Forward, a cluster of men were sitting about the windlass and leaning on the rail. They were of diverse nationality and doubtful character— American, Castilian, and African by extraction, though in the case of some of uncertain color it would have been difficult to decide which blood predominated in their veins. It was their task to supply the insurgents with the munitions of war, and they undertook it dispassionately, without any patriotic convictions, for the dollars it would bring. Indeed, most of them were not held in much esteem in the countries they belonged to, or they would not in all probability have been there on board the “Ventura.” Appleby watched them languidly from where he sat behind the wheel, and wondered what lay before him when he glanced towards the dusky coast‐ line. He was, however, not unduly anxious, for he had cut himself adrift from the cramped life he had led, and as yet found the new one pleasant. It needed qualities he felt he possessed, and which, indeed, he had with difficulty held in due subjection in England; while the fact that it might at any time terminate suddenly caused him no great concern. In the meanwhile the risks and opportunities attached to it had their charm for one who had long found poverty and the restraints of conventionality irksome. “We’ll have the moon up in ten minutes,” said Harper, as the “Ventura” swung up on a frothing sea. “That would suit us if we were in the bay, but I’m not certain where we’re heading for just now. You still think that was Sparto Point we saw at dusk, Rosendo?” The man who sat upon the rail shook his head. “Who knows!” he said. “If she is not the Sparto she may be the Playa Santiago, or the Cameron.” Harper turned to Appleby with a little gesture of resignation. “You hear him. He’s talking,” he said. “Thirty miles more or less don’t count with them. If we don’t get in to‐day, we may to‐morrow, and if it’s next week nobody’s going to worry. They’ve nice business‐like notions in their country.” Rosendo laughed. “We not find the Sparto? Good! It is simple. She is farther on. We find her in two or three more hour.” “Oh yes!” said Harper. “Still, what I want to know is, what’s going to happen if the gunboat comes along while we’re looking for her? I’ve a notion it might mean a white wall and a firing party.” Rosendo shrugged his shoulders, and Appleby glanced towards the east. There was a bank of cloud in that quarter, but the sky above it was a pale luminescent blue. Then he looked astern, and saw the white tops of the seas heave against the darkness, for it was blowing fresh from the north. The “Ventura,” rolling lazily, was running before it with only her boom‐foresail and two jibs set, but now and then the crest of a sea that surged past lapped her rail. “Wouldn’t she stand more sail?” he said.