"Well, that one we captured under the wharf, at Lota, comes out of the five, and would leave four."
"Then, captain, how do you account for the fact that there were six on the _Pom_ when she reached this bay?"
"Do you say I spik untruths?" flared the captain, displaying a tendency to renew his quarrel with Matt.
"Not at all, not for the world," answered Matt, with an inward laugh, "but I am puzzled. One from five, in this case, seems to have left six."
"I know nozzing, sare," said Captain Pons. "If zere was seex w'en zere should only haf been fife, zat is zeir business."
"Then we'll let it stand that way," said Matt.
"I am mos' agreeable," returned Captain Pons. "Presently, my captain," he went on, to Sandoval, "I go aboard ze _Pom_ wiz ze crew you gif me, an' we take ze boat to Valparaiso. Is it not so?"
"Yes, my captain," replied Sandoval. "I will lend you the crew and will convoy you to Valparaiso."
This was enough for Matt. He excused himself, shook hands with Sandoval, and hurried away.
As soon as he was safely in the periscope room of the _Grampus_, he threw himself down on the locker and laughed until he was sore.
"Get me the rest of my clothes, somebody," said he, "and then start the _Grampus_ northward again."
"Where's our next port of call, old ship?" queried Dick, while Matt was getting into the garments he had taken off just before swimming ashore in the cove.
"Callao," answered Matt. "Then Panama, Acapulco, San Diego--and Frisco."
"In two weeks," cried Glennie, "we'll be at Mare Island, and the cruise will be finished. It's all plain sailing from this on. The Sons of the Rising Sun will have all they can do to take care of themselves, let alone try to make any more trouble for us."
"We're done with them, and there are no ifs or ands about it this time," said Matt. "I'll admit, when I learned they had made off with that French submarine, that I thought they were equipped to accomplish something against us; but we cleared that difficulty in one-two order when we got started."
"It might have been a lot worse, mates," observed Dick, "and there were several times when I thought we were done, done as brown as a kippered herring; but we pulled through--mainly because Matt had his shoulder to the wheel and gave us the right sort of a boost over the hard places."