I saw the Skipper ship his 'sea-boot' face again, and felt certain that he was wondering whether it was possible to let things go on as they were, and not tell the news.

He 'tut-tutted,' screwed in his eyeglass, took off his helmet, and ran his fingers through his long hair, as he always did when worried, and then burst out with, 'Wilson, I've bad news for you—very sorry, lad, very sorry; the fleet and the transports cleared out because that cruiser of yours, La Buena Presidente, may be here at any minute, and, very sorry, lad, but I've got to capture her and give her up to the people at Santa Cruz. Our Government won't recognise the insurgent Provisional Government, and I'm ordered to inform the Commandant. That's why I'm here now.'

I could hardly bear to look at Gerald.

He caught his breath for a moment, and his grand jaw tightened the least little bit as he said slowly, 'We shall have to make a fresh start, Captain Grattan.'

'What shall I do?' the Skipper asked him. 'You'd better explain to the Commandant.'

That struck me as being too much to ask of Gerald, but he only tightened his jaws a little more, and began jabbering away in Spanish to the Commandant, whose tired, hungry-looking eyes opened out with pleasure and cunning, so that I knew that my brother had told him everything, and knew perfectly well that there would be no surrender. It wouldn't help old Gerald much now, even if he did get possession of the fort, because that cruiser, whose coming we'd been longing for so much and now so dreaded, would, after we'd handed her over to the Santa Cruz Navy, batter down its walls with the utmost ease.

If I'd been Gerald I'm hanged if I would have told him the truth, and would have taken my chance with the fort. Oh! wasn't it cruel luck?

'The Commandant thanks you for the information,' Gerald said, turning to the Skipper, 'and under the new circumstances will not surrender El Castellar.'

We saw the Commandant speak to the officer who had met us, and he must have passed the news round, for, in a minute or two, a couple of hundred ragged half-starved soldiers surged out from under those thatched huts, swarmed round us, and began shouting out, 'Viva los Inglesas!' 'Viva la Marina Inglesa!' The brutes—they'd have cut our throats, ten minutes ago, with the greatest pleasure. I saw the 'Gnome's' hand go to his revolver, for they jolly well looked as if they wanted to cut his throat and the other officers'—he was bristling with anger.

'Come along, boy, we've done enough harm here,' the Skipper said.