n silhouette against the star-lighted sky in
fantastically waving lines of palm leaves.

Tired out with the exciting and unusual events of the day, the boys,
after gazing for a time at the strange, silent scene around them,
retired to their bunks, and were soon fast asleep.

Captain Dynamite lay dreamily back in a steamer chair on the quarter
deck, lazily puffing a cigarette, but his eyes were intently fixed on
the black shore. The steamer was in total darkness. Not a lamp was
lighted except a small red lantern, like a signal light, that hung over
the side facing the shore.

The captain lighted a match and looked at his watch.

"Five minutes to midnight," he murmured. "They are late. Can anything
have gone wrong? Ah, there's the signal now."

A small red light flashed out of the darkness of the shore. Three times
it showed, and then disappeared. A dark figure that had been standing
by the light on the _Mariella_ swung it three times from side to side.

Captain Dynamite rose from his chair, stretched his great body lazily
and walked to the rail. As he did so, he threw open his coat and eased
up one of the pistols in its holster. His hand remained resting on the
butt.

A small boat with two rowers, and a man in the stern, shot out from the
black shadow of the shore onto the star-lighted surface of the lagoon.
They rowed without the splash of an oar straight to the _Mariella_.

"Who goes there?" called Dynamite in a whisper, as the boat shot under
the steamer's quarter.

"_Independencia_," came the prompt reply, and in a second the dark form
amidships tossed over a rope ladder. In a moment more the man in the
stern of the small boat had scrambled over the rail of the _Mariella_
and strode rapidly aft. He sprang lightly up the steps to the
quarter-deck, and seizing the hand of Captain Dynamite, who met him at
the companionway, shook it vigorously.

"Captain Morgan, sure it's glad I am to see ye again."

"God bless you, O'Connor. Another of your dare-devil expeditions safely
ended. We didn't look for you for two nights yet."

"Fair weather and only one little brush with a small gunboat.
Altogether, quite an uneventful trip. And how goes the cause of
independence, Captain?"

"We still hold our own, O'Connor, despite the butcher's boasts. We left
them two hundred dead and wounded at our last three meetings, while our
loss was only five killed and ten wounded."

"Bravo, Morgan, we'll wear them out yet. Let them