em to be found here if they are
looked for."

"Ay, ay, sir!" answered the man. "We have passed a few already; but I
didn't say anything, because we weren't headin' so as to hit 'em."

Ten minutes later the pirogue was close at hand, and Milsom rang down
the signal to "Stop". The pirogue was a very quaint-looking craft, of
about twenty feet in length by some five feet beam, formed out of a
solid log of wood which had been roughly trimmed with an axe to form the
bottom portion of her, with a couple of planks above to form her top
sides. Although the trade wind was blowing quite fresh, this queer-
looking craft carried no ballast, properly so-called; but to prevent her
from capsizing a couple of negroes stood on her weather gunwale, holding
on to ropes attached to her masthead, and leaning back almost
horizontally out over the water. A third negro, attired in a
picturesquely dirty shirt, and trousers rolled up above his knees, and
with a most shockingly dilapidated straw hat on his head, steered the
little craft by means of a broad-bladed paddle laid out over the lee
quarter. Primitive, however, as the craft was in appearance, she came
through the water at a most astonishing rate, and presently shot up
alongside under the lee of the yacht, the two negroes who acted as
ballast smartly recovering themselves and springing inboard as she did
so. A rope's end was thrown down into her, and the picturesque
individual who had been steering her nimbly climbed up the side of the
yacht and stepped on deck, where he was met by Don Hermoso.

"Buenos dias, Senor!" exclaimed the fellow, doffing his ragged head-
covering with the flourish and grace of a grandee. "Cuba is ready!"
(This was the password that was to prove the _bona fides_ of the man.)

"And we also are ready," answered Don Hermoso. "Is the coast clear?"

"Quite clear, Senor," answered the man, who, by the way, was a turtle
fisher, inhabiting a hut on one of the small cays that stretched across
the entrance of the lagoon which the yacht was approaching. "A gunboat
has been cruising about the bay of late, but she steamed away yesterday
morning, after communicating with the shore, and we have seen nothing of
her since."

"Then we had better proceed forthwith, and get our work over whilst the
opportunity is favourable," remarked Don Hermoso. "What is your name,
by the by?"

"Pedro, Senor--Pedro Velasquez," answered the man.

"Good!" said Don Hermoso. "Follow