The midshipmen’s eyes sparkled; they were just about to express their delight at this possibility when they suddenly realized that she was of the same blood as those they were wishing to fight.
Phil was the first to see the reproving look in the girl’s eyes.
“You must not blame us, señorita,” he hastened to say apologetically. “You see fighting is our business; we look for it the same as a merchant looks for trade or a fisherman for fish.”
“I think your ideas are wrong, señor,” she replied quickly, but in a caressing tone, to soften the sting. “Your duty is not necessarily to fight, but to prevent fighting. The sisters in the convent taught us that a soldier’s duty was to uphold the honor of his country. If fighting only will accomplish this duty, then it is just to fight, but in this case no honor is at stake. How can our people hurt the honor of a great nation like yours?”
Phil blushed half angrily, half in shame. This girl of a dark race had the temerity to tell him what was his duty, and he was defenseless, for she was in the right.
“It is true, señorita, what you say,” Sydney came to the rescue, “but peace for us is very monotonous, always the same eternal grind. War is exciting; it stirs the blood and makes men of us.”
“Yes, señor,” the girl answered in a low, hard voice, “and it arouses all the evil passions in us. We forget all our training, all our ideals, all our instincts for good, and give way to the instincts of the beasts. My people in war are not men, señor, they are demons.”
While the girl was talking the steamer had drawn closer to the lorcha which Phil had sighted earlier in the afternoon. The night was not bright; a crescent moon cast a dim light on the hull scarcely a hundred yards on the weather bow. The breeze had freshened, and with wind free the lorcha’s sails bellied out, giving it a speed almost equal to that of the steamer.
“Why doesn’t he give that sail a wider berth?” Phil exclaimed suddenly as the girl’s voice died away. “If she should yaw now, she’d be into us.”
“Look out!” Sydney cried in alarm as the lorcha suddenly sheered to leeward and the great mass of tautening canvas careened toward the unsuspecting steamer.