"Yes, my boy, and of course that's just the sort of place to deliver a cargo of such agricultural implements as we have brought on board. What do you say, Mr Burnett?" "Agricultural implements, sir? Why, Captain Glossop had notice that you had taken in guns and ammunition." "Oh yes; people do gossip so," said the skipper dryly. "I didn't examine them much myself, but I know there were things with wheels." "But there was a lot of powder, sir--kegs of it, I heard." "Chemical manure perhaps, my lad; potash and charcoal and sulphur perhaps to kill the blight. Must be innocent stuff, or else my old friend Don Ramon would not want it at his farm." "I don't understand," said the middy. "Well, it doesn't matter," cried Poole, laughing. "Go on, father." "That's what we are doing, my boy. But you go on with your breakfast, Mr Burnett, and make a good one while you have a chance. We may be getting news any minute that the gunboat is in sight; and if it is, there's no knowing when we shall get a square meal again." "But whereabouts is this Oltec River, father?" "Well, as near as I can tell you, my boy, it's on the coast about thirty miles by sea from Velova, though only about half the distance through one of the mountain-passes by land. We ought to have been there now, and I dare say we should have been if Mr Burgess had not run us on to a rock. But that fellow going overboard quite upset my plans. It was a great nuisance, and I seemed to be obliged to heave-to, and wait to see if you people would come back on board." "Yes, father, I suppose so," said Poole coolly. "Done eating, you two?" The lads both rose, and the whole party went on deck to scan their position, the lads finding the schooner gliding along southward before a pleasant breeze, while miles away on the starboard-bow a dim line marked the coast, which seemed rugged and broken up into mountain and vale; but there was no sign of gunboat nor a sail of any kind, and Poole breathed more freely. "One's so helpless," he said to his companion, "on a coast like this, where one time you have a nice sailing wind, and the next hour it has dropped into a calm, so that a steamer has you quite at its mercy." "Yes," said Fitz dryly; "but I don't see that it matters when you have nothing on board but agricultural implements and chemical manures. What business is it of the gunboat?"