“Familiar soil—” repeated Frank, delightedly; for this could only mean one thing.
“Yes,” replied the general, “we are to join the main force somewhere along the coast south of here and march toward La Merced. I understand that—and I am sorry to convey the news to you—that Rogero has announced that he is going to make it his headquarters.”
“His headquarters;” repeated both boys, gritting their teeth, “he would not dare.”
“Rogero would dare anything,” replied General Ruiz. “If I had not made my escape after the battle in which Jose believed me shot, I should not be here now, but a victim of Rogero’s drumhead court-martial. As it was, I had a narrow shave. Fortunately, however, for me, one of my guards was a former servant of my family, and a small bribe, combined with his loyalty to the Ruiz clan, sufficed to make him forget his charge for awhile. I made my way north and then sent messengers to General Estrada, who ordered me to take charge of the northern division which was encamped at Mazucla, fifty miles north of here and bring it down the coast on this gunboat.”
General Ruiz concluded his narrative with a few words of sympathy to the boys for the loss of their Golden Eagle which, he said, he had always hoped to see, having heard such reports of it from Mr. Chester, but supposed that would now be impossible.
“Not at all,” replied Frank bravely, “if you will come to New York six months from now you will see the Golden Eagle II, a finer, stancher craft even than the one that lies at the bottom of the Caribbean.”
Under General Ruiz’s direction the work of disembarking was gone about immediately the meal was concluded. There were five hundred men to be got ashore and runners despatched to learn the whereabouts of Estrada’s force with which Ruiz had orders to combine, besides a camp site to be found, all of which demanded expedition.
Frank and Harry watched with much eager amusement and interest the work of getting the troops ashore. Not many of the men could swim and all of them, like most Spanish-Americans, had a hearty dislike of cold water. When every once in a while one of them happened to miss his footing, in boarding the shore-boats, there would go up a cry that made even the restful blue land-crabs in the mangroves ashore scuttle for shelter.
There were no lighters to be obtained at this point of the coast of course and so the army was landed in the ship’s lifeboats—a tedious process. The boys could not help thinking what a contrast the noisy, confused scene offered to the orderly evolutions of American troops. All about the boats, as they were rowed ashore,—landed gunwale-deep with their chattering, ragged occupants,—there cruised ominously the black, three-cornered fins of the man-eating sharks that abound along this coast. Occasionally one of these monsters would actually cruise right up alongside one of the boats. At such times the hubbub became louder than ever and with a great shouting and waving of their broad-brimmed Panamas the soldiers would endeavor to drive the menacing monsters away.
One of the last boats to leave the vessel’s side was loaded until the waves almost lapped over her gunwales and it looked to the boys as if she could never reach the shore in safety. It only needed the least little ripple of a sea to send a wave toppling into her that would swamp her in a wink and spill her crew out into the water and among the sharks. Perhaps the sharks noticed this too for they clustered round till the water was almost black with their wicked torpedo-like evolutions.