"We just must sing our little song," Henry cried jubilantly, starting up the stave of "Back to Back Against the Mainmast."
"Which is all very nice, sir," Captain Trefethen interrupted at the conclusion of the first chorus, his eyes glistening and his shoulders still jiggling to the rhythm of the song. "But the wind has ceased, sir. We are becalmed. How are we to get out of Juchitan Inlet without wind? The Dolores is not wrecked. She is merely delayed. Some nigger will go down and clear her propeller, and then she has us right where she wants us."
"It's not so far to shore," Henry adjudged with a measuring eye as he turned to Enrico.
"What kind of a shore have they got ashore here, Senor Solano?" he queried. "Maya Indians and haciendados which?"
"Haciendados and Mayas, both," Enrico answered. "But I know the country well. If the schooner is not safe, we should be safe ashore. We can get horses and saddles and beef and corn. The Cordilleras are beyond. What more should we want?"
"But Leoncia?" Francis asked solicitously.
"Was born in the saddle, and in the saddle there are few Americanos she would not weary," came Enrico's answer. "It would be we", with your acquiescence, to swing out the long boat in case the Dolores appears upon us."
CHAPTER VIII
IT'S all right, skipper, it's all right," Henry assured the breed captain, who, standing on the beach with them, seemed loath to say farewell and pull back to the Angelique adrift half a mile away in the dead calm which had fallen on Juchitan Inlet.
"It is what we call a diversion," Francis explained. "That is a nice word diversion. And it is even nicer when you see it work."