“Well,” smiled the South American seaman, “you have seen in your country a retriever follow and make desperate efforts to capture a lame duck?”
“Why, yes, but I don’t see——”
“The General Barrill will be a lame duck,” said the veteran, with one of his grim smiles. “It is the only way we can draw the vessels lying in that harbor from under the protection of those guns of the forts.”
“I see, sir,” cried the midshipman, in a burst of comprehension. “You mean to play ’possum and drag them out to sea, and then pick their bones at your leisure.”
“Well, I don’t know about the latter part of it. But I am pretty certain we can lure them out. But recollect, young man, that it will be no child’s play. The Manueal Calvo, the flagship, mounts three six-inch guns and a secondary battery of rapid fires. The other two carry bow-chasers and stern guns of the same caliber, besides a battery of small rapid-fire rifles.”
“Phew!” whistled the middy. “Your country had money to spend on armament, sir.”
“I was minister of the marine for a time,” rejoined the other, with a mild sort of pride beaming on his weather-beaten countenance. “I saw to it that we were as well equipped as possible. Little did I dream, however, that one day my own guns would be turned against me.”
He sank his grizzled head in his hands, his impressible Latin temperament overcome for a moment at the bitterness of his thoughts. To create a diversion the middy struck in with another question.