No further beer was wasted, and the crew swiftly laid the empty bottles beside Henry. At intervals of six feet he fastened the recorked bottles to the half-inch line. Also, he cut off two-fathom lengths of the line and attached them like streamers between the beer bottles. The coffee-pot and two empty coffee tins were likewise added among the bottles. To one end of the main-line he made fast the kerosene can, to the other end the empty beer-case, and looked up to Francis, who replied:
“Oh, I got you five minutes ago. El Tigre must be narrow, or else the tug will go around that stuff.”
“El Tigre is just that narrow,” was the response. “There’s one place where the channel isn’t forty feet between the shoals. If the skipper misses our trap, he’ll go around, aground. Say, they’ll be able to wade ashore from the tug if that happens.—Come on, now, we’ll get the stuff aft and ready to toss out. You take starboard and I’ll take port, and when I give the word you shoot that beer case out to the side as far as you can.”
Though the wind eased down, the Angelique, square before it, managed to make five knots, while the Dolores, doing six, slowly overhauled her. As the rifles began to speak from the Dolores, the skipper, under the direction of Henry and Francis, built up on the schooner’s stern a low barricade of sacks of potatoes and onions, of old sails, and of hawser coils. Crouching low in the shelter of this, the helmsman, managed to steer. Leoncia refused to go below as the firing became more continuous, but compromised by lying down behind the cabin-house. The rest of the sailors sought similar shelter in nooks and corners, while the Solano men, lying aft, returned the fire of the tug.
Henry and Francis, in their chosen positions and waiting until the narrowness of El Tigre was reached, took a hand in the free and easy battle.
“My congratulations, sir,” Captain Trefethen said to Francis, the Indian of him compelling him to raise his head to peer across the rail, the negro of him flattening his body down until almost it seemed to bore into the deck. “That was Captain Rosaro himself that was steering, and the way he jumped and grabbed his hand would lead one to conclude that you had very adequately put a bullet through it. That Captain Rosaro is a very hot-tempered hombre, sir. I can almost hear him blaspheming now.”
“Stand ready for the word, Francis,” Henry said, laying down his rifle and carefully studying the low shores of the islands of El Tigre on either side of them. “We’re almost ready. Take your time when I give the word, and at ‘three’ let her go.”
The tug was two hundred yards away and overtaking fast, when Henry gave the word. He and Francis stood up, and at “three” made their fling. To either side can and beer-case flew, dragging behind them through the air the beaded rope of pots and cans and bottles and rope-streamers.
In their interest, Henry and Francis remained standing in order to watch the maw of their trap as denoted by the spread of miscellaneous objects on the surface of their troubled wake. A fusillade of rifle shots from the tug made them drop back flat to the deck; but, peering over the rail, they saw the tug’s forefoot press the floated rope down and under. A minute later they saw the tug slow down to a stop.
“Some mess wrapped around that propeller,” Francis applauded. “Henry, salute.”