When the news of that German's discovery reached us, for I was the junior partner--the "Co." part--of the firm of Henderson, Burt, &. Co., it looked very much like ruin. The Orient, our hoped-for market, was not only too far away and uncertain, but our agent in Alexandria had already advised us that the Oriental was becoming more and more fastidious regarding his fire-arms. In our desperation I thought of Cuba, which, on account of the poverty of the insurgents, we had hitherto not considered. The details of the transaction do not matter. Sufficient to say that in a few days after the suggestion was made, an agreement was entered into with the Cuban agents that if 2000 stand of arms were delivered at a specified point on the coast of Cuba at a certain time, we would be paid in gold then, and not before. It was a strange contract. The sale was illegal, as the belligerency of the insurgents was not recognized, and the risk of total loss by capture either by our own revenue-boats or Spanish cruisers was great. To me was assigned the entire conduct of the affair.
I didn't relish the task. All halcyon dreams about the Spanish main, coral islands, and hidden treasures, all latent admiration for picturesque pirates, low raking schooners with tapering masts, snow-white decks, and "Long Toms" secreted under the long-boats had evaporated. I was a business man, and assuming the rôle of the filibustering blockade-runner wasn't exactly in my line. And as the _Hecuba_, favored at last by a land breeze, crept out of the harbor of Tampa, Florida, in the darkness of the June night, I watched the lights of the revenue-steamer ahead, and thoughts of capture, jail, the disgrace of a trial, either in an American court or before a Spanish court martial, possessed me, and I wondered why it was that ten years ago I had a wild longing to pace quarter-decks arrayed in a slashed doublet, a velveteen cloak, and a pair of uncomfortable big jack-boots, and yell in a voice of thunder, "Man the tops'l yards. Port your helm. Run out Long Tom and send a shot across her bows." It occurred to me that there was just a little bit too much eighteenth-century Captain Kidd, Sir Henry Morgan sort of romance being mixed up in this business transaction. I confessed to myself that I had outgrown all interest in the blockade-running business beyond seeing 2000 rifles safely delivered to a customer, and $40,000 received therefor. But in the words of the ship's boy, a runaway street arab from New York, there were others. And he and the Captain's son, for they were sworn friends by this time, discussed the chances of the trip from the vantage-ground of the ship's boat, into which they had clambered.