can't say you didn't like that."

"Well, no," said Fitz; "it was exciting."

"So it is now. The gunboat's safe to be after us, and here we are,
going to take refuge up a river in perhaps no end of a wild country at
the Don's hacienda. Who knows what adventures we are going to have
next!"

"Not likely to be many adventures at a muddy farm."

"How do you know?"

"Because I pretty well know what a farm is."

"Not a Central American one, my fine fellow. I dare say you will have
to open your eyes wider than you think."

"Perhaps so," said Fitz, who was growing more good-humoured over his
companion's frank, genial ways; "but I feel more disposed to shut my
eyes up now, and to have a good sleep."

"Oh, don't do that! There will be plenty of time when it gets dark, and
before then I hope we shall be off the river. We are slipping along
pretty quickly now, and old Burgess is creeping closer in. That's his
artfulness; it means looking out for creeks and islands, places where we
could hide if the gunboat came into sight, or sneaking into shallows
where she couldn't follow. The old man knows what he is about, and so
does father too. Here, let's go and fetch a glass and get up aloft. I
want to make out what the coast is like."

The binocular was fetched from the cabin, and the lads mounted the
rigging as high as they could to get comfortably perched, and then
shared the glass, turn and turn, to come to the conclusion that every
knot they crept along through the shallow sea brought them more and more
abreast of a district that looked wild and beautiful in the extreme: low
mountain gorge and ravine, beautiful forest clothing the slopes, and
parts where the country was green with the waving trees almost to the
water's-edge.

And so the day slipped by, and the sun began to sink just as they glided
into a narrow sheltered estuary, which, as far as they could make out,
ran like a jagged gash inland; and an hour later the schooner was at
anchor behind a headland which completely bid them from the open sea.

"There," cried Poole, turning to the middy, who was sweeping the
forest-clad slopes on either hand, "what do you think of this?"

"Lovely!" cried Fitz enthusiastically, forgetting all his troubles in
the wondrous tropic beauty of the golden shores.

"Come on, then. I don't know what Andy has got us for supper, but it
smells uncommonly good."

"Supper!" said the middy, in tones of disgust. "Why, you can't leav