Jake and he sat, one night, in the stern of the launch,
which lay head to sea about half a mile from the Adexe wharf. The
promised coal had not arrived, and, as fuel was running very short at the
concrete mill, Dick had gone to see that a supply was sent. It was late
when he reached Adexe, and found nobody in authority about, but three
loaded lighters were moored at the wharf, and a gang of peons were
trimming the coal that was being thrown on board another. Ahead of the
craft lay a small tug with steam up. As the half-breed foreman declared
that he did not know whether the coal was going to Santa Brigida or not,
Dick boarded the tug and found her Spanish captain drinking cana with
his engineer. Dick thought one looked at the other meaningly as he
entered the small, hot cabin.

"I suppose it's Senor Fuller's coal in the barges, and we're badly in
want of it," he said. "As you have steam up, you'll start soon."

"We start, yes," answered the skipper, who spoke some English, and then
paused and shrugged. "I do not know if we get to Santa Brigida to-night."

"Why?" Dick asked. "There's not very much wind, and it's partly off the
land."

The half-breed engineer described in uncouth Castilian the difficulties
he had had with a defective pump and leaking glands, and Dick, who did
not understand much of it, went back to his launch. Stopping the craft a
short distance from the harbor, he said to Jake: "We'll wait until they
start. Somehow I don't think they meant to leave to-night if I hadn't
turned them out."

Jake looked to windward. There was a moon in the sky, which was, however,
partly obscured by driving clouds. The breeze was strong, but, blowing
obliquely off the land did not ruffle the sea much near the beach. A long
swell, however, worked in, and farther out the white tops of the combers
glistened in the moonlight. Now and then a fresher gust swept off the
shadowy coast and the water frothed in angry ripples about the launch.

"They ought to make Santa Brigida, though they'll find some sea running
when they reach off-shore to go round the Tajada reef," he remarked.

"There's water enough through the inside channel."

"That's so," Jake agreed. "Still, it's narrow and bad to find in the
dark, and I expect the skipper would sooner go outside." Then he glanced
astern and said, "They're coming out."

Two white lights, one close above the other, with a pale red glimmer
below, moved away from the wharf. Behind them