ir_. So I thought. Change the course two points to starboard.
We will go astern unless she gets curious and I suppose she will. Yes,
see, she is heading up for us. Hold your course; it would be folly to
change it now. If we can't bluff it through, why we can--well, do the
next best thing, Suarez, eh--call her hand."

Dynamite threw back his head and laughed heartily.

"Everything is in readiness for the call, sir," said the mate, gravely.

"Very well, Suarez; tell Battersea to notify the men below to stand by."

The boys looked at one another in mute wonder. Then there were other men
below, and for what? Harry's mind reverted to that forward compartment
so well stocked with munitions of war.

"Bert," he whispered, "I guess they were right about that danger zone,
and although I'm not 'such a mucher' at guessing, as our friend Jenks of
New York, says, maybe we'll have that mix-up."

For nearly an hour the quiet routine aboard the _Mariella_ continued.
The captain slowly paced the after deck, now and then scanning the
oncoming stranger through his glasses. There was an air of suppressed
excitement in the silence. By this time the other steamer was clearly
discernible with the naked eye, and the boys could see that she was a
small gunboat flying a foreign flag, which they guessed to be Spanish.
She had two large guns mounted forward, and a number of rapid fire guns
aft and amidships.

She was a tiny craft for a fighter and apparently had once been a
pleasure yacht; but she looked saucy and dangerous as she came on toward
them. As Harry looked along the quiet decks of the staid and sober
_Mariella_ he could not help comparing her to a big dignified
Newfoundland dog with a snapping terrier perking boldly up to her.

They could now distinguish the forms of men on the gunboat's decks.

"Come over here to the starboard rail, boys," said the captain, suddenly
turning to them. "You may help to carry out more successfully the little
farce we are about to attempt. Show yourselves as much as possible and
act as if you were curiously interested in our friend, the gunboat, as
no doubt you are."

At this moment a black-bearded little man, who had been strutting
pompously on the bridge of the gunboat, raised a megaphone to his lips
and a volley of foreign words, perfectly unintelligible to the boys,
was shot out into the atmosphere.

In a moment the captain sent back a reply to what had evidently been a
demand for a descripti