The Kidnapped President by Guy Boothby

Author:Guy Boothby [Boothby, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure stories, South America -- Fiction, Seafaring life -- Fiction, British -- South America -- Fiction
ISBN: 9783962722067
Publisher: Otbebookpublishing
Published: 2017-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

It was with a feeling of profound thankfulness that I turned into my bunk that morning. The clattering of feet on deck, and the slapping of the water against the sides, greeted my ears like the sweetest music. Only a few hours before I had deemed myself as good as a dead man. I had been the prisoner of a man without the bowels of compassion, and, what was worse, I knew that I had proved myself a traitor, and had not the ghost of a chance of effecting my escape. Now, however, I was free once more, and in a few days my mission to Equinata would be accomplished; after which I should be at liberty to return to England, to marry Molly, and to settle down to a very different life to that which I had been leading for the past few weeks. When I fell asleep, it was to dream that I was back at Falstead once more. I was smoking a pipe in the front garden, and Molly, seated in the shade of our favourite tree, was reading me an account of a terrible revolution that had taken place in the Republic of Equinata.

"The President, José de Hermaños is his name," she said, "has been assassinated. It appears that he married the niece of his predecessor, General Fernandez!"

That would have been strange enough in all conscience!

Owing, I suppose, to the lateness of my retiring, I was not very early astir, and when I reached the deck I made my way up to the bridge. It was the second mate's watch, but I had not been there very long before Captain Ferguson left his cabin and joined us. Thereupon the mate, with a knowledge of what was correct under such circumstances, crossed to the other side of the bridge, leaving us free to talk together concerning the events of the previous night.

"You don't know what a fright I had, Mr. Trevelyan," said the captain. "I sent a boat ashore as directed, and after waiting an hour and a half it returned to report that you had not put in an appearance. I had quite made up my mind that you had been captured."

"As a matter of fact, I was," I replied, and proceeded to give him an outline of my adventures during the evening.

"This will be the last of this sort of business for me," he said, when he heard me out. "The game is far from being worth the candle. I wonder what the end of it all will be? From what I gathered when ashore, and also from what you have told me, I have come to the conclusion that whatever Don Silvestre's ambition may be, he has lost his hold upon Equinata. If he is fool enough to return, I fancy he will find that the other's party is still too strong for him. The part of a President of a South American Republic is not an easy one to play."

"The wonder to me is that they ever get any one to play it at all," I answered.

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