"Good enough," answered Matt laughing, "if you can call anything good that put our turbines out of commission at a time when we needed them. Have some of them for dinner, Speake." He turned to Dick. "Lay our course for the Port-of-Spain, old chap," he added. "We'll put into the harbor and look the submarine over to see whether her bow has been damaged any. I'll go below and have a look at the fore-rudder. Possibly we can tinker that up temporarily. It would never do to pick up the midshipman with the Grampus at all out of commission."
"Aye, aye, old ship!" responded Dick heartily.
They were to call at the Port-of-Spain, after all, and Dick Ferral was mightily pleased with the prospect.
[CHAPTER II.]
JOHN HENRY GLENNIE, U. S. N.
The anchor of the steamship Borneo splashed into the yellow waters of the Gulf of Paria, the boat continuing onward until the anchor had taken a grip on the muddy bottom. The Borneo was from Venezuelan ports, and at La Guayra had picked up no less a personage than John Henry Glennie, Ensign, U. S. N.
The steamer carried a queer assortment of passengers, and they were all around Ensign Glennie as he sat well aft on the grating beside the hand-steering gear.
Venezuelans were chattering like magpies; little brown youngsters were rolling over and over around Glennie's feet; a British engineer was talking with a Jew pearl buyer from Margarita Island—the Spanish coming queerly from their alien lips; a German coffee-planter was exchanging small talk with the wife of a Dutch officer who lived in Curaçoa; and there was the usual ragtag and bobtail of English and Brazilians, all of whom gave the youth in the naval uniform more or less curious notice.
But the youth, his suit case on a table at his elbow, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Judging merely by appearance, Ensign Glennie's thoughts were far from pleasant. His fingers drummed sharply on the table top, and there was a frown of discontent on his face as his eyes fixed themselves gloomily on the Trinidad hills that lay back of the town of Port-of-Spain. In all conscience, the ensign had enough to trouble him.