"Everything. Ramon, who has been striking for freedom and all that's good and right, would be beaten, and the old President Don Villarayo would carry on as before. He is as bad a tyrant as ever was at the head of affairs, and it's to help turn him out of the chair that my father and his Spanish friends are making this venture." "Well, that's nothing to me," said Fitz. "I am on the side of right." "Well, that is the side of right." "Oh no," said Fitz. "According to the rule of these things that's the side of right that has the strongest hold." "Bah!" said Poole. "That would never do, unless it is when we get the strongest hold, and that we mean to do." "Well, I hope old Burgess, as you call him, won't run this wretched schooner crash on to a rock. You might as well hand me out a life-belt, in case." "Oh, there's time enough for that," said Poole coolly. "I'll take care of you. But I say, look! That gunboat is coming on two knots for our one. Can't you see?" "I can see her lights, of course, but it doesn't seem to me that she is getting closer." "She is, though, and she's bound to overtake us, for old Burgess is keeping right along the main channel. Why, if I didn't know who was at the wheel," cried the lad excitedly, "I should be ready to think that the steersman had proved treacherous, and was playing into the enemy's hands. Oh, here's father! I say, dad, do you see how fast that gunboat is overhauling us?" "Oh yes," said the skipper coolly. "It's all right, my boy; Burgess knows what he's about. He wants to get a little more offing, but it's getting nearly time to lie over on the other tack." He had hardly spoken when the mate at the wheel called out-- "Now!" The skipper gave a short, sharp order or two, the men sprang to the sheets, the schooner was turned right up into the wind, the sails began to shiver, and directly after they began to fill on the other tack, were sheeted home, and the _Teal_ lay so over to starboard that Fitz made a snatch at a rope so as to steady himself and keep his feet. "Why, he'll have the sea over her side," whispered Fitz excitedly. "Very likely," said Poole coolly. "Ah, you don't know how we can sail." "Sail! Why, you will have her lying flat in the water directly." "Make the sails more taut," said Poole coolly. "I say, we are going now. I didn't see what he meant. We have just turned the South Rocks. Talk about piloting, old Burgess does know what he's about. We are sailing as fast as the gunboat." "But she's overhauling us." "Yes, but she won't try to pass those rocks. She will have to keep to the channel. We are skimming along over the rocky shallows now." "Yes, with the keel nearly up to the surface," panted Fitz excitedly. "All the better! Less likely to scrape the rocks." "Well, you are taking it pretty coolly," continued the midshipman. "This must be risky work."