We went to 'General Quarters' before we were abreast Marina and the Casino, and I sat on the top of my turret with the long 9.2 cocked up in the air in front of me.
I soon spotted La Buena Presidente's tripod mast, and as we gradually drew nearer expected her to open fire any minute, but she didn't, and we crept along for another ten minutes or so. She seemed to be very low in the water, and I was wondering whether that would be due to the mirage, when a signalman, perched on the wreck of the fore bridge, shouted that she was sunk, and, sure enough, as we drew still nearer, we saw that her upper deck was all awash, and only her tripod mast, funnels, and upper works showed above water—the black and green flag hanging from her gaff.
We were too astonished to feel relieved, and anchored within a couple of cables of her.
Almost immediately the Provisional Government came off to make the most abject apologies for what had happened—they wouldn't have come, I suppose, if their ship had not sunk—and with them came Captain Don Martin de Pelayo—just such another as General Zorilla, as Gerald had told me. He wore eyeglasses, talked English, was awfully polite, and genuinely sorry for the damage he had done.
'I had my orders—you had yours,' I heard him tell the Skipper, after they had shaken hands very heartily. 'I am very sorry. We are not enemies of the English. I try to run past you without firing, but—voila!' (and he shrugged his shoulders) 'you shoot so fast and you damage my ship so much, I fear that I shall never arrive at San Fernando. Fifty times you fire—I do nothing—but then I had to fire—it was necessaire, and my guns—voila! they are very big.'
'Why did you sink her?' the Skipper asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. 'Treachery—the night after that we come in—we land our wounded—they are many—and many killed—some traitor open our valves, and in the middle of the night we sink in the mud.'
'We should have sunk you with our torpedoes, so it doesn't make any difference,' the Skipper said.
Well, that was the end of La Buena Presidente and the end to all the hopes of the insurgents. The Santa Cruz fleet could come and go where and when it pleased, land another army, and drive Gerald and the Provisional Government into the forest again, beyond the reach of their guns, and there was not the slightest chance either, whilst the fleet controlled the coast, of joining forces with the insurgents in the north and of attacking Santa Cruz itself.
That same evening our young red marine subaltern, the 'Shadow,' went mad.