The Filibusters, Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

IT appeared I was not to go against Carew with my naked hands. Fluellen was already detailed off for the work, and I was to accompany Fluellen as his may I say? lieutenant. You will understand that I had my own strong reasons for crushing Carew once and for all, but I think that Fluellen was, if anything, keener over the matter than I was myself. The reason was an obvious one. Don Juan Carmoy had failed to get what he wanted from President Briggs, and had incontinently turned his coat. President Maxillo up in the mountains was for the time non-active. President Carew, self-elected, energetic, desperate, was his only alternative. Carmoy could bring over a good following, and Carew was quite ready to promise anything to gain such a man’s support, and as a consequence the pair of them were running in double harness for the time being.

Here, then, was an occupation after Fluellen’s own heart: to hunt these two. Carmoy had robbed him of the little Irish girl he loved, and so ruined all his life; Carew was helping farmoy; so Fluellen had a heavy personal bill against both of them.

However, will for harm is one thing, and ability to do it is quite another. The pair of us rode across the country down to Los Angeles, intending to take the one armed cruiser Sacaronduca possessed to go after our pirate without any delay. There would be no trouble in finding him. He had got a steamer armed and manned, was visiting the coast towns systematically and extorting an oath of allegiance and a boat-load of tribute from each. As a pirate he was magnificent; as a President he was acting completely according to Sacaronducan standards; and although the good people of Los Angeles cursed him openly in their speech, one was not very long in finding out that there was a very tolerable wave of public feeling settling in his favour. As I have hinted before, the Sacaronducan, like all his Spanish-American brethren, is very fickle in his political amours.

We had a practical instance of this not an hour after our tired horses had brought us to the Government House in Los Angeles. There had been an attempt to gain over the officers of the cruiser, with the result that a brace of the tempters were summarily shot. To cut her out from under the guns of the forts was an impossibility, and so, as they could not gain her over to their own side, the Carew faction took care that she should not be used against them. She lay in the harbour, moored against the Custom House quay, and in the blackness of night some ingenious sympathiser, paid or voluntary, put her effectually hors de combat for the succeeding month.

There was a good steady breeze blowing at the time, and by means of a kite with a wire string this anonymous genius floated a parcel of dynamite across through the air from the opposite side of the harbour, and then with a tripping line spilt the kite so that the load fell slap on to the cruiser’s decks.

Both her officers and crew were staunch enough; they had sentries on the quay; they had sentries all over the ship; they were taking all reasonable care against interference. But they did not expect an attack from the air, and in fact they never dreamed of its possibility till it had succeeded. The whole vessel, the whole city, indeed, was waked by a deafening roar, and presently a messenger came running in to us with the news. The dynamite bomb, or whatever it was, had been cannily dropped down an open engine-room skylight, had exploded against the engines, and had smashed the high pressure and intermediate cylinders to scrap, and had effectually put the war-ship out of action for at least another couple of months.

“I heard the dockyard superintendent say that he would cable to some works in England at once, and have new cylinders cast and turned,” said the lieutenant who brought the news. ” You see the job is quite beyond what we could do here in our own shops. But at the very quickest it will be six weeks before we can get the castings out here, and we are not likely to get them fitted or ready for sea in less than another fortnight or three weeks. You see, seflores, we have so few dockyard appliances in Los Angeles at present. President Puentos has promised us better things under his regime, and I can assure you that we of the navy look forward to them most keenly.”

“You’ll have to continue looking if this sort of thing goes on,” said Fluellen. ” Here’s Carew at us already with the cruiser, and he’s beaten us in the first round. What speed has this steamer of his?”

“There’s no knowing,” said the lieutenant. “Pie’s changed her twice already, and gives no one a chance of telling tales about him.”

“By Jove, a regular vvalk-the-plank pirate, the man’s turned. Well, he always had the taste for it in his heart.”

“As you know,” continued the lieutenant, “we’ve been out cruising after him and only came back into port again to coal. But we were never lucky enough to do more than follow in his footsteps. We put into half a dozen places which he had just left after levying a ransom, but we were never lucky enough to catch him in the act. He had amazing luck.”

“Or cleverness.”

“Well, say both. Any way we did our best. We spoke every ship we met except a couple that had the heels of us and, oh, one other and could not get word of him anywhere. As I told you, he has a knack of changing steamers.”

“What other ship was it you didn’t board?”

The lieutenant gave a wry smile. “A Britisher. A little old barque-rigged gunboat with single topsails and about eight knots of steam. Her name’s the Rabbit, and her captain might be admiral of the station from the airs he puts on. He’s only a commander in rank, by the way. We steamed up within hailing distance, and told him we were hunting for a pirate, whereupon he coolly hinted that we were not much better than pirates ourselves, and that he would fire on us if we were not respectful. He had got his ship cleared for action and his crew at quarters, and I really believe he would have blazed into us if we had given him an atom of chance. The bumptious insolence of the man was rather amusing. If we had chosen we could have blown his old tub out of the water in five minutes, and he hadn’t got a gun to touch us.

The lieutenant, who was a Texan, was rather inclined to take the situation flippantly. Fluellen, however, chilled him down.

“Seflor,” he said, ” I trust that your commanding officer oil the cruiser upheld the dignity of his country. Of course, it would be impolitic to have a fracas with Great Britain, but President Puentos’ government must be respected. At the same time you must remember that the political change in this country is still new. The Sacaronducan Minister in London has been discredited by us, as he was an appointment of Maxillo’s, but so far he has not been replaced.”

“That Britisher said he was still in possession, and that the only government which England recognised in this country was Maxillo’s.

“Ah, well,” said Fluellen, ” I suppose we must admit that diplomatic relations between the two nations have been more or less suspended during the past few months. Home matters have occupied every attention. But I do know for a fact that President Puentos will shortly have an accredited Minister in London, and the reason for the gunboat captain’s brusqueness probably lies in the fact that he was a long time from port, and has not received any fresh information about the change of affairs.”

Fluellen sat down at a desk and began to write a despatch, and the lieutenant turned away and rolled himself a cigarette. ” Brusqueness,” I heard him murmur. ” Oh, my only aunt Louisa! Brusqueness! I wish you could have heard the beggar.”

The lieutenant lit the cigarette and went away, and Fluellen sealed his despatch and turned to me and shook his head.

“Carew’s a hard nut to crack,” I said. ” I found that out for myself already. I wish we could set him and this meddlesome gunboat by the ears to settle one another’s hash mutually.”

“Carew’s not a fool,” said Fluellen. ” To judge from the cleverness he’s shown already, he’s much more likely to play off the gunboat against us. As a point of fact, I know this Rabbit and her skipper. Meadey’s his name. He got the appointment just before we left England, and I’m afraid he’s the type of animal that has very little respect for any service except the British navy, and rather less than none at all for anything connected with a Central American Republic.”

“Does Carew know him personally?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you?”

“I met him once, but merely during a day’s covert shooting ” he frowned, and added ” in Ireland. It was at Julia’s place.”

“Phew! Then does this naval person know that the lady is now Mrs. Carmoy, and that her excellent husband is co-pirating with Carew?”

“Can’t say, I’m sure. But you can go and ask