第54章

There was a great rattle of falling stones and of breaking vines as the sailors tumbled down the side of the fort, and in a half minute's time the three sentries were looking with angry, frightened eyes at the circle of armed men around them.

``Now gag them,'' said Clay.``Does anybody here know how to gag a man?'' he asked.``I don't.''

``Better make him tell what he knows first,'' suggested Langham.

But the Spaniards were too terrified at what they had done, or at what they had failed to do, to further commit themselves.

``Tie us and gag us,'' one of them begged.``Let them find us so.It is the kindest thing you can do for us.''

``Thank you, sir,'' said Clay.``That is what I wanted to know.

They are coming to-night, then.We must hurry.''

The three sentries were bound and hidden at the base of the wall, with a sailor to watch them.He was a young man with a high sense of the importance of his duties, and he enlivened the prisoners by poking them in the ribs whenever they moved.

Clay deemed it impossible to signal Kirkland as they had arranged to do, as they could not know now how near those who were coming for the arms might be.So MacWilliams was sent back for his engine, and a few minutes later they heard it rumble heavily past the fort on its way to bring up Kirkland and the flat cars.Clay explored the lower chambers of the fort and found the boxes as MacWilliams had described them.Ten men, with some effort, could lift and carry the larger coffin-shaped boxes, and Clay guessed that, granting their contents to be rifles, there must be a hundred pieces in each box, and that there were a thousand rifles in all.

They had moved half of the boxes to the side of the track when the train of flat cars and the two engines came crawling and twisting toward them, between the walls of the jungle, like a great serpent, with no light about it but the glow from the hot ashes as they fell between the rails.Thirty men, equally divided between Irish and negroes, fell off the flat cars before the wheels had ceased to revolve, and, without a word of direction, began loading the heavy boxes on the train and passing the kegs of cartridges from hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder.The sailors spread out up the road that led to the Capital to give warning in case the enemy approached, but they were recalled before they had reason to give an alarm, and in a half hour Burke's entire shipment of arms was on the ore-cars, the men who were to have guarded them were prisoners in the cab of the engine, and both trains were rushing at full speed toward the mines.On arriving there Kirkland's train was switched to the siding that led to the magazine in which was stored the rack-arock and dynamite used in the blasting.By midnight all of the boxes were safely under lock in the zinc building, and the number of the men who always guarded the place for fear of fire or accident was doubled, while a reserve, composed of Kirkland's thirty picked men, were hidden in the surrounding houses and engine-sheds.

Before Clay left he had one of the boxes broken open, and found that it held a hundred Mannlicher rifles.

``Good!'' he said.``I'd give a thousand dollars in gold if Icould bring Mendoza out here and show him his own men armed with his own Mannlichers and dying for a shot at him.How old Burke will enjoy this when he hears of it!''

The party from the Palms returned to their engine after many promises of reward to the men for their work ``over-time,'' and were soon flying back with their hearts as light as the smoke above them.