"Five thousand!" Coke cleared a throat husky with doubt. He scratched his head under the absurd-looking kepi which he was still wearing; for a moment, his lips set in grim calculation. "That 'ud make things pretty easy for the missus an' the girls," he muttered. "An' there's no new ship for me w'en Dickey Bulmer cocks 'is eye at Hozier. It's a moral there'll be a holy row between 'im an' David.… D'ye mean it, mister?"
"Even if I fail, and my life is spared, I will pay you the money out of my own private funds," was the vehement reply.
"Well, well, leave the job to me. You sawr 'ow them tinkers jibbed just now. I must 'umor 'em a bit, d—n 'em. But wait till the next time some of 'em ships under me. Lord luv' a duck, won't I skin 'em? Not 'arf!"
De Sylva, with all his admirable command of English, could not follow the Coke variety in its careless freedom. But he knew his man. Though bewildered by strange names and stranger words, he was alive to the significance of things being made easy "for the missus and the girls." So, even this gnarled sea-dog had a soft spot in his heart! On the very brink of the precipice his mind turned to his women-kind, just as De Sylva himself had whispered a last memory of his daughter to San Benavides when their common doom was seemingly unavoidable.
He would urge no more, since Coke was willing to fall in with his designs, but he could not forbear from clinching matters.
"I promise on my honor——" he began.
But the nearer surface of the sea flashed into a dazzling distinctness, and Coke dragged him down to the launch. The cruiser had rounded Rat Island, and was devoting one sweeping glance eastward ere she sought her prey in creek or tortuous channel. The men were summoned hastily. Watts and Olsen had been warned to crouch behind the rocks on the crest, while those who remained near the launch were told to hide among the trees or crowd into the small cabin. Movement of any kind was forbidden. There was no knowing who might be astir on the hills, and a sharp eye might note the presence of foreigners in Cotton-Tree Bay. Hozier had not forgotten the risk of detection from the shore, and the vessel was plentifully decorated with greenery. The long, large-leafed vines and vigorous castor-oil plants were peculiarly useful at this crisis. Trailing over the low freeboard into the water, they screened the launch so completely that Watts and the Norwegian, perched high above the creek at a distance of three hundred yards, could only guess her whereabouts when the search-light made the Gomez plantation light as day.
The cruiser evidently discovered traces of the Andromeda on Grand-pere. She stopped an appreciable time, and created a flutter in many anxious hearts by a loud hoot of her siren. It did not occur to anyone at the moment that she was signaling to the troops bivouacked on South Point. De Sylva was the first to read this riddle aright. He whispered his belief, and it soon won credence, since the warship continued her scrutiny of the coast-line.
At last, after a wearying delay, she vanished. Five minutes later, Watts and Olsen brought the welcome news that she was returning to the roadstead.
It was then half-past two o'clock, and the sun would rise soon after five. Now or never the launch must make her effort. Ready hands tore away her disguise, she was tilted by crowding in the poop nearly every man on board, the engines throbbed, and she was afloat.