“Very well, indeed. Miss Hollister has been rather hysterical, but one can scarcely blame her.”
“Well, the worst may be over, and again it may not,” thoughtfully explained O’Shea. “Now, ’tis this way. I can set you people ashore, and ye can take a chance that the Cuban army will be able to send you inside the Spanish lines under a flag of truce. But there may be weeks of hard living and fever and exposure before ye get anywhere at all. And it may be the death of the ladies. Or you can stay with me, if we get this vessel off, and I will carry you back to the United States.”
“It isn’t a hilarious proposition either way,” replied Van Steen. “I rather think, though, that we had better stick to you.”
The mate returned aboard with the tidings that more than half the crew of the gun-boat had been rescued by the life-raft and in boats which had drifted to the beach.
“We ought to have those boats in case we need them,” said the skipper; “but if the ship can be worked off this tide, and is fit to go to sea, I will not wait for them or anything else.”
The tide was rising fast and the company worked like mad to heave the cargo overboard. At length Johnny Kent set his engines going hard astern and the Fearless began to slide along her coral bed. Halting, bumping, grinding, she gradually moved into the deeper water of the channel and rolled in the swell that ran past the headlands. Collision and stranding had fearfully racked and strained her hull, and the captain was not surprised when Johnny Kent bellowed from below:
“We’re leakin’, of course. I guess every rivet in her must have pulled loose. You’d better pray for a spell of good weather.”
“Would ye rather be shot or drowned decent in a gale of wind, Johnny? ’Tis suicide to stay on this coast till daylight.”
The forlorn tug limped out to sea at her best speed, which was not much. The fire-room gang was more or less disabled and the engines needed a deal of tinkering. Drop an able-bodied man from a third-story window and he may not break his neck, but his gait is not apt to be brisk.
“By the holy poker!” ejaculated O’Shea to the mate as they watched the shadowy mountains drop astern. “We delivered the cargo, though it is in a few feet of water, but I have some patriots left. I could think of only one thing at a time. What will I do with them?”