is hand.

"The _Diario_ has just arrived," he said. "I haven't tried to read it
yet, but the liner has been attacked."

Dick, who was superintending the building of the sluice, hastily
scrambled up the bank, and Stuyvesant, taking the newspaper, sat down in
the shade of the tower. He knew more Castilian than the others, who
gathered round him as he translated.

The liner, the account stated, had the coast in sight shortly before dark
and was steaming along it when a large, black funnel steamer appeared
from behind a point. The captain at once swung his vessel round and the
stranger fired a shot, of which he took no notice. It was blowing fresh,
the light would soon fade, and there was a group of reefs, which he knew
well, not far away. The raider gained a little during the next hour and
fired several shots. Two of the shells burst on board, killing a seaman
and wounding some passengers, but the captain held on. When it was
getting dark the reefs lay close ahead, with the sea breaking heavily on
their outer edge, but he steamed boldly for an intricate, unmarked
channel between them and the land. In altering his course, he exposed the
vessel's broadside to the enemy and a shot smashed the pilot-house, but
they steered her in with the hand-gear. The pursuer then sheered off, but
it got very dark and the vessel grounded in a position where the reef
gave some shelter.

Nothing could be done until morning, but as day broke the raider
reappeared and had fired a shot across the reef when a gunboat belonging
to the state in whose territorial waters the steamer lay came upon the
scene. She steamed towards the raider, which made off at full speed. Then
the gunboat took the liner's passengers on board, and it was hoped that
the vessel could be re-floated.

"A clear story, told by a French or Spanish sailor who'd taken a passage
on the ship," Bethune remarked. "It certainly didn't come from one of the
British crew."

"Why?" Jake asked.

Bethune smiled. "A seaman who tells the truth about anything startling
that happens on board a passenger boat gets fired. The convention is to
wrap the thing in mystery, if it can't be denied. Besides, the ability to
take what you might call a quick, bird's-eye view isn't a British gift;
an Englishman would have concentrated on some particular point. Anyhow, I
can't see how the boat came to be where she was at the time mentioned."
He turned to Dick and asked: "Do you know, Brandon?"

"No,"