“I declare!” he said to himself, “he believes that Señor Zuroaga brought the powder, and he didn’t. He believes that the señor is going in for old Santa Anna, and he isn’t. He believes that the señor and I are enemies of Paredes, and so we are. I am! I hope that he’ll be beaten out of his boots by General Taylor, and then upset by the new revolution. I guess he’s right, though, about this ship, and I must find out how I can send a letter home. I want father and mother to know all about this business. Go ashore and hide? I’m ready for that, but I’d like to get a good look at the old city somehow.”
Ned had been laboring under many perplexities and a great deal of depression of spirits during several days, but now he felt a kind of exhilarating fever creeping all over him, and at first he did not know exactly what it might be. When his father had taken him with him across the Atlantic,—it seemed so long ago now,—he had gone eagerly enough, and he had had a grand time looking at Liverpool and London. It had been a rare treat for a youngster who had but recently passed up from a grammar school into the counting-room of a New York shipping-house. After that, when he had been sent on this trip, to make his voyage home by way of Mexico, he had considered himself exceedingly lucky. But what was all that in comparison with this in the way of strange and wild adventure? Why, he had sailed through a naval engagement, cannonading and all, and right on out of that into a full-grown war and a half-grown revolution. The thrill which went over him was, therefore, the adventure fever. Something like this fever, in the veins of all sorts of men, young and old, has made the world what it is, discovering its new countries, its new sciences, its new institutions, and leading it forward and upward out of its old-time dullness and barbarism. So Ned stood straighter and felt older and had a pair of very brave, bright eyes when he walked forward to try and have a few words with Captain Kemp.
“Captain,” he asked, “when can I go ashore?”
“Not quite yet,” said the captain. “Don’t bother me now. Of course, the ammunition for the castle goes out first. Then all the rest of the cargo must go ashore as fast as it can, and you are bound to attend to that. I’m glad that all of it is apparently on English account, and not for the American part of the concern. That makes all things easy. I hardly know what to do with the ship, though. We can’t repair her here.”
That was evidently the disadvantage of having a vessel get out of order in a place where there were no good dockyards. As for the unlading, there were already “lighter” barges on their way from the fort, and others, no doubt, would soon be on hand from the city. Haste was the main object, under the circumstances, and the entire work would be rapidly accomplished.
Zuroaga went below, and Ned followed him, for there was nothing more that he could do on deck just then.
“Señor,” he asked, as soon as they were in the cabin, “how can I send a letter home? I don’t know exactly what to say, either.”
“Say anything you please,” replied the señor. “Your letter will go by the mail of the English consul, and the mails for England will not be meddled with by the Mexican authorities.”
“I’ll sit right down and begin one,” said Ned, but the señor interrupted him very soberly with:
“One word before you begin, please. I know you overheard what Colonel Guerra said to me. You and I must get on shore as soon as we can, and it will not do for either of us to remain in Vera Cruz. I have decided that I must take you with me to Oaxaca.”