“I’m sorry,” he said; “I didn’t know.”
McKildrick nodded, and as though glad of an interruption, held up his hand.
“Listen!” he cried. “Stop the engine!”
Roddy let the launch slip forward on her own headway. In the silence that followed they heard from the city the confused murmur of a mob and the sharp bark of pistols. They looked at each other significantly.
“The surface indications seem to show,” said McKildrick, “that things are loosening up. I guess it’s going to be one of those nights!”
As they rounded the point and the whole of the harbor front came into view, they saw that the doors of the bonded warehouses had been broken open, and that the boxes and bales they contained had been tumbled out upon the wharf and piled into barricades. From behind these, and from the windows of the custom-house, men not in uniform, and evidently of the Rojas faction, were firing upon the tiny gun-boat in the harbor, and from it their rifle-fire was being answered by an automatic gun. With full speed ahead, Roddy ran the gauntlet of this cross-fire, and in safety tied up to his own wharf.
“Go inside,” he commanded, “and find out what has happened. And tell Peter we’ll take his cargo on board now. Until we’re ready to start I’ll stay by the launch and see no one tries to borrow her.”
Peter and McKildrick returned at once, and with gasoline, tins of biscuit and meat, and a cask of drinking water, stocked the boat for her possible run to Curaçao. The Rojas party, so Peter informed them, had taken the barracks in the suburbs and, preliminary to an attack on the fortress, had seized the custom-house which faced it; but the artillery barracks, which were inside the city, were still in the hands of the government troops. Until they were taken, with the guns in them, the Rojas faction were without artillery, and against the fortress could do nothing. It was already dusk, and, in half an hour, would be night. It was for this the Rojas crowd were waiting. As yet, of Vega and his followers no news had reached the city. But the government troops were pursuing him closely, and it was probable that an engagement had already taken place.
“By this time,” said Roddy, “Vicenti has told Rojas, and in an hour Pedro will arrive, and then we start. Go get something to eat, and send my dinner out here. I’ve some tinkering to do on the engine.”
Before separating, McKildrick suggested that Peter and Roddy should set their watches by his, which was already set to agree with Vicenti’s.