Phil saw there were four men on the boat, but his eyes fell with pleasure on the boxes. “Do you surrender?” Phil shouted fiercely to the man at the wheel, only five feet away from him. The man glanced in terror at the pistol pointing at his head, in the hands of a gringo, one of those whom he had been told could hit a peso at a distance of a hundred metres. “Si, señor,” he answered tremblingly. As the two boats headed away, the whole shore line near them burst into flame, and the hiss of countless bullets sang warningly about them. Suddenly the suspected engineer threw up his hands and dropped to the deck. CHAPTER VIII PRISONERS O’Neil stuck manfully at his post, the bullets showering around him as he stood exposed at the tiller. Phil breathed more easily as the two launches, now secured together, put sufficient distance between them and the unfriendly shore. The coxswain’s voice, raised anxiously, caused our lad fresh alarm. “I fear he’s hit badly, sir,” he deplored, as he raised a limp figure from the bottom of the launch. Both boys were beside the wounded man in an instant and quickly stripped him of his blood-soaked clothing. In the light of a bull’s-eye lantern, Phil examined the hole made by an insurgent bullet. “Only a flesh wound,” he breathed, immensely relieved; “the bullet went through the fleshy part of the breast. He is stunned, the blow was so near his heart.” “Some water, quick,” ordered Sydney, while Phil bandaged the wounded man with strips of his own shirt. Water thrown on his face brought the man back to consciousness. Phil left Sydney to make the wounded sailor comfortable, and followed by O’Neil, boarded the prize. “This is not the minister’s boat; this one has a deck house, while his boat is flush decked,” he gasped in the greatest alarm. “What have we done?” Then he flashed his light over the cargo. “The boxes are the same, I can swear to that, and, as I supposed, all marks have been removed. These are unaddressed.” The frightened crew, imagining, no doubt, they were in the hands of pirates, were speechless from terror. Juarez was not on board. “What launch is this?” demanded Phil, in Spanish. “La Fitte and Company’s, señor,” replied, cringingly, the native padron. “What have you here?” Phil asked flourishing his revolver menacingly, “and where were you taking them?” “They contain machinery, señor, for Señor La Fitte’s plantation at Mariel,” replied the native coxswain, gaining confidence, seeing his life was not in such imminent danger. Had they made a terrible mistake? Did these boxes contain machinery only and no arms? But why should they be sent addressed to the United States Minister? Then the remembrance of the hot fire, through which they had just passed, dissipated all doubt. They were surely contraband arms, but being on board a launch which sailed under the flag of the republic, the two lads were openly aiding the government of the republic.