"Yes, but friend or foe?" exclaimed Clif. "It's not the New York. She went in the other direction, and I don't know of any more of our boats in this place."
"Perhaps the New York is coming back," ventured one of the men.
"No," replied Clif. "She's not been here for at least three hours. By that time we will be ready to return to her."
"It must be a blockade runner," suggested one of the men.
"Well, I don't see as it makes any difference," said Clif, finally. "If it is, we can't stop her. She can't be after us, for I am sure no one of the enemy knows our mission. There is our landing place. We must hurry or we will be late."
With this he turned the prow of the boat toward shore, and gave orders to proceed. A few minutes later the boat grated upon the beach and the sailors sprang ashore.
There was no one to dispute their landing. The coast at this point was wild and uninhabited, and but a short distance inland was the spot appointed for the meeting with the insurgent courier.
Clif hid the boat among some bushes and quickly led the men up the steep bank toward a clump of trees.
"This is the spot," he exclaimed as they reached it, "and we are evidently ahead of time."
No one was in sight, as far as the eye could penetrate the darkness. There was barely enough light from the moon just emerging from behind a cloud to enable the sailors to take some notice of the surroundings. Where they stood, near the sparse clump of trees, it was smooth and level, but close to one side of them rose a ridge of ground forming a natural rampart. It almost seemed as though Spanish forms might at any instant appear upon it behind threatening guns.