“Certainly, my lad. You noticed that I carried a percussion cap and a shoulder of lamb?”
“I placed the meat on the arm of the machine to which the spring is made fast, and the percussion cap upon an open keg of powder, beneath the other arm. Do you understand?”
[Illustration: “The engine of death drifted slowly into the mist.”]
“Yes, I think so. When the piece of lamb is lifted the spring will fly up, the opposite arm will descend, explode the cap, and——”
“But could not a person see all this arrangement and suspect something?” asked Louis. “You left quite a space there.”
“That is all filled in, and I put the most tempting game and fruit right above the powder.”
“Then,” said Carl, slowly, “you expect the boat will drift far out in the bay; will be sighted by one of the ships on blockade; that an attempt will be made to take the stuff on board, and all hands will be blown to kingdom come?”
Old John laughed in a peculiar manner and walked away.
As the boys were going slowly up the beach, Carl said:—
“Did you notice the change in Old John? I believe he’s insane.”
“And I,” echoed Harvey. “The old whaler we once knew on San Lorenzo couldn’t have planned such a trick.”
They had not gone far before they were joined by General Matajente. He walked on in silence until they reached the La Punta road, then they heard him mutter:—
“I don’t like it one bit, boys; I don’t like it one bit.”
“Orders, my boy, orders. It was not the old boatswain who suggested the plan to a naval officer, but a captain in the artillery arm who went to headquarters. John Longmore told the people in the palace at Lima of his plan, and I was sent down here to oversee the operations.”
“Then you do not approve of what has been done?”
“Orders, my boy, orders,” was his only reply.
CHAPTER XVII. JOHN LONGMORE’S REVENGE (_continued_).
When the sun was an hour high the mist faded away; the gray mantle disappeared, and Callao Bay became of two colors, a green within the space of an imaginary arc extending from the tip of La Punta to Los Baños, and a blue beyond, as far as San Lorenzo, where it merged into the indigo of the immensity of waters.
Upon the surface of the green, circling around occasionally when caught by a surface current, but steadily moving with the tide, was a market gardener’s lighter, crowded from keel to gunwales with every variety of produce. Such a sight had not been witnessed for more than six months, not since those ships, discernible far in the offing, had enforced the closing of the port. Before that time these lighters had been frequently rowed and sailed over the bay, moving toward the heart of the city from the fertile region of the Rimac on the north.