &c., and a miscellaneous and curious collection of instruments and tools, such as the boys had never seen before.
Those were each and all put in their respective places, and when everything was done, then Antonio sank into a chair with a sigh of relief, and surveyed his varied apparatus with a smile of great satisfaction.
“Of course, dearies,” he said to the boys as the glass eye took a sudden squint down at his nose, “you won’t know what all these things are for, but in time I’ll put you up to the ropes and teach you.”
“Thank you, captain,” said bold Barclay; but Davie Drake, powerful and strong though he was for a lad of his years, said nothing. It is awkward for a boy to be shy, but time and hard work soon banishes the failing.
. . . . . .
Well, Barclay had been here with Captain Antonio not much over a week, when, one day early in May, a somewhat strange apparition appeared crossing the field towards the old windmill. He called Antonio’s attention to it. But it was evidently a man, tall, erect, and dressed Indian fashion, in long garments of white, with a sash of crimson, sandals, and a huge turban above his brown-black face.