“Yes, señor, all that time. Captain Carera is my uncle, you know. He adopted me when my mother died, and has promised to make a sailor of me.”
“Ah! very good of him; very good, indeed,” went on Courtenay. “A very worthy fellow that uncle of yours, Francisco. And has the Pinta been engaged in the same trade ever since you joined her?”
“The same trade, señor? I—I—”
“There, don’t be alarmed at my question, my lad,” interrupted Courtenay. “You need not answer it unless you choose, you know; but there is no occasion for secrecy with us. You understand that, do you not?”
“Well, I don’t know, I am sure, excellency. I suppose it is all right, however, or you would not be here, so I do not mind answering. We have been engaged in the same trade—for the most part—ever since I joined the Pinta.”
“And a pretty profitable business your uncle must have found it,” remarked Courtenay.
“I don’t know so much about that, señor,” was the reply. “It used to be profitable enough at first, I believe, when el capitano had it all in his own hands. But now that Giuseppe has admitted other traders, we not only have to pay higher prices for the goods, but we also have to take our turn with others for a cargo. Then, too, Giuseppe has not been so very fortunate of late; the British cruisers have given him a great deal of trouble.”
“Ah, yes, they are a pestilent lot, those British—always thrusting their noses into other people’s business!” agreed my unabashed chum. “Well,” he continued to me, “shall we go on deck and take a look round? Uncommonly good cigars these of your uncle’s, Francisco. Leave the box on the table, my lad, will ye?”
On reaching the deck we were now, for the first time, able to take particular note of the vessel on board which we, by some inexplicable blunder, thus found ourselves—for that a blunder had been perpetrated by somebody we now fully realised. The craft proved to be a sturdy little felucca of some sixty tons or so; very shallow and very beamy in proportion to her length; stoutly built, with high quarters, and low but widely-flaring bows, which tossed the seas aside in fine style and enabled her to thrash along with perfectly dry decks. She was rigged with a single stout, stumpy mast, raking well forward, upon which was set—by means of an immense yard of bamboos “fished” together, and twice the length of the craft herself—an enormous lateen or triangular sail, the tack of which consisted of a stout rope leading from the fore-end of the yard to a ring-bolt sunk into the deck just forward of the mast, whilst the sheet travelled upon an iron hawse well secured to the taffrail. There were five hands on deck when we made our appearance, namely, the skipper and the helmsman—who were having a quiet chat together—and three men in the waist, on the weather side of the deck, who were busy patching a sail. The weather was gloriously fine, with scarcely a cloud to be seen in the clear sapphire vault overhead; and a fresh cool breeze from about east-north-east was ruffling up the white-caps to windward, straining at the huge sail until the yard bent like a fishing-rod, and careening the gallant little craft to her covering-board, whilst it drove her along at the rate of a good honest nine knots in the hour. There was no other sail anywhere in sight, nor indeed anything to distract attention from the little vessel herself, save the shoals of flying-fish which now and then sparkled out from under our forefoot and went skimming away through the air to leeward, until they vanished with a flash, only to reappear, perhaps, next moment, with their inveterate foe, a dolphin, in hot pursuit. The moment we showed ourselves above the companion the skipper rose to his feet—he had been sitting cross-legged on the deck, under the weather bulwarks—and joined us, evidently under the impression that it was an essential part of his duty to make himself agreeable. He made some commonplace remark about the weather, to which we both vouchsafed a ready and gracious response, very fully realising by this time the peculiarity and perilous nature of our position on board the felucca—a position from which it was, of course, utterly impossible for us then to effect a retreat—and being especially anxious not only to avert any possibility of a suspicion as to our bona fides, but also to extract such further hints as might tend to the elucidation of that position. For some time the conversation was of a general and utterly unimportant character; at length, however, Carera, evidently reverting to the topic which was uppermost in his mind, remarked:
“I have thought it best, señors, to mention to Manuel, my mate there,” nodding his head toward the helmsman, “and the rest of the hands, the fact that you are both seamen, and they are as pleased as I was to hear it. It has made matters much easier for us all round, and very much less dangerous for you; indeed, Manuel thinks that if you will only consent to act as part of the crew whilst we are in harbour there, and rig accordingly, neither Giuseppe nor any of his people will suspect anything, and you will thus be able to freely look about you and make such observations as will enable you to subsequently carry out your part of the scheme with success. If it can only be carried through it will make all our fortunes, for they must have doubloons stored away by the caskful by this time. Why, I am taking across two hundred doubloons this time to trade with, and I have never taken less in any one of my trips.”