A few minutes later Speake came up with the supper. After the meal was out of the way, Speake took Dick's place at the wheel in order to give him a chance to rest, and later assume Gaines' place at the motor. Carl went down to give Clackett a rest, and Matt stretched out on the locker.
It was midnight when the Grampus rounded Cape Magoari and turned into the Para arm of the Amazon. The port of Para was seventy-five miles up the river, and Matt decided to submerge the Grampus, pass the rest of the night on the river bottom, and then ascend to the town with daylight to help.
This arrangement enabled all hands to sleep, and morning found the submarine's complement fresh and ready for whatever fate held in store.
The ascent of the river was made on the surface of the stream, with all who could be spared on deck, searching the shipping with careful eyes. Matt and his friends were looking for the mysterious steamer that carried the fighting contingent of the Sons of the Rising Sun, and were vastly relieved when they failed to sight the vessel.
It was nearly noon when the red roofs of Para came into view. The river, opposite the town, was about twenty miles wide, but so cut up with islands that the steamer with the black funnel and the red band might have lain among them and so escaped observation. However, Matt and his companions chose to think that the Young Samurai were too discreet to make them any trouble in a peaceable port.
The Grampus was moored alongside a wharf, and a gayly uniformed harbor official came aboard to learn the submarine's business, and to find whether there was any need of a customs inspector. The sight of Glennie, and his declaration that the boat had merely put in at the port to give some of her crew a chance to pay their respects to Mr. Brigham, the United States consul, was enough.
Matt, although he fancied the boat secure, did not intend taking any chances. Dick, Carl, and Speake were to be left aboard as an anchor watch, while Matt and Glennie called on the consul, and Gaines and Clackett whiled away a few hours in the river metropolis. The prisoner was to be left in the steel room until the consul should advise what had better be done with him.
Consul Brigham, Matt and Glennie quickly learned, lived on the finest avenue in Para—the Estrada de Sao José. Through this thoroughfare bordered with a colonnade of royal palms, Matt and Glennie were driven on their way to the consulate.
In the office of the consulate was a gentleman in shirt sleeves and white duck trousers. His feet were elevated on the top of a table, and he was trying to keep himself cool with an immense palm-leaf fan.
The sight of a United States naval uniform brought the consul to his feet immediately.