"Ah, what indeed?" cried Poole, laughing. "It's a piece of impudence, isn't it, to want to interfere! But I say, Burnett, what father says sounds well, doesn't it--a hacienda at the mouth of a river, and a mountain-pass? That means going ashore and seeing something, if we are in luck. I do know that the country's glorious here, from the peep or two I once had. My word! People think because you go sailing about the world you must see all kinds of wonders, when all the time you get a peep or two of some dirty port without going ashore, and all your travels are up and down the deck of your ship--and nothing else but sea." "I wish I could get landed at some big port," said Fitz bitterly. "I wouldn't call it dirty." "My word, what a fellow you are!" said Poole. "Grumbling again!" "Grumbling!" cried Fitz hotly. "Isn't it enough to make any one grumble, dragged off my ship a prisoner like this?" "No," cried Poole. "Why, some chaps would call it grand. Now you've got about well again it's all a big lark for you. Every one's trying to make you comfortable. Look at the adventures you are going through! Look at last night! Why, it was all fine, now that we have got through it as we did. You can't say you didn't like that." "Well, no," said Fitz; "it was exciting." "So it is now. The gunboat's safe to be after us, and here we are, going to take refuge up a river in perhaps no end of a wild country at the Don's hacienda. Who knows what adventures we are going to have next!" "Not likely to be many adventures at a muddy farm." "How do you know?" "Because I pretty well know what a farm is." "Not a Central American one, my fine fellow. I dare say you will have to open your eyes wider than you think." "Perhaps so," said Fitz, who was growing more good-humoured over his companion's frank, genial ways; "but I feel more disposed to shut my eyes up now, and to have a good sleep." "Oh, don't do that! There will be plenty of time when it gets dark, and before then I hope we shall be off the river. We are slipping along pretty quickly now, and old Burgess is creeping closer in. That's his artfulness; it means looking out for creeks and islands, places where we could hide if the gunboat came into sight, or sneaking into shallows where she couldn't follow. The old man knows what he is about, and so does father too. Here, let's go and fetch a glass and get up aloft. I want to make out what the coast is like." The binocular was fetched from the cabin, and the lads mounted the rigging as high as they could to get comfortably perched, and then shared the glass, turn and turn, to come to the conclusion that every knot they crept along through the shallow sea brought them more and more abreast of a district that looked wild and beautiful in the extreme: low mountain gorge and ravine, beautiful forest clothing the slopes, and parts where the country was green with the waving trees almost to the water's-edge.