ither need we
trouble about the cruisers, for the faster of them--the _Lepanto_--is
only capable of twenty and a half knots when she is clean, and I am told
that at present she is dreadfully foul."

"Still, it appears to me that the torpedo boat is, apart from the rest,
more than we shall be able to manage," remarked Don Hermoso. "If she
persists in dogging our heels we shall not have a ghost of a chance of
landing our cargo anywhere."

"No," said Jack. "But she will not dog our heels, Don Hermoso; don't
you trouble. This is where my submarine comes in, and is going to
score, if I am not mistaken. Macintyre and I will be able to doctor
that torpedo boat so that she will not trouble us. We will just go down
in the submarine and remove the nut that secures her propeller to its
shaft, and when she begins to move, her propeller will drop off; and
before it can be replaced we will have our cargo ashore, and be in a
position to laugh at her."

"But how will you manage that, Jack, in the presence of all these
ships?" demanded Milsom. "You could not possibly do what you suggest
without being seen. Besides, there is the custom-house officer to be
reckoned with; and I really do not believe that the man is to be trusted
with your secret."

"We shall have to do the job at night-time--the night before we leave
here for Cuba," said Jack. "And, as to the custom-house officer, we
must trust that he will sleep too soundly to hear anything."

"Leave him to me," said Don Hermoso. "I am a bit of a chemist, in my
way, and I will concoct a liquid a few drops of which in his grog the
last thing at night will cause him to sleep soundly all night, and awake
none the worse in the morning."

"That will get us over one difficulty," said Jack, "and I have just
thought of a plan that will get us over another--that of getting the
submarine into the water unobserved. It strikes me that we can do all
that is necessary without using the submarine at all. That torpedo boat
is, as you may observe, lying quite close to the shore, so close,
indeed, that there cannot be much more than two feet of water under her
keel. Consequently Macintyre and I have only to don our special diving
dresses--which, as I think I have explained to you, need no air-pipe or
anything of that sort--go down over the side of the yacht, and make our
way to our prey under water. With a little management we could even do
the trick in broad daylight, and nobody be any