"Oh, you mustn't go until you have broken bread with me," said he.
"I told him he could be in bed by twelve if he wanted to," interposed my conductor.
"All right," said the captain. "We'll live up to your promise. You may serve the supper at once," he added, turning to the two genii at the door, who had not stirred a muscle through the whole conversation.
Then began the service of a supper in which for the first time I tasted the joys of alligator pears, the sweets of real grapefruit made into salad, the full possibilities of Moro crabs à la Newburg, alongside of which even my beloved Maine lobsters are dull and dreary reptiles, and of many other delightful edibles as well, with my choice of a liquid refreshment as if from the cellar of a Lucullus—and through it all the captain talked.
He told me of his interest in the Cuban struggle for independence; how he had gone first to Havana as correspondent for an American newspaper with a decided leaning toward Spanish interests; how he had resigned rather than write the kind of material his chiefs demanded.
He told me then how he had at last decided to help the Cuban cause with arms, and with what money he had; how he had chartered this lumber schooner and gone ostensibly into the lumber business to cover his real activities; and how every time he set out from Brunswick laden with lumber consigned to some other port he always took time to run over to Cuban waters, and carry weapons and ammunition to the insurgents.
"And what has Uncle Sam had to say to all these activities?" I asked.
"He's getting a little suspicious," laughed the captain. "Once I thought he'd got me, too. I had a thousand rifles and ten thousand rounds of ammunition in hand for the boys, the other day and while I was being towed out to sea by a tug the Vesuvius, which had been watching me for several days, fired a shot across my bows and stopped me. They sent a search party aboard—and I tell you, sir, they were a mighty thorough lot! There wasn't a nook or cranny of the Samuel J. Taylor those fellows didn't turn inside out. Not an inch from topmast to keel escaped the official eye; but they found nothing, and I was allowed to go on."
"But how," said I, "did you manage to conceal the stuff?"
"Oh, that was simple," laughed the captain. "They went through the Samuel J. Taylor with a fine-tooth comb; but they forgot to search the tug. We transferred the guns later, and forty-eight hours afterward they were in the hands of the Cubans."