id's nerves were getting
beyond his control.

"But how," he demanded, "how do I get ashore?"

"You don't!"

"When he drops the pilot, don't I--"

"How can he drop the pilot?" yelled the youth. "The pilot's got to stick
by the boat. So have you."

David clutched the young man and swung him so that they stood face to
face.

"Stick by what boat?" yelled David. "Who are these men? Who are you?
What boat is this?"

In the glare of the search-light David saw the eyes of the youth staring
at him as though he feared he were in the clutch of a madman. Wrenching
himself free, the youth pointed at the pilot-house. Above it on a blue
board in letters of gold-leaf a foot high was the name of the tug. As
David read it his breath left him, a finger of ice passed slowly down
his spine. The name he read was The Three Friends.

"THE THREE FRIENDS!" shrieked David. "She's a filibuster! She's a
pirate! Where're we going?

"To Cuba!"

David emitted a howl of anguish, rage, and protest.

"What for?" he shrieked.

The young man regarded him coldly.

"To pick bananas," he said.

"I won't go to Cuba," shouted David. "I've got to work! I'm paid to sell
machinery. I demand to be put ashore. I'll lose my job if I'm not put
ashore. I'll sue you! I'll have the law--"

David found himself suddenly upon his knees. His first thought was that
the ship had struck a rock, and then that she was bumping herself over a
succession of coral reefs. She dipped, dived, reared, and plunged.
Like a hooked fish, she flung herself in the air, quivering from bow to
stern. No longer was David of a mind to sue the filibusters if they did
not put him ashore. If only they had put him ashore, in gratitude he
would have crawled on his knees. What followed was of no interest to
David, nor to many of the filibusters, nor to any of the Cuban patriots.
Their groans of self-pity, their prayers and curses in eloquent Spanish,
rose high above the crash of broken crockery and the pounding of the
waves. Even when the search-light gave way to a brilliant sunlight
the circumstance was unobserved by David. Nor was he concerned in the
tidings brought forward by the youth in the golf cap, who raced the
slippery decks and vaulted the prostrate forms as sure-footedly as a
hurdler on a cinder track. To David, in whom he seemed to think he had
found a congenial spirit, he shouted Joyfully, "She's fired two blanks
at us!" he cried; "now she's firing cannon-balls!"

"Tha