"Good!" exclaimed Jack. "That is excellent; the news is well worth a bottle of wine. You don't think, I suppose, that your friend had any suspicion of our intention, and deliberately told you all that for the purpose of misleading you?" "Not he," answered Milsom confidently; "he is too simple a chap to conceive any such suspicion as that. Besides, why should he? We have done nothing to lead even the most suspicious Spaniard to connect our departure with that of _El Maranon_. Oh, no! what he told me slipped out in the most casual way in the ordinary course of conversation, and you may be sure that I was particularly careful not to question him, or to say anything which might lead him to suppose that I took the least interest in the movements of the ship." "Well," said Jack, "we must hope for the best; but I am horribly anxious, Phil, lest anything should go wrong with this scheme of ours. So much depends upon its success, you know. By the way, what about a pilot for this place where we are going to transform the ship? How shall we manage about him?" "We shall not need to `manage' at all," answered Milsom, "for the simple reason that we shall not take a pilot. If we get under way at about eight o'clock to-morrow morning we shall reach our destination with several hours of daylight in hand; and with the help of this chart, a hand aloft on the foremast, and two leadsmen in the forechains, I will guarantee to take this little hooker in and out of that berth without so much as scratching her paint. Oh, no, we shall not take a pilot, who might possibly go back to Havana and set people wondering what the mischief was our object in slipping in behind Esquivel del Norte cay!" CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE RESCUE.