But the surprise of the buccaneers was greater still when they found themselves covered by four machine-guns mounted on the Talca's upperworks. Simultaneously the latter's upper deck was crowded by a swarm of desperate-looking ruffians clad in red shirts, loose blue trousers, and scarlet caps, each man armed with an automatic pistol and a keen-edged machete.
The surprise was mutual. Each vessel had imagined that the other was a harmless merchantman; both were piratical craft.
"Surrender yourselves!" shouted the Chilean captain.
"Surrender yourselves!" retorted Mendoza, at the same time frantically thrusting the engine-room telegraph to "Full ahead". At the same time, Miguel Fe yelled to the crew of the concealed quick-firer to drop the screens.
The Spaniards manning the gun, unable to see what was going on and thinking that the supposed Chilean tramp was giving trouble, lowered the dummy portion of the boiler-casing and swung the gun abeam. As they did so, the Paloma forged ahead. So did the Talca, gathering way with more celerity than her antagonist. Far from being a disabled merchantman with a broken tail-shaft, she was a twin-screw vessel capable of doing twenty knots with ease.
The result was a deadlock. Not a shot was fired, although it wanted but the pressure of a finger to start the combat. The captain of the pirate Talca knew that he could rake the Paloma's decks with machine-gun fire; but that would be futile if the Paloma sent his lightly-built craft to the bottom with one shell from her quick-firer discharged at point-blank range at the Talca's water-line. Mendoza, on his part, was aware that he was out-manœuvred in speed, and even if he sent his rival to the bottom, the machine-guns of the latter would take heavy toll, and reduce the already none too numerous crew of the Paloma to a mere handful, most of whom would be killed or wounded by the hail of bullets.
The opposing captains were ready to wound and yet afraid to strike—because they feared to be wounded themselves. Their hot-blooded Spanish temperaments cooled with remarkable rapidity under the stern argument of an evenly-balanced combat, in which neither side had a decisive advantage, and one that might well result in both vessels going to the bottom of the Pacific. The Paloma could not outstrip the Talca in speed; nor could the latter hope to elude the former, without being raked by the powerful quick-firer's shells as she attempted to do so.
"I see that I have made a slight mistake," shouted the captain of the Talca.
"So you have," replied Mendoza. "And I, too, for that matter."
The rivals laughed. The laughter became infectious, and the two Spanish-speaking crews exchanged ribald jests.
"It would be well to come to an amicable understanding," continued the captain of the Talca. "Get way off your ship and let us discuss matters."
"Certainly," agreed Mendoza, ringing down for "Stop", and at the same time cautioning the gun's crew to stand fast in the event of treachery.
Both vessels lost way and rolled sluggishly in the long Pacific swell, at a distance of a cable's length from each other. Through a megaphone the Chilean skipper shouted an invitation to Mendoza to come aboard; Mendoza courteously refused and suggested that the other should visit him. At length they compromised matters by agreeing to meet at mid-distance.
Promptly the Paloma's gig was lowered and manned. The crew were unarmed, but Mendoza carried his automatic in his coat pocket. With equal smartness the Talca lowered one of her boats, the crew of which bent to their oars as they made the little craft slip through the water to the rendezvous.
The boats met and were soon rubbing their fender-protected gunwales together. The rival captains offered each other cigarettes and proceeded to get to business.
"I did not know that there was another gentleman of fortune in this part of the Pacific, Señor," began the captain of the Talca.
"Neither did I," rejoined Mendoza. "It was a strange trick to lure me all this way."
"Equally strange for you to do so," rejoined the other. "I was under the impression that you were the Corada. No, this is not the Talca. It is a name I borrowed. The real Talca was sighted three days ago, going east; but as there was a cursed Yankee cruiser barely hull down, we had to let the Talca slip through our fingers. My name, Señor Capitán, is Hernando Paquilla, otherwise known as 'The Mystery man of Valdivia'. And yours?"
Mendoza told him.
"There is not scope for two corsairs working at cross-purposes," remarked Paquilla tentatively. "Acting in concert they might do much—very much."
"That is so," agreed Mendoza.
"But on the other hand," continued Paquilla, "the greater the number of participators the smaller the individual share of the booty. Where is your base?"
"Boya," replied the captain of the Paloma.
"Boya!" ejaculated the other. "Caramba! Do you mean to tell me that you shelter yonder vessel at Boya? Why, a pearler couldn't find enough water between the reefs."
"We can," declared Mendoza vain-gloriously. "And where is your base?"
"I have none," admitted Paquilla. "When I have to rebunker and reprovision I have to take what I can find on the high seas. Look at my craft: observe she is well down to her water-line. That is her cargo of valuable booty. I have had to start tons of water ballast to make space for my loot, and now the difficulty arises how am I to dispose of it?"
"That is an easy matter if you know the way," remarked Mendoza. Then he broke off abruptly, thinking hard the while. "Come to Boya," he continued. "Accept the hospitality of my secret base. Since you suggest it, working in partnership will be a satisfactory business for us both."
Paquilla stretched out a slim but horny hand. Mendoza grasped it.
"May the hand rot if I play you false," declared Paquilla.
"And mine also," rejoined Mendoza.
"And now for Boya, Señor Capitán," said Paquilla. "Before nightfall may we drink together at your base to the success of our joint enterprise."
CHAPTER XVII. THE LAST OF THE "HET VOLK"
Down below the water-line in the stokehold of the Paloma, Kenneth and Peter were kept hard at work by the chief stoker. They had little time for conversation. As they toiled they could not help wondering what was going on on deck. The experience was very similar to that of the "black squad" of a warship during action. Although the possibility of being sent to the bottom was in this instance fairly remote, there remained the natural anxiety as to what was taking place between the two vessels.
They could hear little in the terrific din of the engines; they could see nothing beyond the limits of the steel bulk-headed boiler-room. Occasionally the sonorous clang of the engine-room telegraph-bell, followed either by an acceleration or slowing down of the machinery, told them that the Paloma was manœuvring. They expected to hear the crash of gunfire, the shouts and shrieks of the combatants—failed to do so and were still further mystified. The while they toiled, grasping warm shovels that blistered their hands as they shovelled fuel into the rapacious maws of the furnaces.
At length their trick came to an end with the arrival of their reliefs. Stripped to the waist, oozing perspiration at every pore, covered with coal-dust and with their hands galled and blistered, and every muscle aching under the effect of the strenuous work in a confined space, the chums literally dragged themselves up the vertical steel ladder and gained the deck.