CHAPTER XXV.
LEAGUED WITH INSURGENTS.
Some six hours after the work of debarkation had commenced it—in spiteof the obstacles—was finished and the task of setting up camp was begun.By nightfall General Ruiz had installed his forces on an upland abouthalf-a-mile back from the seacoast as the night-air among thecoast-hugging mangrove swamps is very poisonous and a great breeder offevers. He had, the boys found, quite a respectable equipment,consisting—besides his actual force, all of whom were armed with riflesof more or less use and modern type—of two doctors, both of whom heldcommissions as captains; a field telegraph outfit and four telegraphers;two machine-firing guns and three mule guns, besides some heavierfield-guns of a less up-to-date pattern. Altogether, except for thedilapidated state of his men, General Ruiz was fairly well provided withthe implements of modern warfare.
Ruiz himself, and his staff officers, had their tents pitched apart fromthe main camp and one of the latter insisted on giving up his sleepingquarters to the boys, much against their wills; but he was so insistentthat they seemed more likely to offend him by refusal than by acceptinghis offer, so that night found them snugly ensconced in a comfortabletent equipped with two neat cots, covered with gray army-blankets, andhung with mosquito netting to keep out the myriad insect pests of thetropics.
Long after the supper had been despatched in the general’s tent andgood-nights said, the boys talked over the situation. It was a novelone. Through the open flap of their tent they could see the raggedsentries pacing up and down, and, further out in the bush, came the cryof the outposts as from time to time they hailed one another. The menall slept huddled up together under ragged blankets and sacking on theground at the opposite side of the camp, as the boys could see by theircamp-fire glow, round which some of the men were still sitting up andtalking.
“We should strike out for La Merced at once;” decided Frank, after thesubject of their present situation had been talked over for an hour.
“I agree with you,” replied Harry, “but how are we going to do it? Forall we know we might run plump into Rogero’s forces and then we shouldbe in a peck of trouble. No, my advice is to stay with the army a fewdays, they are marching in our direction anyhow, and then strike off forLa Merced when we get within a reasonable distance of it.”
“And poor Billy and Ben Stubbs, what will they think has become of us?”went on Frank.
“They will stay at Plateau Camp for a day or two anyhow,” rejoinedHarry, “and at the end of that time they will have to come down into thevalley, for their provisions will have given out.”
“That will be pretty nearly as safe for them as walking into a lion’smouth,” objected Frank. “The country below there must be alive withgovernment troops and they are sure to encounter them.”
“There is nothing we can do till we get back to La Merced, that iscertain,” rejoined the philosophical Harry. “It’s no use crossingbridges till we come to them. If the army marches to-morrow we should beat home by the morning of the day after at the latest.”
With this reflection the boys turned in and slept like tops for twohours or so. Their awakening was a startling one. The whole air seemedfilled with shouts and yells and there was a scattering sound of shotscoming from somewhere in the interior of the jungle.
“It’s a night attack!” shouted Frank, springing up and hastily throwingon his clothes. “Come on, Harry!”
Both boys rushed out of their tent just as General Ruiz came to thedoor.
“We have been attacked,” he said, “it looks like treachery somewhere. Idon’t know how many of them there are; but, so far, we have them inhand.”
“You mean we have beaten them off?” asked Frank.
Ruiz shook his head.
“I am too old a soldier to believe that Rogero would attack me with ahandful,” he said. “No, boys, this attack was made by an advance guardto draw our fire and ascertain just how large a force we really have.The real attack will come in a few minutes.”
He was buckling on his sword as he spoke and thrusting his navy revolverinto a holster. This completed he held out his hand.
“I must say good-bye, now,” he said briskly, “but only for a short timeI hope. It is poor hospitality to rush you into the troubles of therevolutionists, but it cannot be helped.”
With a stiff salute he turned and began issuing rapid orders to hisstaff, who rushed over as they got them to where the demoralized troopswere struggling confusedly for their banked rifles. In a short timesomething like order had been restored and a corps of men sent out withmachetes to clear paths into the high ground where the guns were to beplanted.
“He means to plant some guns above there,” pointed Frank, “so as tocommand the valley when the real attack comes.”
At this moment one of the officers hurried up.
“You had better get to shelter, young gentlemen,” he said, “the troublewill begin in a few minutes and I expect it will be a hot engagementwhen it starts.”
Frank and Harry shook their heads. To the two high-spirited boys, facingtheir first taste of real warfare, to be ordered into shelter did notappeal at all.
“Can’t we do something to make ourselves useful?” asked Frank, as acompany of men at a silent “double-quick” swung by into the jungle,where the scattering fire that had awakened them had died out.
“If the señors really mean that, I will see the general;” courteouslyreplied the officer, hurrying off.
“We have never smelled powder before,” exclaimed Harry, “and we don’tmean to be sent back to the commissariat when we have a chance to seesome real fighting; eh, Frank?”
“Not much,” replied Frank, “of course, I suppose, as American citizensand neutral parties, etc., we ought to sit back with our hands folded;but when I think of the threats Rogero made to father I’d like to get acrack at some of those fellows myself.”
“I’m with you, Frank, old fellow,” cried Harry warmly. “Come on, let’sget on our revolvers and see if the general has anything for twopeaceful non-combatants who want to fight.”
As they came out of the tent with their revolvers strapped on and also arifle each—which they took the liberty of selecting from a rack of armsleft in the tent by the officer who had vacated it for them—they feltthat they were on the eve of a really exciting experience.
They had walked only a few steps when a figure, that they soon made outto be General Ruiz himself, stepped up to them.
“Captain Alvarez tells me,” he said, “that you young men are pining foraction and do not care to sit on the idlers’ bench while we arefighting. Now I have a mission for you.”
“Yes,” chorused Frank and Harry delighted.
“But it is a dangerous one and will require a lot of skill and care tobring it to a successful conclusion.”
The boys begged him to tell them what it was. They assured him that theywould not fail in anything he might entrust to them.
“Simply this;” replied General Ruiz, looking them straight in the eyes,“there is a lot of ammunition aboard the ship that I meant to bringashore to-morrow morning, but it is now imperative, with the turnaffairs have taken, that we have it here before many hours. I have not aman in the ranks I dare trust on such a mission and I cannot spare anyof my officers. Will you do it?”
Of course the boys said they would. To tell the truth they were ratherdisappointed. Bringing ammunition ashore was rather more prosaic workthan they had bargained for; but still, having promised to be of whataid they could, they could not go back on their words.
“You take one of the boats on the beach,” went on the General—and theboys noticed that he was now the officer addressing his subordinates andnot the courteous friend—“and row off to the gunboat. Captain Scheffelwill give you the keys to the magazine and you are to bring off as muchat a time as you think wise. I wish to remind you, however, that we needthe extra ammunition in a hurry.”
“Now,” he co
ntinued, in a less official tone, “I shall be answerable toyour father for you and I don’t want you to run any unnecessary risks.”
“I don’t see what risks we can run, except from sharks, rowing powderand ammunition ashore in a ship’s lifeboat,” Frank could not forbearsaying.
General Ruiz was quick to catch his tone.
“A good soldier’s first duty is to obey,” he said, “no matter how muchhe may dislike the duty he is assigned to.”
The boys felt the reproof and remained silent.
“And don’t despise this errand because you don’t happen to think there’sany glory in it,” the general went on, “there is danger in it,—a gooddeal more danger than I feel that I have a right to ask you to run,—but,after all,” he concluded, “you are just as safe there as in the camp.”
The next minute he had gone and the boys started down the trail cut bythe machete men, by which the army had advanced from the beach. Theyknew where the boats were drawn up, under the roots of a giant mangrove,but in the darkness they had some difficulty in finding the exact spot.At last, however, they discovered one of the small craft and Harryleaned over to untie the painter. It was pitchy dark and the man who hadknotted the boat’s painter was not a scientific tier of knots.
“Bother it;” exclaimed Harry, fumbling with the knot, “we shan’t getaway till daylight at this rate.”
“Here, have some light on the subject,” struck in Frank lighting amatch. With the aid of the illumination. It didn’t take Harry long tocast loose and tumble into the boat. Frank, who had been leaning overhim as he fumbled with the rope, straightened up and prepared to followhim. The stump of the match was still in his fingers and shed a yellowglow about them. Suddenly, Frank uttered a sharp exclamation. The nextminute the match burned his fingers and died out.
“That was funny;” he exclaimed as he took his seat in the boat and bothboys gave way with the oars.
“What was funny?” demanded Harry.
“Oh, nothing;” replied Frank, almost shamefacedly, “I suppose it wasfancy—must have been in fact. But as that match died out I am almostcertain I saw a face part the creepers and peer at me out of themangroves.”
“Who could it have been?” asked Harry.
“I have no idea,” rejoined Frank, “that’s why I put it all down toimagination.”
Both boys ran the boat alongside the gunboat’s gangway a few minuteslater.
A sharp “Who goes?” spoken with a marked German accent, showed that goodwatch was kept aboard the ship. As soon as the boys had announced theiridentity satisfactorily and been allowed on board, the sentry hurried toarouse Captain Scheffel, who, although he was in pajamas and his eyesheavy with sleep, showed truly Teutonic unconcern in the presence of hismidnight awakening.
“Der keys for der magazine—hein?” he remarked placidly. “All right, Iget dem for you in a minud.”
He shuffled off to his cabin, the boys hardly keeping from laughing atthe queer aspect he presented. In a few minutes he was back with a bunchof keys.
“Dis is him,” he said, selecting a Yale key, “and, boys, vun vurd—noschmoking in der magazine—hein?”
“We don’t smoke at all, captain,” replied Frank with a laugh, “and if wedid we wouldn’t take our first lesson in a magazine.”
“Vell, schmokin’ is goot and magazine is goot bud dey don’d mix, ain’dit?” commented the German skipper sententiously as he shuffled back tohis bunk. He was simply the hired navigator of the gunboat and, so longas the boys didn’t blow his ship up, he had no further interest in theirmovements.
The boys had carried perhaps their fiftieth case of rifle shells to thedeck and piled them there, preparatory to taking them ashore, when theirattention was attracted by evidence that the coming fight that Ruiz hadprophesied was already on. From where they stood they could catch theflashes of the machine-guns on the hill and hear distinctly the rattleof rifles which accompanied their steady cough.
“Come on, Frank,” said Harry, as the sounds were borne to their ears;“we’ve no time to loaf now. They may need this stuff urgently thisminute. Come on; we’ll take what we’ve got here and get ashore with it.”
Several of the sailors who had come from below on the news that therewas fighting going on ashore gave them a hand to load the cases in theboat and it was not very long before they were ready to cast off.
They rowed landward almost in silence watching between strokes thephosphorescent gleams where the fins of the man-eaters cut about thewater on all sides.
“They’d find our cargo pretty indigestible;” laughed Frank, as onemonster, whose form showed flaming green in the depths alongside, dashedby with hungry, gaping jaws and dived beneath the boat after darting aglance at the boys out of his little pig-like eyes.
They had marked the location of the landing-place by a tall ceiba tree,which formed an excellent landmark, before they left shore; so that theyhad no trouble in picking up the spot in the mangroves where the boatslay snugly hidden. As their boat’s nose grated in amongst the twistedroots, Frank sprang quickly out and made fast the painter and then Harrybegan the work of handing the ammunition ashore.
“Ruiz will have to send down some men to carry this stuff up into camp,”remarked Harry, puffing under his exertions, which, as each case weighedabout fifty pounds, were not inconsiderable.
“And here they come, now;” rejoined Frank, as there was a trampling inthe mangroves at the back of them. Both boys looked up to greet thenewcomers and tell them how to lay hold of the boxes, when a startlingthing happened.
The new arrivals came forward steadily and halted in a line, and, as ifmoved by clockwork, a dozen rifles went up to as many shoulders,covering the boys, whose hands dropped to their sides in sheer amazementat this unexpected turn of affairs.
Instinctively Frank and Harry reached for their revolvers, as soon asthey recovered their senses.
“The señors will not move if they value their lives;” said a voice inexcellent English, which proceeded from an officer; evidently in chargeof the force of men which had surprised them.
“What?” gasped the boys angrily.
“Because,” went on the soft-voiced officer, not noticing their indignantexclamation, “I shall then be under the painful necessity of shootingdown the two Señors Chester without the formality of a court-martial.”