It was about four o'clock in the afternoon and Kit Askew lounged in a chair on the bridge-deck as the Rio Negro steamed slowly across the long swell of the Caribbean. The wrinkled undulations sparkled with reflected light in a dazzling pattern of blue and silver, and then faded to green and purple in the shadow of the ship. A wave of snowy foam curled up as the bows went down and the throb of the propeller quickened as the poop swung against the sky. Then the lurching hull steadied and the clang of engines resumed its measured beat.

The Rio Negro was old and ugly, with short iron masts from which clumsy derricks hung, tall, upright funnel, and blistered, gray paint. Her boats were dirty and stained by soot, and a belt of rust at her waterline hinted at neglect, but no barnacles and weed marred the smoothness of the plates below. Her antifouling paint was clean, and her lines beneath the swell of quarter and bows were fine. In fact, the Rio Negro was faster than she looked when she carried her regular load of two thousand tons and her under-water body was hidden. She traded in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and at certain ports Customs officials carefully scrutinized her papers. At others, they smiled and allowed her captain privileges that strangers did not get.

Kit wore spotless white clothes, a black-silk belt, and a Panama hat of the expensive kind the Indians weave, holding the fine material under water. A glass occupied a socket in his chair, and when the Rio Negro rolled a lump of ice tinkled against its rim; a box of choice cigars lay on the deck. Kit, however, was not smoking, but drowsily pondered the life he had led for the last three years. He was thinner and looked older than when he left Ashness. He had lost something of his frankness and his raw enthusiasm had gone. His face was quieter and his mouth set in a firm line.

He remembered his surprise when he first met his uncle at a luxurious Florida hotel. Adam Askew wore loose white clothes, a well-cut Tuxedo jacket, a diamond ring, and another big diamond in his scarf. His skin was a curious yellowish brown and his eyes were very black; he rather looked like a Spanish Creole than an Englishman. He had nothing of his brother's quiet manner. Although he was getting old, he walked with a jaunty step; he had a humorous twinkle, and his laugh was careless. In fact, he had an exotic, romantic look that harmonized with Kit's notions of the pirates who once haunted the Gulf of Mexico. When Kit afterwards learned why Adam's friends called him the "buccaneer," he saw that his first impression was not extravagant.

Now he remembered that when they sat behind the imitation Moorish arches on the hotel veranda Adam studied him and laughed.

"You're certainly Peter's son," he remarked. "I can imagine I'd just left him at the end of the Ashness lonning thirty years since. Except that he's got older, I reckon he hasn't changed, and for that matter, Peter was never young. Well, you are surely like him, but if you stop in this country we'll put a move on you."

"If I'm like my father, I am satisfied," Kit rejoined.

Adam's black eyes twinkled. "Now I see a difference; there's red blood in you. But don't take me wrong. Peter's a white man, straight as a plumb-line, one of the best; he's a year the younger of us, but when the old man died he brought me up. There are two kinds of Askews and I belong to the other lot. I don't know why they called you after roystering Kit."

It was obvious that Adam knew the family history, for Christopher Askew was a turbulent Jacobite who lost the most part of his estate when he joined Prince Charlie's starving Highlanders in the rearguard fight at Clifton Moor. Afterwards the sober quietness at Ashness had now and then been disturbed by an Askew who inherited the first Kit's reckless temperament.

Three years had gone since Kit met Adam, and he had learned much. To begin with, Adam sent him to an American business school, and made him study Castilian and French. Then he sent him to Mexico and countries farther south, where he studied human nature of strangely varied kinds. He met and traded with men of many colors: French and Spanish Creoles, negroes, Indians, and half-breeds with some of the blood of all. He knew the American gulf ports and their cosmopolitan hotels and gambling saloons, but Adam noted with half-amused approval that while he was not at all a prig he developed Peter's character and not Kit the Jacobite's. Now they were going south across the Caribbean on a business venture.

By and by Adam came slowly along the bridge-deck. The three years had marked a change in him and Kit thought he did not look well. Adam suffered now and then from malarial ague, caught in the mangrove swamps. He was thin, his yellow face was haggard, and his shoulders were bent. Sitting down close by, he lighted a cigar and turned to Kit.

"We ought to raise the coast before it's dark and I reckon Mayne will get his bearings," he remarked. "The lagoon's a blamed awkward place to enter and I'd have waited until to-morrow only that Don Hernando is expecting us."

"It will save us a day if we can get in, since you want to land the B. F. cargo in the dark," Kit said thoughtfully. "We pay high wages and the Rio Negro is an expensive boat to run."

"That's so," Adam agreed with a smile. "You talk like a Cumberland flock-master. Counting every cent you spend is a safe plan, but I don't know that this trip will pan out much of a business proposition."

"Do you feel better for your sleep?" Kit asked.

"Some, though I've got a headache and a pain in my back. Guess they'll shake off when I get to work."

"I was surprised when you said you meant to sail with us."

"So I imagined," Adam rejoined dryly. "You wondered why I didn't, as usual, trust you to deliver the goods? Well, there's rather more to this job than that, and I meant to put you wise before we landed. You have heard me called a pirate, but I don't reckon on taking home much plunder now."

Kit mused while Adam beckoned a mulatto steward, who brought him a glass and some ice. His uncle's character was complex. Sometimes he was hard and exacted all that was his; sometimes he was rashly generous. Ostensibly, he was a merchant, shipping tools and machines, particularly supplies for sugar mills, to the countries round the Caribbean, and taking payment in native produce. Kit, however, knew the cases landed from the Rio Negro did not always hold the goods the labels stated, and that Adam's money sometimes helped to float an unpopular government over a crisis and sometimes to turn another out. It was a risky business, carried on with people who had a talent for dark revolutionary intrigue.

"Since Don Hernando Alvarez is president of the republic, I don't quite see why we need smuggle in his machine-guns," Kit remarked.

"On the surface, the reason isn't very obvious. Alvarez is president now, but mayn't be very long. It depends on whether he or his rival, Galdar, gets his blow in first. I reckon the chances are against Alvarez if Galdar puts up a fight, but the latter's not ready yet and Alvarez means to arm his troops before the fellow knows. I imagine about half the citizens are plotters and spies."

"Alvarez has been honest so far. I suppose if he wins he'll pay?"

"That's so," said Adam dryly. "If he goes down, we get nothing. Although I don't know much about his ancestors and suspect that one was an Indian, Alvarez is white, but the other fellow's a blamed poor sample of the half-breed nigger. Well, when Alvarez found things were going wrong, he sent for me."

"Ah," said Kit in a thoughtful voice, "I begin to understand."

He did understand, although he would not have done so when he met his uncle first. He had known Adam play the part of a merciless creditor, and thought few men could beat him at a bargain, but he kept his bargain when it was made, and now and then risked his money on lost causes. It looked as if he had inherited something from Christopher the Jacobite.

"You have known Alvarez long, haven't you?" Kit resumed.

"When I met him first, he was a customs officer with some perquisites and a salary that paid for liquor and tobacco. Vanhuyten and I ran the old Mercedes then, and Van made a mistake that put us at the fellow's mercy. There was a good case for confiscating the schooner, which would have given Alvarez a lift while we went broke. In fact, the night of the crisis, I dropped Van's pistol overboard; he'd got malaria badly and was feeling desperate. Well, all we had given Alvarez didn't cover that kind of a job, but he'd promised to stand our friend and kept his word like a gentleman. Guess it needed some nerve and judgment to work things the way he did, and when we stole out to sea at daybreak past the port guard, I knew there was one man in the rotten country I could trust with my life. Now he's in a tight place, he knows he can trust me."

Adam got up and crossing the deck leaned against the rails. In the distance, where the glitter faded, there was a long gray smear that seemed to float like a smoke-trail above the water. Higher up, a vague blue line ran across the dazzling sky. The first was a fringe of mangrove forest; the other lofty mountains. A minute or two later, the fat, brown-faced captain came down from his bridge.

"Looks like the Punta; we've hit her first time," he remarked. "In about an hour I ought to get my marks. When d'you want her taken in?"

"Soon as it's dark," Adam replied. "You'll have to trust your lead and compass. Can't have you whistling for a pilot, and I'd sooner you put out your lights."

"It's your risk and not the first time I've broken rules. I guess I can keep her off the ground. We'll get busy presently and heave the hatches off. The B.F. cases are right on top."

Adam nodded, and beckoned Kit when the captain went away. "You haven't been in the Santa Marta lagoon yet. Stand by and watch the soundings and compass while Mayne takes her across the shoals. You may find it useful to know the channel."

Kit understood. Malaria and other fevers are common on low-lying belts of the Caribbean coast and skippers and mates fall sick. Moreover, the Rio Negro did not always load at the regular ports. Sometimes she crept into mangrove-fringed lagoons, and sometimes stopped at lonely beaches and sent loaded boats ashore when her captain saw the gleam of signal lights.

When it was getting dark, Kit and Adam went to the bridge and the former noted that his uncle breathed rather hard and seized the rails firmly as he climbed the ladder. The red glow of sunset had faded behind the high land and a gray haze spread across the swampy shore, but the water shone with pale reflections. On one side, a long, dingy smear floated across the sky. It did not move and Kit thought it had come from the funnel of a steamer whose engineer had afterwards cleaned his fires. Captain Mayne studied the fleecy trail with his glasses.

"I don't know if that's a coffee-boat going north; I can't make out her hull against the land," he said. "Sometimes there's a guarda-costa hanging round the point."

"Better take no chances," Adam replied, glancing at the Rio Negro's funnel, from which a faint plume of vapor floated.

Mayne signed to the quartermaster in the pilot house and the bows swung round. Half an hour afterwards, he rang his telegraph and the clang of engines died away while the throb of the propeller stopped. In what seemed an unnatural silence, a few barefooted deck-hands began to move about, and one stood on the forecastle, where his dark figure cut against the shining sea. The rest went aft with a line the other held, and when Mayne raised his hand there was a splash as the deep-sea lead plunged. A man aft called the depth while he gathered up the line, and Mayne beckoned another, who climbed to a little platform outside the bridge and fastened a strap round his waist.

"We're on the Santa Marta shelf, but I'm four miles off the course I set," Mayne remarked. "I want to work out the angle from the first bearing I got."

Kit went with him into the chart-room, for he knew something about navigation. They had taught him the principles of land-surveying at the agricultural college, and this had made his studies easier. When he came back the moon was getting bright, but the haze had thickened on the low ground and the heights behind had faded to a vague, formless blur. The trail of smoke had vanished, there was no wind, and the smooth swell broke against the bows with a monotonous dull roar as the Rio Negro went on. She was alone on the heaving water and steaming slowly, but the noise of her progress carried far. By and by a light twinkled ahead, leaped up into a steady glow that lasted for some minutes, and then went out.

"That's a relief," remarked Adam, who had struck a match and studied his watch. "The ground's clear and Don Hernando has somebody he can trust waiting at the lagoon. You can let her go ahead, Captain."

Mayne rang his telegraph and Kit went into the pilot house. The dim light of the binnacle lamp touched the compass, but everything else was dark and the windows were down. Kit could see the quartermaster's dark form behind the wheel, and the silver shining of the sea. There was a splash as the man on the platform released the whirling hand-lead. When he called the depth Mayne gave an order and the quartermaster pulled round the wheel. The swell was not so smooth now. It ran in steep undulations and in one place to starboard a broad, foaming patch appeared between the rollers. Kit knew the water was shoaling fast as the Rio Negro steamed across the inclined shelf. It was risky work to take her in, because the fire had vanished and there were no marks to steer for. Mayne must trust his compass and his rough calculations.

"Tide's running flood," he said to Adam. "She'd have steered handier if we'd gone in against the ebb; but there's a better chance of coming off if she touches ground."

"You don't want to touch ground and stop there with the B.F. goods on board," Adam replied.

After this, there was silence except when Mayne gave an order. White upheavals broke the passing swell on both sides of the ship. She rolled with violent jerks and at regular intervals the bows swung up. When they sank, a dark mass with a ragged top cut off the view from the pilot-house, and Kit knew it was a mangrove forest. He could see no break in the wall of trees that grew out of the water, but they were not far off when there was a heavy jar, and the Rio Negro stopped. The floor of the pilot-house slanted and Kit and the quartermaster fell against the wheel. Then there was a roar as a white-topped roller came up astern and broke about the vessel's rail in boiling foam. She lifted, struck again, and went on with an awkward lurch.

"Port; hard over!" Mayne shouted hoarsely, and Kit helped the quartermaster to pull round the wheel.

The order disturbed him, since it looked as if Mayne was off his course. The swell broke angrily ahead, but in one place, some distance to one side, the wall of forest looked less solid than the rest. A roar came out of the mist and Kit knew it was the beat of surf on a hidden beach. This told him where he was, because a sandy key protected the mouth of the lagoon; but he doubted if Mayne could get round the point. The tide was carrying the vessel on and there was broken water all about.

She went on, with engines thumping steadily; the hollow in the forest opened up until it became a gap and Kit could not see trees behind it. Mayne gave another sharp order, and Kit and the quartermaster pulled at the wheel. The dark bows swung, the speed quickened, and the rolling stopped. The throb of the screw and thump of engines echoed across misty woods and there was a curious gurgling noise that Kit thought was made by the tide rippling among the mangrove roots. The air got damp and steamy and a sour smell filled the pilot-house. Kit knew the odors of rotting leaves, spices, and warm mud.

In the meantime, he was kept occupied at the wheel for Mayne changed his course as the trees rolled past, until the telegraph rang and the engines stopped. Then there was silence until he heard the splash of the anchor and the roar of running chain. As the Rio Negro slowly swung round, the winches rattled and her boats were hoisted out. Kit got into one with Adam and landed on a muddy beach. Dark figures came down to meet them, horses were waiting at the edge of the forest, and a few minutes later they mounted and plunged into the gloom.