Of course that was what we all wanted to do, and wondered all this time why the English Government allowed the President to go on stopping our trade. It was jolly galling to all of us to see the fleet of local British steamers lying in Princes' Town harbour doing nothing, simply because the President up at Santa Cruz wanted to punish the insurgents. The English merchants were grumbling furiously, and wanting to know what use the Hector and Hercules were if they weren't to be used to protect their trade. Everybody was saying that it was a thousand pities that more people hadn't followed Gerald's example and gone in for the revolution 'bald headed.' In fact, Gerald had become a popular hero, and you can imagine how proud it made me. But then I got rather a nasty jar. The Captain sent for me, and I found him in his cabin with a lot of papers in front of him. He tut, tutted and hummed and hawed a good deal, and then burst out with: 'Look here, Wilson, you'd better give that brother of yours the tip to keep clear of Princes' Town or an English man-of-war. I've got orders to arrest him if I can get my hands on him. Look at this!' and he showed me a big document beginning,
'Whereas it has been represented to us by our Minister resident in Santa Cruz in the Republic of Santa Cruz that a person, Gerald Wilson—known as Don Geraldio—being a British Subject, has taken up arms against the Government of Santa Cruz Republic, that Government being at present on terms of friendship with his Britannic Majesty's Government, all law-abiding subjects of his Britannic Majesty are hereby warned, on pain of being indicted for felony, to abstain from affording any assistance to the aforesaid Gerald Wilson.'
I got very red in the face, and then came to the part,
'The utmost endeavour is to be made to arrest the aforesaid Gerald Wilson should he enter British Territory.'
That was roughly what I read, though I can't remember now the actual words, but it was so full of legal phrases that it made me feel cold all over. It seemed so beastly cold-blooded too, as if he hadn't already done more actually for old England than all the rest of us English out here put together.
'Well, boy, give him the tip to keep clear—that's all,' the Skipper said, screwing his eyeglass in and running his fingers through his long hair.
'I can't, sir,' I told him. 'I don't know where he is. He's wounded too, sir.'
Then I told him about the letters I'd received and how I'd got them.
'Well, well, boy, I can tell you. Tut, tut! Read that—I got it from our Minister this morning—brought across in a trading-schooner. You're not to speak of it till the news comes out.'
He was simply bubbling with pleasure, and handed me another paper.