For the next half-hour a scene of bustling activity took place. Steam pinnaces were scurrying between the ships and the dockyard, picking up liberty men, who had been hastily recalled to duty. The final consignments of urgent stores were being hurriedly unloaded from lighters alongside the warships. Cruisers and destroyers not lying at moorings were already shortening cable. Derricks were swinging in and out as they hoisted the heavy boom-boats. The signal halliard blocks were cheeping as hoist after hoist of bunting rose and fell from the ship's upper-bridges; the semaphores waved their arms with bewildering rapidity as if mutually bewailing their inability to join in the din. Above all other sounds came the hiss of escaping steam.
It was a chance—a chance at long odds—but the Admiral was throwing away no opportunity.
The Rioguayan fleet was out. Possibly in ignorance of the presence of the British warships concentrated at Bermuda, the Republicans thought it a propitious moment to carry out a "sweep" amongst the Windward Islands. At a moderate estimate, they might reach a point some eight hundred miles from their base at San Antonio. Bermuda was approximately 1200 miles away from the estuary of the Rio Guaya. The proposition that confronted the British admiral was the chance of being able to intercept the enemy before the latter gained the shelter afforded by the neutral waters of the Republics of San Valodar and San Benito.
"Do you think they'll fight, sir?" inquired a midshipman, as he passed Cavendish on his way to the fire-bridge. Cavendish, by virtue of his having been in action with the Cerro Algarrobo, was regarded by the members of the gun-room as an unimpeachable authority on Rioguayan matters.
"They probably will," was the non-committal reply.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed the "snottie". "Won't it be something to write home about!"
Poldene, the Paymaster-Commander, who happened to overhear the conversation, stopped to speak to the two lieutenants.
"That youngster," he remarked, nodding in the direction of the receding midshipman, "that youngster is a bit too optimistic. I wonder whether he'll sing the same tune after the show's over?"
"It'll be a pretty stiff business," declared Cavendish. "Those fellows fight when they're cornered—fight like a cargo of mad devils—'specially if they think they're going to win. Spanish blood, you know."
"They want teaching a lesson," continued Poldene, "and we'll do it. But, by Jove, I don't mind admitting that I funk going into action."