attention not only of the lightkeepers
but also of the fishermen inhabiting the little cluster of huts near the
cottage of the former; but that could not be helped, and, after all,
they probably concluded that the yacht was bound to Sagua la Grande, and
would think no more about her. And a quarter of an hour later she had
slipped round a projecting point, out of sight, and was safely riding at
anchor in her hiding-place.

As Milsom had foreseen, they reached their destination with some hours
of daylight in hand, and the moment that the anchor was down all hands
went to work and routed out from the secret recesses of the ship a
heterogeneous assortment of light iron rods, bars, angles, and sheets;
wood framing and planking; and great rolls of canvas, painted a light,
smoky-grey tint, which Milsom asserted would render a vessel practically
invisible at a distance of three miles, and the precise composition of
which had cost him weeks of anxious thought and study. Then the crew
were divided into three gangs; and while one party busied itself, under
Macintyre, in sorting out, bolting together, and fixing in position
those portions which were to effect a transformation in the appearance
of the yacht's bows, another party, under Milsom, was similarly employed
in altering the appearance of the vessel's handsome stern, and the third
party, under Perkins, was clothing the brightly varnished masts in
tight-fitting canvas coats, painted in the all-pervading grey which was
to be the colour of the vessel when the work of disguising her should be
complete; fixing a bogus fighting top on the ship's foremast; enclosing
the chart-house in a casing which should give it the semblance of a
conning tower; getting a couple of light signalling yards aloft; and
painting the several boats grey. When the men knocked off work at
sunset, a great deal had been done; but it was not until six bells in
the forenoon watch next day that the work of transformation was finally
completed to Milsom's satisfaction, and then the _Thetis_--temporarily
re-christened the _Libertad_--so strongly resembled a modern two-
funnelled torpedo gunboat that she might easily have deceived even a
professional eye at a distance of half a mile; and when, further, a long
pennant flaunted itself from the main truck, and the flag of Cuba Libre
waved from the ensign staff, the gallant skipper, critically surveying
his transmogrified ship from the dinghy, confidently announced