"It's true enough," I said.
Gilbert, with a short, grim laugh in his throat, growled out, "Well, let us begin to earn our grub."
Chloe read our decision in our faces. "Huzza," she cried, "the engineer chiefs—capitanos—will show us how to destroy it. We are the legs, the arms; they are the head. The lighthouse shall not be there to-night!"
In this manner Gilbert and I became "capitanos" in the Revolutionary army. From an inert and baffling position we were lifted on a wave, and flung into a rushing current. There was work for our hands and brains: a problem to solve, a thing to accomplish. And we were no longer weary.
Henrico and the sergeant joined us in a short council of war. And as at any moment the enemy's scouts might blunder on us and bring on a fight, we decided to retreat to a lower level, where we could hold an army corps at bay. Safe in this, Gilbert and I sat apart; the soldiers scooped out resting places, and, with their knapsacks for pillows, fell instantly asleep.
"Confound that girl," said Gilbert, "and confound the whole place and their tin-pot armies too! But it is a fine problem, eh? I suppose the only way to do it is by—well, anything else but fighting."
I quite agreed with him. But as hour after hour passed, and scheme after scheme was rejected, we began to think a little less of our abilities. We wrestled with the problem till our heads reeled. If only we could get a side glance even at a workable scheme. But no. At last Gilbert pulled out his Waterbury. "Five o'clock!" he cried, "we are undiluted frauds if we can't do it in another hour. It will be dark by six!"
Chloe had, in the meantime, crawled out by another level to report what was doing in the creek. She had just come back. The enemy were bivouacked round the lighthouse. On the upland, and commanding every approach, sentries and videttes marked the land as far as she could see.
However, she had brought one piece of comfort in the shape of a cool jar of water. As she served us she asked for news of our scheme.
"How soon do the hands and legs begin to work, capitanos?" she asked with a complacent smile. Gilbert, with a diplomatic, Spanish-fashion wave of his hand, replied: "So! so!"