“Got a pencil and paper about you, old chap?”
“Yes,” answered Carlos; “I have my pocket-book. Why?”
“Then just stand by to jot down such letters as I may call out to you. That gunboat’s semaphore is at work again, and I feel curious to know what it is that she wants to say. Ah! just so; it is the cruiser she wants to talk to. Now, stand by.”
The cruiser having acknowledged the “call”, the Tiburon’s semaphore began spelling out a message, each letter of which Jack read off and called out as it was signalled. When the message came to an end Carlos read it out and translated it into English. It ran as follows:—
“Fear there is something wrong with my engines also. Have tried to turn them by hand, aided by forty-five pounds of steam, and cannot move them more than an inch or so either way.”
The cruiser had no reply to make to this disquieting piece of information; but a minute or two later four sailors ran out upon her boat boom and climbed down the Jacob’s ladder hanging therefrom into one of the boats, which they cast off and paddled to the gangway ladder, where two officers were by this time waiting. These two individuals at once stepped into the boat, which thereupon was shoved off and pulled alongside the gunboat.
“A lieutenant and one of the engineers from the cruiser gone aboard to investigate,” commented Milsom. “Now, keep your eye on the gunboat’s semaphore, Jack; we shall probably get a little further interesting information presently.”
They did not, however, for the gunboat’s semaphore remained dumb. But the two visitors from the cruiser presently re-appeared, tumbled down over the side into their boat, and were rapidly rowed back to their own ship. Ten minutes later a stream of smoke began to issue first from one and then from the other funnel of the cruiser. It was evident that they had started to get steam on board her in a hurry. And indeed the time had arrived for hurry; for it was now five bells in the forenoon watch, and the James B. Potter was timed to arrive in Mulata Bay at eight bells—an hour and a half thence! She was probably off the harbour’s mouth at that moment—or, if not off the harbour’s mouth, at least in sight. The Morro Castle, with its signal staff, was not visible from the spot where the Thetis lay moored, being shut off from view by the eastern portion of the Old Town, but it could probably be seen from the cruiser, which was lying considerably farther down the harbour and farther over on the Regla side of it; and while the men folk on the top of the yacht’s deck-house were still discussing the matter, Milsom’s quick eye caught the cruiser’s answering pennant being hoisted in acknowledgment of a signal made to her from some unseen spot.
“Aha!” he exclaimed; “do you see that? I wouldn’t mind betting my next allowance of grog that that is the acknowledgment of a signal from the Morro that the Potter is in sight! How can we find out, I wonder, without doing anything to arouse the suspicions of the Spanish Johnnies, that we are interested in the matter? If it were not for the suspicion that it would arouse, the simplest way, of course, would be to take the steamboat and run down as far as the harbour’s mouth, when we could see for ourselves whether there is a steamer in sight. But it would never do; it would be rather too palpable.”
“Cannot you tell by reading the cruiser’s signals?” demanded Don Hermoso. “See, there are several flags being hoisted on board her now? What do they mean?”