"Not much," replied Peter bluntly. "Looks to me like a cross between a pauper's coffin and an orange box. She'll fill in the first bit of sea we meet."
"Not likely to do that," replied his relative. "It's all sheltered water. We'll pile the gear for'ard. Beggars can't be choosers, and this is the best I could pick up for the job. There's a mast and sail; shall we take them?"
Peter shook his head emphatically.
"Unless you want to make Kingdom Come straight away, Uncle," he said. "She's no keel, so there's no grip on the water. That idiotic rudder on the engine's all right for what it is intended, but you wouldn't be able to keep the boat on a wind with it. She'd broach-to and dive right under at the first hard puff. No, scrap it."
Uncle Brian did so. He was no sailorman, and he had the common sense not to pretend that he was. The mast and sail were handed to one of the peons with instructions to take them back to the store, and the work of loading up was resumed.
Ten two-gallon tins of petrol, mixed with the necessary quantity of lubricating oil, were stowed amidships, to add to the pile of gear already flush with the coamings.
"All aboard, Peter!" exclaimed his uncle, signing to the peons to cast off.
The motor, like the majority of two-strokes, started only after considerable persuasion, and the little craft was headed for the broad waters of the Rio Guaya.
"I hope we've seen the last of El Toro, Peter," said his uncle, who seemed utterly indifferent to the fact that his whole personal estate had had to be abandoned. Compared with the service he hoped to do to his country, the loss was negligible.
All day the pauper's-coffin-cum-orange-box was kept hard at it. Even during the terrific midday heat, with nothing save their broad-brimmed straw hats to shield them from the almost vertical rays, they stuck it gamely. Their freak craft was taking them steadily at four knots "over the ground", in spite of an adverse current which they encountered as soon as the influence of the tide ceased.