“Not this time, Johnny. ’Tis only making us feel bad to wrangle about it.”
The castaways had ceased to gaze at the encircling horizon for sight of smoke or sail. It came, therefore, as an incredible thing when a sentry at an embrasure yelled and capered like a lunatic. Every one rushed out and beheld the black hull and towering upper-works of a huge passenger steamer. She was coming up from the westward and had altered her track as though curious to discover why the Spanish cruiser should be at anchor near the key. Would she halt or pass on her way? Captain O’Shea, unable to credit his vision, told his men to fire volleys, and ran up the signal-flags to read:
“Stand by. We need assistance.”
It was more than he dared hope that the steamer would read his call for help, but she drew nearer and nearer the key, slowed speed, and rounded to within a few hundred yards of the Spanish cruiser.
“It’s a British vessel, a White Star liner,” bawled Johnny Kent. “What is she doin’ in these waters?”
“One of those winter-excursion cruisers out of New York, I take it,” replied O’Shea. “She is making a short cut across from the Leeward Islands or somewhere below us, running from port to port. I hope she will realize that this is no holiday excursion for us.”
The refugees made little noise. They were no longer actors but spectators. They saw the liner exchange signals with the cruiser. Apparently this method of communication was unsatisfactory, for soon a boat passed between the two vessels. There followed a heart-breaking delay. Dusk was obscuring the sea when a yawl pulled by a dozen British seamen moved from the liner’s side and danced toward the key. The ramparts of sand were instantly deserted. O’Shea’s men and the Cubans ran wildly to the beach, no longer afraid, confident that salvation had come to them. They rushed into the water and dragged the stout yawl high and dry.
There stepped ashore a stalwart, energetic man in the smart uniform of a captain in the White Star service. The crowd fell back as he brusquely demanded:
“What kind of a queer business is this? Where is the chief pirate?”
“O’Shea is me name,” acknowledged the leader. “’Tis quite a yarn, if ye have time and patience to hear it.”