Well, all this, coming directly after the worry about Gerald, made me feel pretty bad-tempered. I wanted Ginger to yarn with more than any one, but that was ’finish,’ and, as my shoulder wasn’t quite all right yet, I had nothing to do but wander about the ship like a caged monkey. Every one knew about San Fernando in two or three days, and by the time my shoulder was all right and I could go ashore—you bet I kept my eyes skinned to see that chap who’d knifed me—news began coming pretty regularly from that town, brought by small sailing-boats which managed to get through at night—and most of it was pretty bad news. Gerald and the insurgents had certainly got possession of San Fernando, but El Castellar, the strong fort at the narrow inlet to the bay, was still in the hands of the President, and still stopped all trade. Not only that, but, worse still, the Santa Cruz gun-boats slipped up there and amused themselves by bombarding the defenceless town. The whole Insurgent army didn’t possess anything even as big as a field-gun, so the gunboats could fire away in comfort as long as their ammunition lasted. We heard that the warehouses and offices along the sea-front had already been practically destroyed by shell-fire. As these nearly all belonged to English firms, whose headquarters were at Princes’ Town, the whole colony was in an uproar; and, much to our joy, our Skipper was ordered—from home—to take the _Hector_ up to San Fernando and report on the state of affairs. You can imagine how excited we all were, and how I looked forward to seeing old Gerald bossing round in his General’s uniform. That chum of mine ashore—the man who seemed to be ’in the know’—came up to me in the Club, the day before we were to sail, and made me introduce him to the Skipper. ’I want him to take a few things to San Fernando for me,’ he told me. ’I’ve got some machinery for one of our estates—it’s been lying on the wharves for the last six weeks, and they can’t get on without it.’ I didn’t hear what passed between them, but knew that the Skipper was in such high spirits that he’d have done anything for anybody just then. And so it turned out, for that evening a lighter came alongside, and I had the job of hoisting in four large crates of hydraulic machinery, some boxes of shafting, and dozens of smaller crates. The Commander was furious, but the Skipper had said ’yes,’ and although his jolly face fell when he saw how ’chock-a-block’ the battery deck was, with all these packing-cases, he wouldn’t go back on his word. After we’d finished I was getting a bit of supper in the gun-room when O’Leary came knocking at the door and wanting to speak to me. He wouldn’t come in. ’Beg pardon, sir, but I wants to ’ave a word with you, private like.’ ’What is it?’ I asked, taking him into my cabin.