"Well," said Jack, "if there is an Englishman in the whole island who can do that, I think I ought to be that man; for did I not place my yacht at their service for the purpose of smashing up one of those gun- running expeditions that you were speaking of just now, at the moment when every one of their warships in the harbour had been disabled?" "Ah, yes!" said the Consul, "I remember hearing something of that affair, although the authorities did their best to hush it up. You failed, I believe, in consequence of your engines breaking down?" "Yes," said Jack, "just off Mulata Bay, the precise spot where the American steamer was landing her cargo. As a matter of fact, we actually saw her at it." "A most extraordinary affair!" remarked the Consul. "When the vessels were subsequently docked, it was discovered that their propellers had been rendered immovable by being locked with stout chains, from which it was surmised that the outrage must have been perpetrated by means of some kind of diving vessel; but where such a craft could have come from heaven only knows, for nothing of the kind has been discovered or got wind of in any of the harbours of Cuba--although I suppose it would not be a very difficult matter for people acquainted with the working of such a vessel to conceal her very effectually at the bottom of some out- of-the-way bay. I remember reading, some years ago, the story of a gigantic craft that was either airship or submarine, at the will of her crew, and which was capable of doing some very wonderful things; but I regarded the yarn as nothing more than the flight of a romancer's vivid imagination. Yet it must have been some such vessel that disabled the Spanish warships; which goes to prove again the soundness of the old adage that `truth is stranger than fiction'. But your yacht's disablement was an entirely different matter, as I understood, for you actually steamed several miles before you broke down. Did you ever discover to whom you were indebted for your mishap?" "How could we?" answered Jack. "We went to sea again the next morning, and have been absent ever since. I was thinking that I would call upon the Capitan-General, and ask him if any of his people had ever been able to find a clue to the identity of the guilty parties."