ty
miles by sea from Velova, though only about half the distance through
one of the mountain-passes by land. We ought to have been there now,
and I dare say we should have been if Mr Burgess had not run us on to a
rock. But that fellow going overboard quite upset my plans. It was a
great nuisance, and I seemed to be obliged to heave-to, and wait to see
if you people would come back on board."

"Yes, father, I suppose so," said Poole coolly.

"Done eating, you two?"

The lads both rose, and the whole party went on deck to scan their
position, the lads finding the schooner gliding along southward before a
pleasant breeze, while miles away on the starboard-bow a dim line marked
the coast, which seemed rugged and broken up into mountain and vale; but
there was no sign of gunboat nor a sail of any kind, and Poole breathed
more freely.

"One's so helpless," he said to his companion, "on a coast like this,
where one time you have a nice sailing wind, and the next hour it has
dropped into a calm, so that a steamer has you quite at its mercy."

"Yes," said Fitz dryly; "but I don't see that it matters when you have
nothing on board but agricultural implements and chemical manures. What
business is it of the gunboat?"

"Ah, what indeed?" cried Poole, laughing. "It's a piece of impudence,
isn't it, to want to interfere! But I say, Burnett, what father says
sounds well, doesn't it--a hacienda at the mouth of a river, and a
mountain-pass? That means going ashore and seeing something, if we are
in luck. I do know that the country's glorious here, from the peep or
two I once had. My word! People think because you go sailing about the
world you must see all kinds of wonders, when all the time you get a
peep or two of some dirty port without going ashore, and all your
travels are up and down the deck of your ship--and nothing else but
sea."

"I wish I could get landed at some big port," said Fitz bitterly. "I
wouldn't call it dirty."

"My word, what a fellow you are!" said Poole. "Grumbling again!"

"Grumbling!" cried Fitz hotly. "Isn't it enough to make any one
grumble, dragged off my ship a prisoner like this?"

"No," cried Poole. "Why, some chaps would call it grand. Now you've
got about well again it's all a big lark for you. Every one's trying to
make you comfortable. Look at the adventures you are going through!
Look at last night! Why, it was all fine, now that we have got through
it as we did. You