bottle of wine. You don't think, I suppose, that your friend had any
suspicion of our intention, and deliberately told you all that for the
purpose of misleading you?"

"Not he," answered Milsom confidently; "he is too simple a chap to
conceive any such suspicion as that. Besides, why should he? We have
done nothing to lead even the most suspicious Spaniard to connect our
departure with that of _El Maranon_. Oh, no! what he told me slipped
out in the most casual way in the ordinary course of conversation, and
you may be sure that I was particularly careful not to question him, or
to say anything which might lead him to suppose that I took the least
interest in the movements of the ship."

"Well," said Jack, "we must hope for the best; but I am horribly
anxious, Phil, lest anything should go wrong with this scheme of ours.
So much depends upon its success, you know. By the way, what about a
pilot for this place where we are going to transform the ship? How
shall we manage about him?"

"We shall not need to `manage' at all," answered Milsom, "for the simple
reason that we shall not take a pilot. If we get under way at about
eight o'clock to-morrow morning we shall reach our destination with
several hours of daylight in hand; and with the help of this chart, a
hand aloft on the foremast, and two leadsmen in the forechains, I will
guarantee to take this little hooker in and out of that berth without so
much as scratching her paint. Oh, no, we shall not take a pilot, who
might possibly go back to Havana and set people wondering what the
mischief was our object in slipping in behind Esquivel del Norte cay!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE RESCUE.

With all due observance of the courtesies of the sea the graceful,
white-hulled _Thetis_ dipped a farewell salute to the Spanish warships
in Havana harbour as she next morning swept past them, outward bound,
shortly after nine o'clock in the morning of a glorious April day. Jack
was on the navigating bridge with Milsom, and as the beautiful little
ship, looking as spick and span as though just fresh from the stocks,
and with all her brasswork gleaming and flashing like burnished gold in
the brilliant morning sunlight, brought the lighthouse abeam and gaily
plunged her keen, shapely bows into the heart of the first blue, wind-
whipped, foam-crested surge that met her, and in joyous greeting
playfully flung a shower of diamond-tinted spray over her starboard
cathead, the