About fifteen minutes after the gray steam launch containing Virginia, Reyes, and Gale had left the battleship, another of the _Kearsarge’s_ hooded fifty-footers darted away from the starboard gangway apparently, from the course she took, bound for the landing at Puerto Cabero. But after this little craft had gone far enough away to be out of sight of the battleship, it suddenly changed its course, and, making a wide detour, sped toward the fortress of El Torro. Presently the lone sentry, pacing the narrow strip of land in front of that ugly gray building, brought his rifle smartly down from his shoulder as the boat reached the beach and a tall figure stepped ashore. “Halt! Who goes there?” the picket demanded. But without waiting for an answer he abandoned his menacing attitude and respectfully presented arms. For, although it was dark, he was able to discern that the man who had stepped ashore from the battleship’s launch wore the uniform of a captain of the army of Baracoa, and that his eyes were screened by a pair of familiar blue spectacles. The newcomer stiffly acknowledged the salute, then turned to shake hands with the natty young American naval officer in charge of the launch’s crew. “Well, good-by, Captain Reyes,” the sentry heard the naval officer say, addressing the bespectacled man in Spanish. “Sorry that you are obliged to leave us before the fun is all over. I trust we shall meet again soon.” The launch started back toward the battleship, whose gayly illuminated outline the sentry had been gazing at wistfully all night, wishing that he wore epaulets so that he, too, might be wining and dining instead of doing wearisome picket duty; but after the little boat had gone a short way it stopped, as though something might be the matter with its machinery. The sentry might have paid more attention to this maneuver if the bespectacled man in the captain’s uniform had not at that moment addressed him. “You can go,” the latter announced. “You are relieved. I will take your place.” The words, which were in Spanish, were spoken with a thickness which, in the picket’s opinion, seemed to account for the unusualness of the incident. He observed, too, that the other swayed as he spoke. By which token he deduced that the supply of champagne aboard the battleship had been plentiful. As the sentry hesitated, the man with the epaulets turned upon him fiercely. “What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “Do you not understand? You are relieved.” His utterance had grown even thicker than before, and his voice did not sound much like that of Captain Reyes, but, considering his condition, the soldier saw nothing strange about that. Promptly the latter once more presented arms. Tipsy or sober, the man in the blue spectacles was his superior officer, and it was not for a common soldier to question his orders.