The next day was spent by Jack, at Mr Nisbett's invitation, in visiting, in the company of that gentleman, the establishments of certain manufacturers of firearms, where he very carefully inspected and tested the several weapons submitted to him for approval; finally selecting a six-shot magazine rifle, which was not only a most excellent weapon in all other respects, but one especially commending itself to him on account of the simplicity of its mechanism, which he believed would prove to be a very strong point in its favour when put into the hands of such comparatively unintelligent persons as he strongly suspected the rank and file of the Cuban insurgents would prove to be. He also decided upon an exceedingly useful pattern of sword-bayonet to go with the rifle, and also a six-shot revolver of an especially efficient character; and there and then gave the order--through Mr Nisbett--for as large a number of these weapons, together with ammunition for the same, as he believed the yacht could conveniently stow away. This done, he returned to his hotel, reaching it just in good time for dinner; and devoted the evening to the concoction of a letter to Senor Montijo, at Lucerne, reporting all that he had thus far done, also referring to Don Hermoso the important question of the yacht's armament, and somewhat laboriously transcribing the said letter into cipher. Jack's business in London was now done; on the following morning, therefore, he took train back to Newcastle. He called upon Mr Murdock, his partner, in the evening, explaining the arrangement which he had made to pay a visit to Cuba, including the rather singular proposal of Senor Montijo to which he had consented, as to the apparent ownership of the new yacht; and listened patiently but unconvinced to all Murdock's arguments against what the canny Northumbrian unhesitatingly denounced as an utterly hare-brained scheme. The next two days he devoted to the task of putting all his affairs in order, lest anything serious should happen to him during the progress of his adventure; and on the third day Nisbett presented himself, with his consulting naval architect, to witness the final trials of the yacht before accepting her, on behalf of Senor Montijo, from the builders. These trials were of a most searching and exhaustive character, lasting over a full week, at the end of which came the coal-consumption test, consisting of a non-stop run northward at full speed, through the Pentland Firth, round Cape Wrath; then southward outside the Hebrides and past the west coast of Ireland, thence from Mizen Head across to Land's End; up the English Channel and the North Sea, to her starting-point. The run down past the west coast of Ireland, and part of the way up the Channel, was accomplished in the face of a stiff south-westerly gale and through a very heavy sea, in which the little craft behaved magnificently, the entire trial, from