When the sun was an hour high the mist faded away; the gray mantle disappeared, and Callao Bay became of two colors, a green within the space of an imaginary arc extending from the tip of La Punta to Los BaÑos, and a blue beyond, as far as San Lorenzo, where it merged into the indigo of the immensity of waters.

Upon the surface of the green, circling around occasionally when caught by a surface current, but steadily moving with the tide, was a market gardener’s lighter, crowded from keel to gunwales with every variety of produce. Such a sight had not been witnessed for more than six months, not since those ships, discernible far in the offing, had enforced the closing of the port. Before that time these lighters had been frequently rowed and sailed over the bay, moving toward the heart of the city from the fertile region of the Rimac on the north.

When men saw what manner of craft was adrift they rubbed their eyes, to make sure that sleep was not with them and conjuring a fanciful vision in a dream. No, the boat was still there, rising and falling on the slowly undulating rollers and moving ever toward the open. Then between La Punta’s tip and the northern shore perhaps a dozen persons sprang into skiffs, whitehalls, and wherries, and let fall oars to race for the prize.

“Halt!” called a soldier standing on the beach near the big, smooth guns on The Point.

“Halt!” An infantryman levelled his rifle beneath the forts at Chucuito.

“Halt!” yelled a red-uniformed guard, stationed on the mole in Callao.

“Halt!” A boatman who was pushing off from Los BaÑos dropped his oars and came back on shore.

“Halt! Halt! Halt!” was heard at intermediary points, for around all the sweep of land bordering the bay stood sentinels, and their orders were to permit no man’s interference with the progress seaward of that lighter laden with garden truck.

From these guardsmen was learned the nature of the craft that was so jealously watched, and the news spread with lightning rapidity over the city of Callao, to Bella Vista and haciendas adjoining, to Miraflores, to Chorillas, and all over Lima; and from there it was wafted up the mountains to Chosica and even to Matucana.

Peru was to be revenged! That was the keynote of the message, and then followed in more or less exaggerated form an account of what had been done and what was the expected sequel. Revenge! After having been humiliated in the south by many defeats, after suffering from blockade—which is a thumb-screw torture inflicted by one nation upon another—and after being insulted by the flaunting in their face of the lone star flags hoisted on the Huascar and the Pilcomayo; after all these had occurred and all this time had elapsed, Peru was at last to be revenged!

The Chilean fleet would be blown out of the water before noon! This was the word which was sent from mouth to mouth.

Early risers, who were on the streets soon after dawn,—venders of water and venders of such scant green stuff as could be obtained,—hurried to the shore and dotted the beach here and there, gazing seaward expectantly. All that day jackasses wandered unattended around the streets of Callao, braying mournfully, and bearing on their backs casks that had been filled from the river Rimac, or baskets that contained plantains and coarse vegetables.

In a few minutes these hucksters and providers of the day’s drinking supply were joined by other men, persons who lived near the beach and had run from breakfast tables when the news had reached them; some were only half dressed, for they had jumped from their beds at the summons. Then from out all the streets of the seacoast city poured a throng, and men were joined by women and children. A solid human line marked the entire water-front, and behind it formed others. Balconies of buildings that faced the sea were rented that morning, and then space in windows was sold. Callao’s shore line was the tier of a gigantic amphitheatre; the bay was the arena.

A severe earthquake shock is followed by an exodus from the seacoast to Lima, which is on high ground and beyond reach of a tidal wave. At such times all manner of equipages are pressed into service; railroad trains are overcrowded, and those who cannot ride in car or carriage, on horses or mules, run or walk along the road. But no flight from the coast to Lima ever equalled the outpouring from the City of the Kings toward Callao on this morning of July 3, 1880; and within two hours after the lighter had been pushed from the Chucuito beach the depopulation of the capital commenced, and a wave of humanity swept down the highway and spread out over the pampas country.

After taking leave of General Matajente, the boys had directed their steps toward the Dartmoor residence on the Mar Bravo side of the peninsula, and realizing each minute more and more vividly the stupendousness of the impending tragedy, they increased their speed accordingly, until, when the house was reached, they were running as fast as they could; and bounding up the stairs, two and three at a time, they burst into the dining room, reaching there nearly out of breath.

Mr. Dartmoor was at breakfast, and with him at table was Captain Saunders, who had been his guest over night. The men listened in astonishment to the recital, and at its conclusion the iron merchant said:—

“No business can be transacted this day. We may as well go to Callao and witness this deplorable attempt at destruction of life and property.”

“You may well say deplorable,” remarked Captain Saunders. “Torpedo warfare is to be regretted under any circumstances. But against the modern engines of destruction, which are projected beneath the water, the enemy has some means of defence. He may let down nets at the sides and entangle the projectile, or by continual vigilance keep his ship from being struck. Against this bomb-laden market boat there is no defence, except accidental discovery of its true character. It is an abominable trap, and if any one is killed thereby, it will be coldblooded murder.”

“You say that General Matajente did not approve the action?” asked Mr. Dartmoor.

“Indeed he did not, sir. His expression told us more than did his words, however. He seemed to be thoroughly disgusted.”

“I should expect as much from him, and I believe that Peru as a nation will not approve such methods of warfare. Let us hope this attempt will not succeed. I am surprised, though, boys, that your old friend should have conceived such a plot.”

“That man, John Longmore, is insane,” said Captain Saunders, with emphasis. “He has been insane ever since he received that sabre cut on board the Huascar. He is a monomaniac in his hatred of Chileans.”

“We noticed his peculiar actions this morning, father,” said Carl.

The boys were hastening their breakfast while this conversation was taking place, and announced themselves ready for departure as soon as their fathers pushed back chairs from the table.

“If this succeeds, it will be deplorable for another reason than the immediate loss of life,” said the captain, rising.

“You mean because of a postponement of peace negotiations?”

“Yes.”

“I fear you are correct.”

“How will it affect the peace negotiations, sir?” Louis asked.

“Because the Chileans will become so incensed that they will not listen to the propositions for arbitration which have recently been made by commissioners sent from Washington. Not only that,” said Captain Saunders, “but any hope of Chile abandoning her idea of territorial annexation will be gone. I prophesy that if this lighter, armed and equipped by John Longmore, does any considerable damage in the Chilean fleet, that Peru will pay for it with the province of TarapacÁ.”

“The richest province?” said Harvey.

“Yes, my lad, the richest nitrate of soda country in the world.”

By this time they were on the plank road that leads from Chucuito to Callao, and after a brisk walk of fifteen minutes reached the business section. They were too early to meet the mass of humanity that later surged through all the streets; but they encountered some hundreds of persons who were rushing toward the water-front.

“This will be a gala day,” remarked Captain Saunders.

“Yes, until the truth is known,” was Mr. Dartmoor’s reply. “Then you will see a reaction and genuine sorrow. I know these people, I have lived among them since we parted company in the States, immediately after the war—and,” he added in a low tone, “I married one of them.”

“Pardon me, my old friend,” said Captain Saunders, “I did not intend to wound your feelings. I was not speaking bitterly of the Peruvians as a people, but of those who are responsible for this action to-day.”

“You must remember that an American suggested it.”

“That is true, John, but he is insane, I am certain. Those who gave it the stamp of approval are the guilty ones.”

They had reached the large building owned by the English Railroad Company, and the boys, who had walked somewhat in advance, stopped in front of the entrance to the flight of steps and looked back inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Captain Saunders, in reply, “go ahead.” Then he added, “There’s no better place, is there?”

“No. We may as well go up here.”

The railroad building was situated on the beach, and a broad balcony on the second floor jutted out over the water. This veranda and nearly all the rooms on the floor were leased by the English Club. From no place, except the tip of La Punta, could a better view be obtained of the bay.

Mounted on tripods at both ends of this open space were two large telescopes; numerous marine glasses were on tables. For years, until 1880, these clubrooms had been a favorite place for captains of the merchant marine and naval officers to lounge during afternoons, and they had been no less enjoyed by the Anglo-Saxon residents of Callao and Lima.

The boys hurried to the railing as soon as they had reached the veranda and looked seaward. Out in the offing, darning the needle, were six ships on blockade duty. About a mile from shore, heading well out from the Chucuito beach, was what appeared to be a small boat. They knew it was the lighter, and glances which each in turn took through one of the telescopes showed that the cargo of vegetables and meats had not been disturbed. It was the only craft moving on the bay. At anchor, but safe under the forts, were the monitor Atahuallpa, the corvette Union, and the training ship Maria Theresa, remnants of the Peruvian navy. Within the new pier were perhaps a score of vessels, tied up until the blockade should be over. Nothing else was on all that broad expanse of beautiful harbor, except a little schooner, moored at a buoy, and an abandoned, unseaworthy bark.

For several weeks after the blockade had been established, the members thronged the club-house and waited their turn to gaze through the powerful lenses at the ships flying the lone star flag; but long before July, 1880, came around, the enemy’s fleet had ceased to attract attention; and as nothing stirred in the bay, the men shunned the balcony because the view it commanded was disheartening. It told of a dead commerce, of stagnant trade. But this morning all those who possessed the little blue membership tickets hastened to the quarters, and many brought friends, so that within an hour after the arrival of Captain Saunders, Mr. Dartmoor, and the boys, the place was overcrowded, and late comers were compelled to go higher and seek vantage points in windows of the railway company’s offices.

The Chucuito party was fortunate, both in arriving early and in being joined by a number of intimate friends, for they were enabled to take possession of one of the large telescopes, and hold it for the morning.

Don Isaac was the first to come, and he listened attentively to the recital by the boys, who told again, for his benefit, of the strange doings at the break of day on the Chucuito beach. They had hardly finished when SeÑor Cisneros appeared.

“What is this I hear? Are they going to use a torpedo in broad daylight? I fear it will prove certain death for the crew that attempts to approach those ships,” and he pointed seaward.

Captain Saunders explained that the torpedo was not of the kind generally launched from war vessels, or sent from shore, and he briefly described the construction of John Longmore’s engine of death. The Peruvian’s face flushed while he listened to the recital, and his eyebrows contracted.

“This should not be allowed!” he exclaimed. “It is a crime! Pierola should be appealed to and asked to stop this slaughter.”

At these words Mr. Dartmoor looked at Captain Saunders triumphantly. He had been correct in his estimate of the people. First, the officer who had been ordered to oversee the details of launching the lighter had denounced the work to which he had been assigned; and now a representative citizen from the interior deplored the event in even more energetic terms.

It was too late to stop the enactment of the tragedy, too late to appeal to Pierola. The fiendish plot, hatched in the crazed brain of the old whaler, and approved by a hot-headed official in Lima, must go forward. The boat which was laden with market produce had drifted two miles from shore, and was nearing the line where the green water of the harbor merged into the blue beyond; as it passed from one colored surface to the other events began to move rapidly—and all the while, from along the shore, came the buzz of the many thousands who had crowded as near as was possible to the water’s edge.

“Look!” suddenly exclaimed Louis. “A boat is putting off from the mole!”

“It’s the state barge,” said Harvey, after a glance through the marine glasses. “I wonder what’s up now.”

The question was soon answered by the craft itself, which was rowed alongside the Union. Believing it had been sent out only to carry an officer back to his ship, they paid no more attention to this section of the harbor until Carl called attention again to the corvette, by saying that a steam launch had put off from her side. Puffs of smoke came from the short stack on this small vessel, and after swinging under the stern of the Union she shaped a course out toward the open.

The foreigners on the club veranda looked at one another in amazement; the natives on the beach set up a shout.

“Thank God!” fervently exclaimed SeÑor Cisneros. “They are going to tow that lighter back to the shore.”

Out steamed the launch, at full speed, sending spray flying at the sides of her stem, and leaving astern a narrow path of white that marked where her propeller had churned the water.

Until this small craft appeared in the bay, the Chileans had evidently given no heed to the lighter that, by this time, had well entered the blue; if it had been sighted by them, no sign to that effect had been made; they continued to steam slowly backward and forward, patrolling the entrance. But when the launch had covered half the distance between the shore and the provision-laden barge, the cruiser Mathias Cousino, which at that time happened to be the nearest to La Punta, changed her course and made toward the harbor. Ten minutes later she fired a bow gun, and the shot plunged into the water not far from the launch.

The Peruvian boat at once put about and made for the Union. A dense cloud of smoke from her stack told that the stoker on board was using all his energy, and that the boiler had been called upon for the highest pressure it could stand.

An expression of disappointment could be seen on the faces of Mr. Dartmoor and SeÑor Cisneros. The crowd shouted again, and the noise made by the many thousands was like the roar of a train, or the rasping of stones over stones on a beach when the undertow sucks them back. One could not tell whether this shout was in approval or disappointment.

“I do not believe it was ever the intention to have that launch tow the lighter back to port,” said Captain Saunders.

“You do not?”

“No.”

“Why did she go out, then?”

“It was a ruse.”

“But what could have been the object?”

“That ship’s manoeuvre answers your question,” and the captain pointed to the Mathias Cousino, which was moving slowly toward the provision-laden craft. “The Chileans had not noticed Old John’s floating mine, or having noticed it were suspicious,” he added. “The launch was sent to attract their attention, or to lull their fears by an apparent anxiety to tow the lighter inshore.”

Whether Captain Saunders had surmised correctly or not was never known in Callao; the instructions given the officer in command of the launch were not made public.

Every eye had been turned in the direction of the Chilean cruiser that had left her station, and as she came within a mile of the barge, men on the club balcony climbed on the railings and on tables, that they might see the better, expecting that she would prove a victim to the floating mine. But after a few minutes the Mathias Cousino altered her course, and describing a broad semicircle, returned to her position in the squadron.

“She has set signals!” said Captain Saunders, who had been looking through the telescope.

“And the Blanco is answering!” remarked SeÑor Cisneros, after sweeping his marine glasses to the right, where the flagship formed one of the wings of the fleet.

“She’s shaping a course for the lighter!” exclaimed the captain, who had swung his telescope around; and then every one looked toward the north, from which point of the compass the big ironclad was lumbering shoreward.

A breeze from the south, blowing somewhat earlier in the day than was usual, had cleared the last shadow of mist away, a cool temperature had prevented the forming of a heat haze, and the eye could discern even trees on San Lorenzo Island.

At the time of exchanging signals the Blanco was about six miles distant from the Mathias Cousino. She moved sluggishly, not over eight knots an hour, for her hull had become foul with the marine growth of the South Pacific; and it was a half hour from the time she left the line before she reached the spot where the cruiser had been. The lighter had moved some two and a half miles from shore, and was still drifting. To reach this craft the big man-of-war had approached so near that even those who had no marine glasses could make out features of her superstructure; while persons sitting at the telescopes counted the number of men stationed on the bridge and on other elevated deck works.

By approaching this close the flagship came within easy range of the shore guns, and when she was only a few cables’ length distant from the lighter, a shell was sent screeching over the water from one of the rifled pieces in the castle. It struck to the south of her, fully a quarter of a mile.

“That bluff is so poor that I should think her commander would see through it,” said Captain Saunders.

“What do you mean by a bluff, father?” asked Carl.

“Why, that gun-fire, evidently ordered to lull the suspicions of the Chileans, who might wonder if no shots were let fly.”

“Didn’t they aim at her, then?”

“Certainly not, son.”

At that moment a shell flew from the Chucuito fort, and it went as wild as had that from the castle.

Then everybody bent forward breathlessly, looked out over the bay with staring eyes, and not a word was spoken; a silence as of death had fallen upon the multitude that thronged the shore lines. For the Blanco Encalada had slowly passed between the lighter and the land, had reversed her propeller, and had come to a stop with the lighter alongside. None could see this boat that was crowded with food-stuffs and undermined with sufficient explosives to destroy every ship out there in the offing, but they knew that it had been made fast, and that greedy eyes of half-famished sailors were spying the wealth of edibles—enough food to put new life into every man in the fleet, even as there was sufficient material, hidden by the green, to insure every man a horrible death.

Minutes passed like hours; the ticking of watches could be heard. What could they be about on the ironclad? Why the delay? Why did the crash not come and be over with?

Harvey was watching as were the others, but all at once he buried his face in his hands and covered his eyes. The boy who had stood before the Majeronas so bravely became dizzy when he thought of the awful scene that might spring into being any moment out in the bay; a lump was in his throat. Carl and Louis also turned away at times. Strong men were affected and nervously twitched their fingers, tapped the floor with their feet, or bit the ends of their mustaches.

“She’s away! She’s safe!” suddenly exclaimed the captain. “She’s made out the trap and is putting out to sea again!”

Then everybody saw the lighter reappear under the war-ship’s counter, and gradually the water and sky line broadened between the big ship and the boat.