They spent half an hour on board, explaining that the Dictator's flag (Canilla's) flew nowhere throughout the province of Leon, except over El Castellar—the fort which had had the accident two hours before—and of course swore that they were now strong enough to march on Santa Cruz itself, and intended to do so very shortly. The upshot was that they demanded official recognition from the Foreign Powers. That was the whole matter; they wanted recognition so that they could buy warlike supplies from abroad openly, for of course at the present time no Foreign Power would allow its subjects to assist them. 'We have this policy foreign, we encourage the merchants, and we permit all trade very much of the foreign peoples, and very much the Inglesas also. Always they shall be first now that the noble Inglese ship of war visit San Fernando—the first ship to come,' the little secretary told me.
He looked so diminutive and so important, and was evidently in such discomfort with his boots and his tight frock-coat, that I had to screw my eyeglass into my eye till it pained—I wanted to laugh so much.
Not a word did they say about the little cruiser which was lying close by, waiting for a chance to pot them on their way ashore, or about the shell-marks on every wall. Not much, for that would have drawn attention to the perfectly obvious fact that they could do nothing till they had command of the sea, and also to the fact that they were absolutely without any artillery. A couple of well-fought six-pounder guns, if they'd had them, would have been quite sufficient to drive off the wretched little cruiser-gunboat kind of affair. Poor chaps! you couldn't help seeing that they were terribly in earnest, but I couldn't possibly give them any hopes of their Provisional Government being recognised, the most I could do was to forward their demand by 'wireless' to the Hercules at Princes' Town for her to cable home. I saw them over the side, and interrupted the brothers Wilson yarning at the bottom of the gangway.
'Ask your brother if he'll show me round the place if I come ashore for a toddle,' I sang out.
'Certainly, sir; he'll be only too pleased,' my Sub answered.
'If he dyed his hair I might ask your brother to dine with me to-night,' I told him, as we watched them slowly splashing ashore; 'I shouldn't recognise him with his hair dyed—not officially.'
Botheration take it! I'd never said anything about that wretched hydraulic machinery I'd been bullied into bringing across. Still, you can't talk to Provisional Governments about packing-cases, can you? However, my Sub relieved my mind on this point.
'I told Gerald that we had a lot of things for a firm here, sir,' he informed me. 'He's going to tell them.'
'Good lad! Good boy!' I said, and went below. The commander of the cruiser wasn't showing any signs of calling on me, in fact he was beginning to raise steam, so I got ready for my toddle ashore.
'Yes, please; usual leave to officers,' I told the Commander, who hammered at my door (he always was noisy, thought it made him breezy—it didn't), and sent the Comfort with my compliments to Dr. Watson, my Fleet Surgeon, and would he come ashore with me for a walk. He was so lazy that he wouldn't be able to walk far, and would therefore act as a check on my Sub's brother if he wanted to rush me over the country. I had thought of taking my Sub himself, but he couldn't come, had to get out that hydraulic machinery.