The lads found Captain Garcia in the wheel house carefully studying the chart of Rio Grande.
Phil shot a swift glance at Sydney as he divined the captain’s intentions. “There’s more work ahead,” he whispered.
The captain raised his head finally and greeted the midshipmen.
“The more I look into this matter the more hazardous it appears,” he confided, a worried look on his face. “I may undo the effect of our victory by losing both ships. Yet I cannot return to La Boca and report one vessel still at large and a menace to our cause.”
The captain paused and seemed in deep thought. The boys regarded him intently in silence.
“I am resorting to strategy,” he finally explained, pointing ahead in the direction of La Boca. “It is now three o’clock; there are three more hours of daylight and by dark we shall be fifty miles from Rio Grande. Our enemy will watch us pass below the horizon and I hope will believe that we have continued our way northward. As soon as it is dark I shall turn about and steam back for the harbor at full speed.”
The boys were consumed with delight at the plan.
“And then?” asked Phil.
“I have reasoned thus,” continued Captain Garcia smiling in spite of himself at the lads’ eager faces: “the torpedo-boat, believing we have gone, may leave the harbor and go outside to reconnoitre. She will go out to the locality where the ‘Soledad’ sank; there is a great deal of wreckage there which has undoubtedly been seen from ashore. I am depending upon the curiosity of my countrymen to see the ill-fated spot. If she should leave the harbor now she would be back inside before I could turn and head her off, but if she delays until sunset she will find me waiting here at the harbor’s mouth on her return. When we reach the entrance the ‘Barcelo’ will leave us and search to seaward.”
“And if she is still inside?” questioned Phil.