“You couldn’t spear an eel,” objected Peter, “and if you could I wouldn’t eat it.”
“You don’t have to eat it!” explained Roddy; “the eels are only an excuse. We want to get the sentries used to seeing us flashing around the harbor at night. If we went out there without some excuse, and without permission, exploding like a barrel of fire-crackers, they’d sink us. So we must say we are out spearing eels.”
The next morning Roddy showed a blacksmith how to hammer out tridents for spearing eels, and that night those people who lived along the harbor front were kept awake by quick-fire explosions, and the glare in their windows of a shifting search-light. But at the end of the week the launch of the Gringos, as it darted noisily in and out of the harbor, and carelessly flashed its search-light on the walls of the fortress, came to be regarded less as a nuisance than a blessing. For with noble self-sacrifice the harbor eels lent themselves to the deception. By hundreds they swarmed in front of the dazzling headlight; by dozens they impaled themselves upon the tines of the pitchforks. So expert did Roddy and Peter become in harpooning, that soon they were able each morning to send to the captain of the port, to the commandant, to the prison doctor, to every citizen who objected to having his sleep punctuated, a basket of eels. It was noticed that at intervals the engine of the launch would not act properly, and the gringos were seen propelling the boat with oars. Also, the light often went out, leaving them in darkness. They spoke freely of these accidents with bitter annoyance, and people sympathized with them.
One night, when they were seated plotting in the patio, Roddy was overwhelmed with sudden misgivings.
“Wouldn’t it be awful,” he cried, “if, after we have cut the bars and shown him the rope ladder and the launch, he refuses to come with us!”
“Is that all that’s worrying you?” asked Peter.
“How is he to know?” persisted Roddy, “that we are not paid by Alvarez, that we aren’t leading him on to escape so that the sentries can have an excuse to shoot him. That has been done before. It is an old trick, like killing a man in his cell and giving out that he committed suicide. The first thing Rojas will ask us is, who sends us, and where are our credentials.”
“I guess he will take his chance,” said Peter. “He’ll see we are not Venezuelans.”
“That is the very thing that will make him refuse,” protested Roddy. “Why should he trust himself to strangers—to gringos? No, I tell you, we can’t go on without credentials.” He lowered his voice and glanced suspiciously into the dark corners of the patio. “And the only people who can give them to us,” he added, tapping impressively upon the table, “live in Curaçao.”
With sudden enthusiasm Peter de Peyster sat upright.