"Yes," was the reply bitterly. "But I shall not feel secure while that gunboat commands these seas. It seems absurd, ridiculous, that that small armour-plated vessel with its one great gun should have such power; but yet after all it is not absurd. It is to this little State what your grand navy is to your empire and the world. While that gunboat commands our bays I cannot feel safe." "But you don't know yet," said the skipper quietly. "How will it be when her captain hears of Villarayo's defeat? He may declare for you." "No," said the President. "That is what all my friends say. He is Villarayo's cousin, and has always been my greatest enemy. He knows too that my first act would be to deprive him of his command." "Then why do so?" said the skipper. "He need be your enemy no longer. Make him your friend." "Impossible! I know him of old as a man I could not trust. The moment he hears of the defeat he will be sending messages to Villarayo bidding him fortify San Cristobal and gather his people there, while at any hour we may expect to see him steaming into this bay. That is the main reason of my coming to tell you now to be on your guard, and that I have been having the guns you brought mounted in a new earthwork on the point yonder, close to the sea." "Well done!" cried the captain enthusiastically. "That was brave and thoughtful of you, Don Ramon," and he held out his hand. "Why, you are quite an engineer. Then you did not mean to forsake your friend?" "Forsake him!" said the Don reproachfully, and he frowned. But it was for a moment only. "Ah," he continued, "if you had only brought me over such a gunboat as that which holds me down, commanded by such a man as you, how changed my position would be!" "Yes," said the skipper quietly. "But I did not; and I had hard work to bring you what I did, eh, Mr Burnett? The British Government did not much approve of what it called my filibustering expedition, Don." "The British Government does not know Villarayo, sir, and it does not know me." "That's the evil of it, sir," replied the captain. "Unfortunately the British Government recognises Villarayo as the President of the State, and you only as the head of a revolution; but once you are the accepted head of the people, the leader of what is good and right, Master Villarayo's star will set; and that is bound to come." "Yes," said Don Ramon proudly; "that is bound to come in the future, if I live. For all that is good and right in this little State is on my side. But there is the gunboat, captain." "Yes," was the reply; "there is the gunboat, and as to my schooner, if I ventured everything on your side at sea, with her steaming power she would have me completely at her mercy, and with one shot send me to the bottom like a stone."