“Where does the girl come in?” asked Billy, after a moment’s pause.
“There’s a place called Coimbra seven mile south down the coast,” said Davis, fetching a chart from the locker. “Here it is. That point. I’ve only to put out a blue light and she’ll put off in a boat. Pereira’s brother lives down at Coimbra, and she’s going to-night to stay with him. She’ll be on the watch out from one on to sunrise, and she’ll easy get taken out in one of the night fishermen’s boats.”
To all of which Mr. Harman replied, “Damn petticuts!” He was biting his nails. He was no feminist. That is to say, he had an inborn conviction that women tended to spoil shows other than tea parties and such like. Why couldn’t this rotten girl have kept out of the business? What did she want coming along for? Seeing that she was letting down her people for the love of Davis, it seemed pretty evident that she was coming along also for the love of him, but Harman was not in the mood to consider things from the girl’s point of view.
However, there was no use complaining. With the chance of a million dollars for nothing, one must expect a few thorns, so he kept his head closed whilst Davis, taking him on deck, drew a lightning sketch of the plan of campaign.
First they had to shift the Araya’s moorings so as to get closer to the Douro, then they had to put the Kanakas wise, and more especially Taute the cook and leader, then they had just to lay low, wait for midnight, and pounce.
“Righto,” said Mr. Harman, “and if we’re shiftin’ moorin’s, let’s shift now.”
They did, not drawing too noticeably near the Douro, but near enough to keep watch on her. Near enough to count the sun-blisters on her side with a glass. She was of smaller tonnage than the Araya and ketch-rigged. She had never been a beauty, and she wasn’t one now; she had no charms to mellow with age.
Night had fallen on Buenodiaz, and the band on La Plazza had ceased braying. Eleven o’clock was striking. Cathedral and churches tinkling and tankling and clanging the hour; a drunken crew had just put off for the grain ship lying farther out, and silence was falling on the scene, when, whizz-bang, off went the fireworks.
“Damn the place!” cried Harman, whose nerves were on edge. “It’s clangin’ and prayin’ and stinkin’ all day and closes down only to go off in your face—some saint’s day or ’nuther, I expect.”
Davis said nothing. He was watching the blue and pink of bursting rockets and the fiery, fuzzy worms reflecting themselves in the harbour.