CHAPTER XVIII.
A BOARD OF STRATEGY.
The chart showed Santa Anna to be a harbor not unlike in formation that of Boca del Sierras. Instead of the town lying on a flat, however, it actually climbed up the sides of the steep range which sloped down to the water’s edge. Geographers have termed Costaveza a country set on edge. On no part of it was this characteristic more marked than at Santa Anna. But this feature interested the two persons in the captain’s cabin of the General Barrill less than certain red-inked portions of the coast line, marked “Forts.” These forts, the captain informed Midshipman Stark, were built in the rock above Santa Anna, and rendered the place practically impregnable from the sea.
“Then how are we to get in after the insurgent ships?” asked Stark, who had been informed that the captured vessels were lying inside the landlocked harbor, under the very guns of the forts, awaiting word to set out for Boca del Sierras. This, of course, would not be till the two armies had effected a juncture.
As the young officer asked the question, the captain smiled somewhat grimly.
“They will come out to us,” was his reply.
“Come out to us!” The boy’s voice held a note of astonishment, as well it might.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he went on, “but did I understand you correctly?”
“Perfectly, my boy. The General Barrill is capable of twenty-five knots. The fastest of the vessels lying in that harbor is the Manueal Calvo. She can make, under forced draught, about eighteen knots. The Bolivar and the Migueal de Barros are rebuilt steam yachts, and can almost come up to this pace, but I don’t imagine that they’ll want to burn coal at that rate unless they have to.”
The midshipman looked puzzled.
“I see that you have some plan, sir, but for the life of me I cannot comprehend it.”