hew!" whistled Ned. "Wonder how father'd like that! Anyhow, we don't
know there's any war."

"We'd be in trouble anyhow," said the senor. "But we are all in the dark
about it. We have been over three weeks on the way, and all the war news
we had when we started was nearly a month old. We can only guess what
has been going on. Here we are, though, in a storm that is driving us
along first-rate into the Gulf of Mexico. We may be four days' sail from
Vera Cruz in a bee-line, and the _Goshawk_ is a racer, but we may not be
able to make a straight course. Well, well, the captain will keep on all
the canvas that's safe, and we may get there. Hullo! the day is
beginning to dawn. Now our real danger begins."

He said no more, and Ned walked forward with something altogether new on
his mind. An American boy, crammed full of patriotism, and wishing that
he were in General Taylor's army, he was, nevertheless, by no fault of
his own, one of the crew of a ship which was carrying ammunition to the
enemy. He almost felt as if he were fighting his own country, and it
made him sick. He had an idea, moreover, that Senor Zuroaga was only
half willing to help his old enemy Santa Anna.

"I don't care if Captain Kemp is an Englishman," he said to himself, "he
had no business to run father and his partners into such a scrape."

That might be so, and perhaps neither Kemp, nor Zuroaga, nor even Ned
himself, knew all about the laws of war which govern such cases, but
just then there flashed across his mind a very dismal suggestion, as he
stared down at the deck he stood on.

"What," he asked himself, "if any accident should touch off those
barrels of powder down there? Why, we'd all be blown sky-high and
nobody'd ever know what had become of us. There'd be nothing but chips
left."

He tried not to think about that, and went below to get his breakfast,
while Captain Kemp ordered his sailors to send up another sail,
remarking to Senor Zuroaga:

"We must make the most we can of this wind. Every hour counts now. I'll
take the _Goshawk_ to Vera Cruz, or I'll run her under water."

"Have you any idea where we are just now?" asked the senor.

"Well on into the gulf," said the captain, cheerfully. "We made a
splendid run in the night, thanks to the gale. I hope it will blow on,
and I think there is no danger of our being overhauled until we are off
the Mexican coast. I wish, though, that I knew whether or not the war
has actually been declared