CHAPTER XXIV.
UNLOADING AN ARMY.
After what they had passed through the previous night the boys, as maybe imagined, did not awaken till late next day, to find the sunstreaming through the porthole of their cabin and the ship rolling in aheavy beam-end sort of a way that showed them at once that they were atanchor. Hurriedly dressing they hastened on deck and found themselves onboard what was evidently a converted yacht, to judge by her brass andmahogany fittings. Several machine guns, though, and the presenceforward of hundreds of ragged soldiers gambling and chicken-fighting,showed them that they were not on board any pleasure craft, but one thatwas equipped strictly for business—and the grim business of war at that.
They had hardly poked their heads out of the companion before a dapperlittle man in a brass-buttoned sea uniform hastened up to them. Thispersonage introduced himself as Captain Hans Scheffel, of the vessel anda former commander of a German passenger boat. In a few words heinformed the boys that the craft was one of the yachts purchased by therevolutionists for conversion into gunboats and that she was at thatmoment anchored a few miles south of Bluefields, where it was thepresent plan that the revolutionaries should be put ashore and commencea march to the Rama River, and possibly across it, to gain the mainbody, as somewhere in the Rama country Rogero and his troops weresupposed to be encamped.
The boys were much relieved to learn that the vessel on which they foundthemselves was not, as they had at first feared, one of the government’scraft. They well knew that the government of Nicaragua was no friend toAmericans and that, in their case especially, Rogero’s enmity would makeit risky,—if not actually perilous,—for them to fall into the hands ofZelayan troops.
After the first introductions and explanations of the stout littleGerman and the profuse thanks of the boys for their rescue, he led thembelow to breakfast in what had been the elaborately decorated saloon ofthe American millionaire who formerly owned the gunboat. All the “giltand gingerbread,” however, had been stripped from her when she wasconverted into a fighting-craft, and now she was as plain as a barge inher interior fittings.
The loss of their _Golden Eagle_ had been a severe blow to the boys andthey were not feeling in any too cheerful a mood as Captain Scheffelushered them into the room and motioned to a table on which was spreadan ample breakfast served by black stewards. They were just sitting downto it with healthy young appetites, that even regret over the loss oftheir ship could not dull, when one of the doors opening off the saloonopened and a tall, black-mustached young man of unmistakably SouthAmerican descent entered.
He wore a uniform and a sword and walked with an air of assurance thatmade it apparent that he was a dignitary of some sort, and that this wasthe case was at once evidenced when the Captain, with a bow andflourish, introduced to the boys:
“Señor General Ruiz, in command of this section of General Estrada’sarmy.”
The name made both boys start.
“General Ruiz,” exclaimed Frank, “surely not General Ruiz—Mr. Chester’sneighbor?”
“The same;” replied the young man, with a laugh at the boy’s frankastonishment, “and you?”
“We are Frank and Harry Chester,” began Frank.
“Ah, I might have seen the family likeness,” interrupted the soldierwith a smile, “forgive me for my inattention.”
“But we believed that you were dead!” exclaimed Harry. “Jose, ourfather’s servant, brought the news the day before we arrived inNicaragua.”
Ruiz raised his hands with an exclamation of grief.
“My poor wife,” he exclaimed, “it must have been a sad blow to her.However, in a few days now I trust that we shall be on familiar soil andI shall be able to atone to her for her worry and grief.”
“Familiar soil—” repeated Frank, delightedly; for this could only meanone thing.
“Yes,” replied the general, “we are to join the main force somewherealong the coast south of here and march toward La Merced. I understandthat—and I am sorry to convey the news to you—that Rogero has announcedthat he is going to make it his headquarters.”
“His headquarters;” repeated both boys, gritting their teeth, “he wouldnot dare.”
“Rogero would dare anything,” replied General Ruiz. “If I had not mademy escape after the battle in which Jose believed me shot, I should notbe here now, but a victim of Rogero’s drumhead court-martial. As it was,I had a narrow shave. Fortunately, however, for me, one of my guards wasa former servant of my family, and a small bribe, combined with hisloyalty to the Ruiz clan, sufficed to make him forget his charge forawhile. I made my way north and then sent messengers to General Estrada,who ordered me to take charge of the northern division which wasencamped at Mazucla, fifty miles north of here and bring it down thecoast on this gunboat.”
General Ruiz concluded his narrative with a few words of sympathy to theboys for the loss of their _Golden Eagle_ which, he said, he had alwayshoped to see, having heard such reports of it from Mr. Chester, butsupposed that would now be impossible.
“Not at all,” replied Frank bravely, “if you will come to New York sixmonths from now you will see the _Golden Eagle II_, a finer, stanchercraft even than the one that lies at the bottom of the Caribbean.”
Under General Ruiz’s direction the work of disembarking was gone aboutimmediately the meal was concluded. There were five hundred men to begot ashore and runners despatched to learn the whereabouts of Estrada’sforce with which Ruiz had orders to combine, besides a camp site to befound, all of which demanded expedition.
Frank and Harry watched with much eager amusement and interest the workof getting the troops ashore. Not many of the men could swim and all ofthem, like most Spanish-Americans, had a hearty dislike of cold water.When every once in a while one of them happened to miss his footing, inboarding the shore-boats, there would go up a cry that made even therestful blue land-crabs in the mangroves ashore scuttle for shelter.
There were no lighters to be obtained at this point of the coast ofcourse and so the army was landed in the ship’s lifeboats—a tediousprocess. The boys could not help thinking what a contrast the noisy,confused scene offered to the orderly evolutions of American troops. Allabout the boats, as they were rowed ashore,—landed gunwale-deep withtheir chattering, ragged occupants,—there cruised ominously the black,three-cornered fins of the man-eating sharks that abound along thiscoast. Occasionally one of these monsters would actually cruise right upalongside one of the boats. At such times the hubbub became louder thanever and with a great shouting and waving of their broad-brimmed Panamasthe soldiers would endeavor to drive the menacing monsters away.
One of the last boats to leave the vessel’s side was loaded until thewaves almost lapped over her gunwales and it looked to the boys as ifshe could never reach the shore in safety. It only needed the leastlittle ripple of a sea to send a wave toppling into her that would swampher in a wink and spill her crew out into the water and among thesharks. Perhaps the sharks noticed this too for they clustered roundtill the water was almost black with their wicked torpedo-likeevolutions.
“It’s a good thing there’s a smooth sea;” remarked Frank, as, with hisbrother, General Ruiz and the fussy little captain, he stood on thegunboat’s bridge.
“Ya;” replied the latter, “if der sea was smood not dere would food forder fishes be by sundown. I regollect vunce yen I vas ad Ceylon dot——”
The worthy captain’s reminiscences, however, got no further. They werecut short by a cry from the heavily-laden boat which by now was severalyards distant. Two of the men aboard were struggling desperately, havingclinched after a wordy war that had started when she left the vessel’sside. The boys and their companions could hear the cries of protest ofthe crew who manned the oars:
“Sit down or you’ll have us over.”
Their warning came too late, however. The unexpected disturbance to herequilibrium had careened the overloaded boat till she
was canted over toa fatal angle and the water rushed into her. With loud shouts and criesof fear her crew, and the soldiers aboard her, clung desperately to hergunwales but the sheer weight of them pulled her down and the boys couldsee with horrified eyes the black fins begin to rush in on the doomedmen.
There was a boat that had just returned from the shore lying at the footof the gunboat’s gangway and Frank, followed by Harry and General Ruiz,leaped into this and ordered the crew to “give way.” The men pulled likedemons, at the sight of their comrades’ distress, and in a few secondswere in the thick of the battle. Already several of the poor fellows hadbeen seized by sharks and the water about the capsized boat wascrimsoned. The ravenous monsters, however, far from being glutted, wererushing in from all directions and their triangular fins shot about inthe water for a space of several yards surrounding the doomed boat.
The boys and General Ruiz worked like Trojans hauling in such survivorsas they could reach, and in a short time all but those the sharks hadtaken toll of were aboard. It was then determined to right the otherboat and put some of the survivors into her and set them ashore. GeneralRuiz leaped into her to bale her out but as he did so his foot slippedand, with a desperate grab at the bulwark to save himself, he shot overthe side into the water already red with the blood of his followers.
A cry of horror burst from the throats of the onlookers as they saw thisaccident. It seemed that their general was doomed to certain death. Hecame to the surface, however, in a moment and struck out bravely; butbehind him came rushing through the water the fin of a huge shark. Anagonized shout for help broke from the general’s lips as he realized hisperil. He had faced death in battle a score of times but to die likethis appalled him.
“Save me!” he shouted.
“Fire, Frank, fire!” shouted Harry, wild with excitement, for his elderbrother with pale face and lips—but with a hand as steady as a rock—wasalready standing in the stern sheets of the boat with his revolverleveled.
“Steady on,” rejoined Frank, in a tense tone. “I don’t want to run anychance of the bullet deflecting.”
In the meantime the rowers had sat paralyzed at the dreadful drama beingenacted under their eyes and made no effort to save the unfortunateGeneral Ruiz. Desperately the general swam for the boat. He saw Frankstanding upright in the stern and realized that the boy was waiting tillhe could get a fair shot at the monster. Suddenly the swimmer gave acry, his hands shot above his head and he seemed to be literally draggedout of view.
At the same instant Frank’s revolver opened fire.
One after another the ten shots poured out and before two had been firedthe men, with a cheer, saw a huge white-bellied body, armed with aterrible triple row of saw-like teeth, rear itself out of the seas as ifin agony and then flop back with a mighty writhing that beat the waterinto waves and threatened to swamp the boat.
And General Ruiz?
A few seconds after Frank’s first shot had left the automatic revolverthe swimmer was alongside the boat and being hauled inboard by a scoreof hands. His first action was to take Frank’s hand and grasp it with apressure that showed him to be possessed of a muscularity rare inLatin-Americans.
“We Spaniards do not forget;” he said, after he had uttered a few warmwords of gratitude to the boy who had saved his life.
“Oh,” laughed Frank, “it’s tit for tat. Didn’t you save us last night?”
General Ruiz looked grave.
“Laugh if you will, Señor,” he said, “you Americans take things morelightly than we do; but perhaps some day the time will come when I shallbe able to render you service, and you will see that my words were notspoken in jest.”
That was all, but there was a ring of sincerity in his voice that leftno doubt in his hearers’ minds that he meant what he said and, whileboth boys hoped that no contingency would ever arise in which they wouldbe in such dire need of General Ruiz’s aid, at the same time they feltthat if it ever did they had a friend to count on.