Further conversation was ended by the approach of Burgess, the mate, who at a word from the captain had followed him and the President below, and who now came up to them with a peculiar grim smile about his lips, and the upper part of his face in the clouds, as Poole afterwards expressed it, probably meaning that the mate's brow was wrinkled up into one of his fiercest frowns. "Here," he growled, "you two young fellows have got to go below." "Who said so?" cried Fitz. "The skipper?" "No, the President." "But what for?" cried the middy. "Oh, I dunno," replied the mate grimly, and with the smile expanding as he recalled something of which he had been a witness. "I thinks he wants to kiss you both again." "Then I'll be hanged if I go," cried Fitz; "and that's flat!" "Haw haw!" came from the mate's lips, evidently meant for a laugh, which made the middy turn upon him fiercely; but there was no vestige of even a smile now as he said gruffly, "Yes, you must both come at once. The Don's waiting to speak, and he said that he wouldn't begin till you were there to hear it too." "Come on, Burnett," said Poole seriously, and then with his eyes twinkling he added, "You can have a good wash afterwards if he does." "Oh," cried Fitz, with his face scarlet, "I do hate these people's ways;" and then, in spite of his previous remark about suspension, he followed the skipper's son down into the cabin, with Burgess close behind, to find the President facing the door ready to rise with a dignified smile and point to the locker for the boys to take their seats. This done, he resumed his own, and proceeded to relate to the skipper as much as he could recall of what had been taking place, the main thing being that Villarayo's large force had completely scattered on its way back through the mountains _en route_ to San Cristobal, while Velova and the country round was entirely declaring for the victor, whose position was but for one thing quite safe. "Then," said the skipper, as the President ceased, "you feel that if you marched for San Cristobal you would gain an easy victory there?" "I know my people so well, sir," replied the President proudly, "that I can say there will be no victory and no fight. Villarayo would not get fifty men to stand by him, and he would either make for the mountains or come to meet me, and throw himself upon my mercy. And all this is through you. How great--how great the English people are!" Poole jumped and clapped his right hand upon his left arm, while Fitz turned scarlet as he looked an apology, for as the middy heard the President's last words and saw him rise, a thrill of horror had run through him, and he had thrown out one hand, to give his companion a most painful pinch. But the President resumed his seat, and feeling that there was for the moment nothing to mind, the boy grew calm. "Ah," said the skipper gravely. "Then but for one thing, Don Ramon, you feel now that you can hold your own."