“Not he,” Stump declared joyfully. “He was loaded with ‘blacks’ and guns.”
“That’s where you’re dead wrong, then,” O’Neil explained, “for he has landed everything and a foreign count has hired the schooner.”
Stump gazed in wonder at the speaker.
“You don’t seem to know ‘Bully’ Scott,” he said. “Them guns are in the schooner and he’s going to land them to-night at Saluafata.”
“Come with me,” O’Neil commanded taking Stump by the arm. “You ought to know if any one does. What we’ve got to do is to put our captain wise at once. Is Scott an Englishman?” O’Neil asked.
“Not he!” Stump exclaimed. “He’s an American. Comes from ‘Frisco’; and the ‘Talofa’ was stolen at Hongkong from a Chinaman.”
As they passed Klinger’s store, Stump stopped to eye the boxes still piled on the porch of the store.
He shook his head as he continued behind the two men-of-war’s men. “Nope, them guns must be on the schooner,” he said to himself.
At the landing they met the two midshipmen, who had returned from their picnic and were waiting to return to the “Sitka.”
O’Neil explained the situation.