Part 6

"If you can move that launch its own length without the whole town knowing it," commented Peter, "you will have to chloroform it. It barks like a machine gun."

"My idea was," explained Roddy, "that we would row to the fortress. After we get the General on board, the more it sounds like a machine gun the better."

Since their return in the launch, and during dinner, which had been served in the tiny patio under the stars, the White Mice had been discussing ways and means. A hundred plans had been proposed, criticised, rejected; but by one in the morning, when the candles were guttering in the harbor breeze and the Scotch whiskey had shrunk several inches, the conspirators found themselves agreed. They had decided they could do nothing until they knew in which cell the General was imprisoned, and especially the position of his window in that cell that looked out upon the harbor; that, with the aid of the launch, the rescue must be made from the water, and that the rescuers must work from the outside. To get at Rojas from the inside it would be necessary to take into their confidence some one of the prison officials, and there was no one they dared to trust. Had it been a question of money, Roddy pointed out, the friends of Rojas would already have set him free. That they had failed to do so proved, not that the prison officials were incorruptible, but that their fear of the wrath of Alvarez was greater than their cupidity.

"There are several reasons why we should not attempt to bribe any one," said Roddy, "and the best one is the same reason the man gave for not playing poker. To-morrow I will introduce you to Vicenti, the prison doctor, and we'll ask him to take us over the prison, and count the cells, and try to mark the one in which we see Rojas. Perhaps we'd better have the doctor in to dinner. He likes to tell you what a devil of a fellow he was in New York, and you must pretend to believe he was. We might also have the captain of the port, and get him to give us permission to take the launch out at night. This port is still under martial law, and after the sunset gun no boat may move about the harbor. Then we must have some harpoons made and get out that headlight, and spear eels."

"You couldn't spear an eel," objected Peter, "and if you could I wouldn't eat it."

"You don't have to eat it!" explained Roddy; "the eels are only an excuse. We want to get the sentries used to seeing us flashing around the harbor at night. If we went out there without some excuse, and without permission, exploding like a barrel of fire-crackers, they'd sink us. So we must say we are out spearing eels."

The next morning Roddy showed a blacksmith how to hammer out tridents for spearing eels, and that night those people who lived along the harbor front were kept awake by quick-fire explosions, and the glare in their windows of a shifting search-light. But at the end of the week the launch of the Gringos, as it darted noisily in and out of the harbor, and carelessly flashed its search-light on the walls of the fortress, came to be regarded less as a nuisance than a blessing. For with noble self-sacrifice the harbor eels lent themselves to the deception. By hundreds they swarmed in front of the dazzling headlight; by dozens they impaled themselves upon the tines of the pitchforks. So expert did Roddy and Peter become in harpooning, that soon they were able each morning to send to the captain of the port, to the commandant, to the prison doctor, to every citizen who objected to having his sleep punctuated, a basket of eels. It was noticed that at intervals the engine of the launch would not act properly, and the gringos were seen propelling the boat with oars. Also, the light often went out, leaving them in darkness. They spoke freely of these accidents with bitter annoyance, and people sympathized with them.

One night, when they were seated plotting in the patio, Roddy was overwhelmed with sudden misgivings.

"Wouldn't it be awful," he cried, "if, after we have cut the bars and shown him the rope ladder and the launch, he refuses to come with us!"

"Is that all that's worrying you?" asked Peter.

"How is he to know?" persisted Roddy, "that we are not paid by Alvarez, that we aren't leading him on to escape so that the sentries can have an excuse to shoot him. That has been done before. It is an old trick, like killing a man in his cell and giving out that he committed suicide. The first thing Rojas will ask us is, who sends us, and where are our credentials."

"I guess he will take his chance," said Peter. "He'll see we are not Venezuelans."

"That is the very thing that will make him refuse," protested Roddy. "Why should he trust himself to strangers--to gringos? No, I tell you, we can't go on without credentials." He lowered his voice and glanced suspiciously into the dark corners of the patio. "And the only people who can give them to us," he added, tapping impressively upon the table, "live in Curaçao."

With sudden enthusiasm Peter de Peyster sat upright.

"I am on in that scene," he protested.

"I thought of it first," said Roddy.

"We will toss," compromised Peter. "The head of Bolivar, you go. The arms of Venezuela, I go, and you stay here and catch eels."

The silver peso rang upon the table, and Roddy exclaimed jubilantly:

"Heads! I go!" he cried. But the effort of Peter to show he was not disappointed was so unconvincing that Roddy instantly relented.

"We had better both go!" he amended. "Your headwork is better than mine, so you come, too. And if you give me the right signals, I'll try to put the ball where you can reach it."

As though in his eagerness he would set forth on the instant, Roddy sprang to his feet and stood smiling down at Peter, his face lit with pleasurable excitement. Then suddenly his expression grew thoughtful.

"Peter," he inquired, "how old do you think the daughters are?"

The next day Roddy and Peter sailed for Willemstad, the chief port and the capital of the tiny island colony of Holland. In twelve hours they had made their land-fall and were entering the harbor mouth. The sun was just rising, and as its rays touched the cliff from which, twelve hours later, Señora Rojas and her daughters would look toward Porto Cabello, they felt a thrill of possible adventure.

Roddy knew that, as a refuge for revolutionists exiled from Venezuela, Willemstad was policed with secret agents of Alvarez, and he knew that were these spies to learn that during his visit either he or Peter had called upon the family of Rojas they would be reported to Caracas as "suspect," and the chance of their saving the Lion of Valencia would be at an end. So it became them to be careful.

Before leaving Porto Cabello Roddy had told McKildrick, the foreman of the Construction Company's work there, that some boxes of new machinery and supplies for his launch had gone astray and that he wished permission to cross to Curaçao to look them up. McKildrick believed the missing boxes were only an excuse for a holiday, but he was not anxious to assert his authority over the son and heir of the F. C. C., and so gave Roddy his leave of absence. And at the wharf at Porto Cabello, while waiting for the ship to weigh anchor, Roddy had complained to the custom-house officials at having to cross to Curaçao. He gave them the same reason for the trip, and said it was most annoying.

In order to be consistent, when, on landing at Willemstad, three soiled individuals approached Roddy and introduced themselves as guides, he told them the same story. He was looking for boxes of machinery invoiced for Porto Cabello; he feared they had been carried on to La Guayra or dropped at Willemstad. Could they direct him to the office of the steamship line and to the American Consul? One of the soiled persons led him across the quay to the office of the agent, and while Roddy repeated his complaint, listened so eagerly that to both Peter and Roddy it was quite evident the business of the guide was not to disclose Curaçao to strangers, but to learn what brought strangers to Curaçao. The agent was only too delighted to serve the son of one who in money meant so much to the line. For an hour he searched his books, his warehouse and the quays. But, naturally, the search was unsuccessful, and with most genuine apologies Roddy left him, saying that at the office of the American Consul he would continue his search for the lost boxes.

Meanwhile, Peter, in his character of tourist, engaged rooms for them at the Hotel Commercial, and started off alone to explore the town.

At the Consulate, the soiled person listened to the beginning of Roddy's speech, and then, apparently satisfied he had learned all that was necessary, retreated to the outer office.