Then there was a rattle of blocks as the ladder was hoisted in, and the deck quivered as the engines began to throb. Jake heard the screw slowly flounder round and the wash beneath the poop as the steamer moved out to sea, but there was nobody except their colored crews on board the boats that dropped astern. Kenwardine had had his chance and lost it. He had been too bold and now must confront his enemies. Jake went down the ladder and found Dick waiting at the door of the second-class saloon. "He's on board," he said. "I'm sorry he is. In fact, I'm not sure I'd have told you if he'd tried to light out at the last moment." Dick gave him a dry smile. "I suspect that Don Sebastian didn't trust you altogether. He left me, and I shouldn't be surprised to learn that he had found a place where he could watch the gangway without being seen." A few minutes later, the Spaniard crossed the after well. "Now," he said, "we must decide when we ought to have our interview with Senor Kenwardine, and I think we should put it off until just before we land." "Why?" Jake asked. "It would be much pleasanter to get it over and have done with it." "I think not," Don Sebastian answered quietly. "We do not know how Senor Kenwardine will meet the situation. He is a bold man, and it is possible that he will defy us." "How can he defy you when he knows you can hand him over to the British authorities?" "That might be necessary; but I am not sure it is the British authorities he fears the most." "Then who is he afraid of?" "His employers, I imagine," Don Sebastian answered with a curious smile. "It is understood that they trust nobody and are not very gentle to those who do not serve them well. Senor Kenwardine knows enough about their plans to be dangerous, and it looks as if he might fail to carry their orders out. If we give him too long a warning, he may escape us after all." "I don't see how he could escape. You have him corralled when he's under the British flag." Don Sebastian shrugged as he indicated the steamer's low iron rail and the glimmer of foam in the dark below. "There is one way! If he takes it, we shall learn no more than we know now." He left them, and Jake looked at Dick. "It's unthinkable! I can't stand for it!" "No," said Dick very quietly; "he mustn't be pushed too far. For all that, his friends can't be allowed to go on sinking British ships." CHAPTER XXX THE LAST ENCOUNTER