Lopez, in a very bad humour at being called for duty after having only just turned in on the completion of his "watch-on", came surlily up to the bridge where Mendoza was already at his post. In the small hours of the morning even the prospect of easily-gotten booty paled before the knowledge that his night's rest had vanished. He began to realize that being in sole possession of the secret of the channel through the reefs had certain disadvantages.
"We must wait till daylight before we get under way," he declared.
"There is plenty of starlight," countered Mendoza. "And, if necessary, we can run the searchlights."
"Bearings look totally different by night," objected Lopez with a shrug.
"Nevertheless we proceed," declared his superior officer. "Come, now; do your duty. Our prize is waiting."
"Let her wait," retorted Lopez insolently. Confident in his own exclusive qualifications he added: "If you want the Paloma taken through the reefs take her yourself. It's my watch below."
Mendoza realized that Lopez had the advantage of him. By daylight he might have risked the passage, sending boats on ahead to take soundings. It would be a slow, laborious task and one fraught with danger, for more than likely the boats would be capsized in the breakers. Yet his subordinate's studied insolence stung him to ungovernable fury.
Without warning he hurled himself against the younger man and bore him to the deck, his hands clutching at Lopez's windpipe with relentless violence.
"Pig! Son of a pig!" spluttered Mendoza. "I'll teach you a lesson. Juan! Enrico! Come here and secure the rascal."
The quartermaster and one of the hands went to the captain's assistance. Between them they bound the now terrified Lopez hand and foot and bundled him down the bridge-ladder.
Mendoza then addressed the mutineers on deck, pointing out that their chance of gaining a rich and easy prize was being jeopardized by Lopez's refusal to pilot the vessel out to sea. Naturally the men's sympathies were not on the side of the defaulter.
"He will pilot us all the same," concluded Mendoza. "Take him for'ard and lower him from the cathead. If the vessel strikes the rocks he will be the first to show the way to the sharks!"
The commotion as the wretched Lopez was dragged for'ard aroused Kenneth and Peter, who, worn out by their prolonged and arduous task, were sleeping soundly under a tarpaulin on the fo'c'sle.
"Lopez is properly in the soup," declared Kenneth.
"Serves the brute right," rejoined his chum. "Wonder what he's been up to?"
"I hope they don't murder him," said the other lad, who, although he had suffered many indignities at Lopez's instigation did not carry his animosity to such an extent as to wish to see the Spaniard put to death.
"No fear," asserted Peter confidently. "They're merely putting the wind up him. He's too valuable as a pilot, although he may be an utter wash-out as a pirate."
The crew had by this time fastened a bowline round the luckless Lopez's waist, and had him dangling midway between the cathead and the surface of the water. Already the fellow's bombastic attitude had deserted him. He was completely cowed. In frantic accents he appealed to be allowed to speak to el Capitán Mendoza.
"What does he want to say?" demanded Mendoza, when the request was conveyed to him. "Ask him that."
Presently the messenger returned to the bridge.
"Señor Lopez is quite willing to give all information concerning the pilotage," he reported. "Only he wishes to point out that, since stern-bearings are necessary, he cannot get them in line from his position over the bows."
"That is so," agreed Mendoza. "I quite see the point of his argument. Nevertheless he will remain where he is until the vessel is clear of the reefs—and longer if I deem it advisable. He will give the correct courses from time to time, and that information will be transmitted to the bridge, when I will act upon it. What are those English boys doing on the fo'c'sle, Manuel? Order them right aft: tell them to keep below until they are called to fall in with their proper watch."
Already Manuel, the sailor who was to act intermediary between the captain and the counter-mutineer, was scurrying down the bridge-ladder. In the din caused by the hiss of escaping steam he failed to hear the latter part of the captain's instructions and merely ordered Kenneth and Peter aft.
By this time one anchor had been weighed and the cable of the other hove short. On either side of the bridge searchlights were playing dead ahead to enable the Paloma to feel her way between the side of the gorge that formed the approach channel to the secret harbour.
Almost at the last moment before the vessel got under way a boat ran alongside with Miguel Fe. It had been Mendoza's original plan to leave Miguel Fe on the island in charge of the buccaneers' base; but Lopez's defection had made it necessary for another officer to be on board.
"What has happened to Lopez?" inquired Peter of one of the English-speaking seamen—the man who had previously acted as cabin steward to Mr. Heatherington, and who was rather inclined to treat the lads with a certain amount of consideration.
"He refused to pilot the ship," replied the man. "Therefore the Capitán Mendoza make him. He will have to shout his directions so that all will know and the secret will be secret no longer."
"Pity we don't understand Spanish," said Peter, when the two chums found themselves alone just for'ard of the taffrail. "If we learnt the leading marks the information might be jolly useful later on."
"Although we don't speak Spanish, there's no reason why we shouldn't keep our eyes open and see what the ship is steering for," declared Kenneth. "But I must admit that we can't see where she is heading for from here."
"Quite so," admitted Peter. "As a matter of fact no one on board will. They took bearings ahead when they brought the Paloma in: I'm positive of that. If they have to use the same marks for going out, they'll either be astern or abeam, so we are in the right place to see. Hallo, we're forging ahead."
The passage through the gorge by day was a nerve-racking experience; by night it was still more so. Right ahead the jagged walls looked like masses of glistening silver in the rays of the twin searchlights. Abaft the bridge the darkness was intensified to such an extent that the cliffs even at five yards distance were invisible, yet their presence could be felt and heard. The mass of rock radiated heat stored up during the day; it magnified and threw back the sounds of the vessel's engines till the noise became almost deafening. Once there was a rending of woodwork as the Paloma's port quarter ground against a projecting bluff, the shock, although she was going dead slow, causing her to list violently to starboard until she rasped past the obstruction.
In saner moments Mendoza would have hesitated to undertake the passage perilous; but so eager was he to snap up the tempting and helpless prize that he ran risks with the utmost recklessness. The attitude was typical of the man. In moments of less danger he had been unnerved and panic-stricken. Possibly because darkness hid most of the dangers his mercurial temperament was well above blood-heat. At all costs he determined to gain the offing and start in search of his quarry.
Standing aft the two chums had the most unpleasant place on board with the exception of the luckless Lopez, who, strictly speaking could not be considered as being on the ship. He was dangling over the bows, running the risk of being crushed like a fly should a false movement of the helm send the Paloma's stem crashing into the wall of the gorge.
The coal with which the Paloma had rebunkered had not improved with keeping. Inferior in the first instance when it was brought from South America for the use of the German Pacific squadron, it was now emitting dense volumes of smoke that hung low in the tropical air and eddied sluggishly in the vessel's wake, until the atmosphere which Kenneth and Peter breathed was like that of an ill-ventilated railway tunnel. They were not sorry when the Paloma emerged from the narrow passage and curtsied to the gentle heave of the breakers on the still distant reefs.