Presently the gate of the compound was unlocked, and Fernando, accompanied by half a dozen armed men, entered the enclosure. A whistle sounded—the signal for the prisoners to assemble.
In five minutes every officer and man remaining out of the original crews of the three captured vessels turned out and fell in, taking up their allotted positions, and forming three sides of a hollow square.
Into the centre strode Fernando and his bodyguard, and without further ado, without even calling the roll, the half-caste began reading in execrable English the orders for the night.
All lights and fires were to be extinguished. No one was to leave his hut until further notice. No shouting or demonstration of any sort was to be permitted. Any breach of these regulations would be punished by a heavy and prolonged burst of machine-gun fire upon the prisoners' camp.
"This looks like business, Angus," remarked Captain Blair to the Chief Engineer, after the parade had been dismissed and Fernando had left the compound.
"Ay, sure," agreed Angus. "Weel, I doot we'd best bide the noo. I ken fine yon Porfirio person has took mair than he can abide by. We'll be seein' shot and shell flyin' come the morn."
The Chief Engineer's surmise was a correct one. A wireless message from the Malfilio's seaplane had just been picked up in which the pilot informed Porfirio of the disconcerting news that a couple of large cruisers, some destroyers, and a few aircraft were looking for him.
The news was enough to strike terror into the hearts of the pirates who formed the garrison of the secret base. They knew perfectly well that it mattered little as to whether the Malfilio escaped, returned to the island, or was sunk. In any case they couldn't get away, and before long they would have a powerful squadron trying conclusions with them. They might fight to the last, but there was no escape. Surrender meant death, save for those who might obtain respite by turning evidence against the others.
To increase their desperation was the belief that Porfirio, Henriques, and Black Strogoff had deliberately abandoned them to their fate. The prolonged absence of the Malfilio and the disappearance of Strogoff with a band of boon companions seemed to confirm this theory, and when rogues distrust each other their plans fall to the ground.
All that night the feeling that there was something in the air kept everyone awake. The pirates were apprehensive and jumpy; their captives sanguine and excited, in spite of the tedious passage of the night hours.