"Then I'll bring a few guns, merely to be on the safe side. You'll attend to the other equipment?"
"About all we'll need is a barrel of gasoline. I can pick that up and have it taken off to the boat."
"I'll come aboard, bringing this pilot I was telling you about, and the rest of the plunder, along toward evening. We'll drop down the coast to-night and start for the rendezvous of the revolutionists in the morning. It will be well, I think, to go up the river with the Grampus submerged. In that manner we shall be able to hide our approach. However, that is something we can settle later. If you——"
The consul paused, his eyes down the street.
"Well," he muttered, "here comes your friend, Ferral, and he appears to be in a tearing hurry. I wonder if anything has gone wrong with Nemo, Jr.?"
This thought was uppermost in Matt's mind as he sprang to the top of the steps and watched Dick running toward the consulate along the street.
"What's up, Dick?" he asked anxiously, as his chum came close. "Is the captain all right?"
"They're bringing him on a stretcher, and the doctor thinks he'll be all right in a few days," Dick answered. "It wasn't that that made me clap on all sail, matey, but something else."
"What else?"
"Why, Cassidy. As we were coming ashore with the captain I saw the mate pulling off to a schooner that was anchored half a mile t'other side the Grampus. There was a chunk of a man with him in a blue cap and coat. They were aboard the schooner when we hit the landing, and before we started for town, the schooner's anchor was tripped and she was off down the coast with every rag of sail hoisted and drawing. What does that mean? What's Cassidy up to?"