Next morning we weighed and steamed slowly down the bay of La Laguna, past the Casino where the great fight had been, and anchored under El Castellar. The green and yellow flag was still flying over it, and they had made no attempt to cover up the hole my for’ard 9.2 gun had made in the walls. Every now and then we heard rifle shots, and saw parties of the little insurgents running about among the trees beneath the fort, so knew that Gerald was still investing it. The Captain sent for me. ’I’m going ashore, boy! going to see the Commandant of that fort and you can come with me. Have to inform him about our Government’s decision and about _La Buena Presidente_. I don’t like the job, boy, that I don’t.’ In half an hour we were alongside a small jetty, built below the fort, and had landed in white uniform, helmets, and swords. An officer and a couple of black soldiers came running down a zigzag path to meet us, the officer saluting and bowing and the two black chaps presenting arms. ’_El Commandante?_’ the Skipper said, shipping his ’tin eye,’ and pointing up to the fort. ’He will have much honour,’ the officer bowed. ’Thank goodness some one knows a bit of English,’ I heard the Skipper mutter as we followed him. My aunt! but it was hot, and the Skipper was sweating like a bull as he walked up that blazing path. The stones under our feet seemed to burn through the soles of our boots, and the withered palm and cactus leaves, stuck in between the rocks, looked as if they’d never known what rain was or a breeze either—they were covered with a thick white dust. The officer didn’t sweat, he looked as dry and shrivelled as the leaves themselves, and as if he hadn’t had a drink or a square meal for weeks; his uniform was dirty and torn. Across the flap of his revolver holster there was a long furrow, made, probably, by a bullet, and, to judge by its appearance, within a few hours, but he gave you the impression that he’d never known anything else except war and forest fighting, and that one bullet, more or less, didn’t matter. ’Pretty swanky!’ the Skipper grunted, taking off his helmet and wiping his forehead. ’I no savvy,’ the officer said, and then ’tumbled’ to it and smiled for a second, his yellow leathery face looking as if it would crack. As we reached the top we passed any number of ox bones and skulls, and the smell was pretty unpleasant. It looked as if they’d been thrown over the walls. Then we passed inside the fort, through a small iron door in the thickness of the wall, not that part of the wall which our 9.2 had damaged, but round a corner, and it struck me that we had been purposely taken this way, so as not to see the hole.