"Yes," said the lad, looking round. "Clouds are gathering in the west, and we are going to have a grand show of such colours as I never saw anywhere else. Come on up, there's a good chap."

Fitz remained silent, and the skipper's son winked to himself.

"Where's Mr Burgess now?" said Fitz at last.

"He's in his cabin, writing home to his wife. You would never think how particular such a gruff old fellow as he is about writing home. Writes a long letter every week as regular as clockwork. Doesn't seem like a pirate, does it?"

"Is your father on deck?"

"No. He's in his cabin, busy over the chart. We are getting pretty close to the port now."

"Ah!" cried Fitz eagerly. "What port are we making for?"

"San Cristobal."

"Where's that?"

"In the Armado Republic, Central America."

"Oh," said Fitz. "I never heard of it before. Is there a British Consul there?"

"Oh, I don't know. There generally is one everywhere. I think there used to be before Don Villarayo upset the Government and got himself made President."

"And is it to him that you are taking out field-guns and ammunition?"

"I never said we were taking out field-guns and ammunition," said Poole innocently. "There's nothing of that sort down in the bills of lading-- only Birmingham hardware. Oh no, it is not for him. It is for another Don who is opening a new shop there in opposition to Villarayo, and from what I heard he is going to do the best trade."

"What's the good of your talking all this rubbish to me? Of course I know what it all means."

"That's right. I supposed you did know something about it, or else your skipper would not have sent you to try and capture our Birmingham goods."

"Birmingham goods!" cried Fitz. "Fire-arms, you mean."

"To be sure, yes," said Poole. "I forgot them. There are a lot of fireworks ready for a big celebration when the new Don opens his shop!"

"Bah!" cried Fitz contemptuously; and then after a few moments' thought, "Well," he said shortly, "I suppose I shall have to do it. I can't stop always in this stuffy cabin. It will make me ill again; and I may just as well face it out now as at some other time."

"Just," said Poole, "only I am afraid you will be disappointed, for you will find nothing to face."

Fitz turned upon the speaker fiercely, looking as if he were going to make some angry remark; but he found no sneer on the face of the skipper's son, only a frank genial smile, which, being lit up by the warm glow gradually gathering in the west, seemed to glance upon and soften his own features, till he turned sharply away as if feeling ashamed of what he looked upon as weakness, and the incident ended by his saying suddenly--"Let's go on deck."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

"OLD CHAP"--"OLD FELLOW."

Days of slow sailing through calm blue waters, with quite an Archipelago of Eden-like islands showing one or another in sight.

Very slow progress was made on account of the wind, which was light and generally adverse.

Fitz pa.s.sed his time nearly always on deck with the skipper's gla.s.s in hand, every now and then close enough in to one of the islands to excite an intense longing to land, partly to end his imprisonment, as he called it, partly from sheer desire to plunge into one or another of the glorious valleys which ran upward from the sea, cut deep into the side of some volcanic mountain.

"Lovely!" was always on the boy's lips. "I never saw anything like this before, Poole. But where's the port we are sailing for? Are we never going to land?"

"Oh, it's only a little farther on," was the reply. "If this wind only gets up a little more towards sundown I expect we shall soon be there."

"That's what you always keep saying," was the impatient retort.

"Yes," said Poole coolly; "but it isn't my fault. It's the wind."

"Oh, hang the wind!"

"You should say, blow it!" said Poole, laughing. "But I say, old chap, I don't want to damp you, but you really had better not indulge in any hope of seeing any consul or English people who will help you to get away. San Cristobal is a very solitary place, where the people are all mongrels, a mixture of native Indians and half-bred Spaniards. Father says they are like the volcano at the back of the city, for when it is not blowing up, they are."

"Well, I shall learn all that for myself," said Fitz coldly.

"You will, old fellow, and before long too."

"What do you mean by that?" said Fitz sharply. "Only that we shall be there for certain to-night." As it happened, the wind freshened a little that evening, while the sunset that Poole had prophesied was glorious in the extreme; a wondrous pile of ma.s.sive clouds formed up from the horizon almost to the zenith, shutting out the sun, and Fitz watched the resplendent hues until his eyes were ready to ache--purple, scarlet, orange and gold, with flashes in between of the most vivid metallic blue, ever increasing, ever changing, until the eye could bear no more and sought for rest in the sea through which they sailed, a sea that resembled liquid rubies or so much wine.

But the end was coming fast, and like some transformation scene, the clouds were slowly drawn aside, the vivid tints began to pale till they died away into a rich, soft, purple gloom spangled with drops of gold.

And a deep sigh escaped from the middy's breast as he stood wondering over the glories of the rapid change from glowing day into the soft, transparent, tropic night.

"I never saw anything like that before," sighed the boy.

"No, I suppose not," was the reply. "It was almost worth coming all this way to see. Doesn't it seem queer to you where all the clouds are gone?"

"Yes," said Fitz; "I was thinking about that. There is only one left, now, over yonder, with the sun glowing on it still."

"That's not the sun," said Poole quietly.

"Yes, it is. I mean there, that soft dull red. Look before it dies out."

"That's the one I was looking at, and it won't die out; if you like to watch you will see it looking dull and red like that all night."

"Oh, I see," cried Fitz mockingly; "you mean that the sun goes down only a little way there, and then comes up again in the same place."

"No, I don't," said Poole quietly. "What you see is the glow from the volcano a few miles back behind the town."

"What!" cried Fitz. "Then we are as close to the port as that?"

"Yes. We are not above a dozen miles away. It's too dark to see now, or you could make out the mountains that surround the bay."

"Then why couldn't we see them before the sun was set?" cried Fitz sceptically.

"Because they were all hidden by the clouds and golden haze that gather round of an evening. Yes, yonder's San Cristobal, and as soon as it is a little darker if you use the gla.s.s you will be able to make out which are the twinkling electric lights and which are stars."