think I was ever so glad in my life before to see any one. There he was in the flesh, dear old John, tall and grave and courteous, like any Spanish don, in a clean tussore suit and the inevitable cigar stuck in a comer of his mouth.
“John!” I exclaimed. “How on earth did you ever get here?”
He stared a time in astonishment. It was obvious that, for the moment, he did not recognize me. Well might he wonder who this begrimed tramp might be who greeted him so familiarly. But then he cried out and clapped me on the back.
“Desmond, by all that's holy! Man, you've given us an anxious time! What have you been up to to get yourself in that condition?”
“It's a long story now ended,” I answered soberly, “and it'll keep! At present I can't get over your turning up here!...”
“From enquiries I made about El Cojo and his gang after you left, I got seriously alarmed about you,” said this most faithful friend. “But when I heard that the Government coastal defence motor-boat, the fastest craft in these waters, was missing, I decided it was time I came to look for you. One of my fruit-ships, the Cristobal, happened to be in harbour, so I came along in her. She's lying outside now. Before we do any more talking, I suggest you come aboard with me and have a clean-up. And you look as though you could do with a drink as well!...
I explained the difficulty I was in regarding the disposal of Grundt.
“El Cojo, ah?” commented Bard, and whistled. “That's some capture you've got there, Desmond. We'll take him back with us to Rodriguez. He's hand in glove with the President, I believe, and I should like to give His Excellency a lesson.”
So we settled it. Bard arranged to send a boat ashore to fetch Clubfoot to the Cristobal. He promised to see to it that my enemy was safely bestowed.
So I turned my back on Cock Island and left it brooding sadly beneath the stars with the terraced rock and the image and the little bowl shaped clearing where von Hagel slept. I went on board the Cristobal and for a good half-hour, with a long “peg” within easy reach of my hand, lay and soaked the stiffness out of my bones in a boiling hot bath. John had volunteered, in the meantime, to send a boat over to the Naomi to fetch my luggage; for I had told him how things stood between me and Garth and he assumed that I would remain on the Cristobal. I had hesitated an instant before replying; for I desperately wanted to see Marjorie again. But, I reflected, a millionaire's daughter was not for me—it was better we should part thus. So I scribbled a note for the coloured steward to take to her: just a line to say good-bye and to thank her for the action that had saved my life.
They brought me some food in my cabin, and while, attired in a voluminous dressing-gown of my friend's, I ate, John Bard told me what he had learnt regarding the connection of El Cojo's gang with Cock Island.
“During the war,” he said, “the island was the dépôt for certain important gun-running operations carried out by Black Pablo and his friends for the Mexican insurgents. The idea of the scheme, which was directed by the German espionage heads in the United States, was to keep things humming on the American border and to detain United States troops there.
“In those days Black Pablo had a ship of his own. He used to call periodically and collect arms and ammunition deposited on the island by some German commerce raider or other—there is talk of a mysterious vessel under the Swedish flag that used to stand off here—and take this contraband to Rodriguez. Here in port, under cover of night, it was transferred to a Mexican steamer which ultimately ran it ashore somewhere on the Mexican coast.
“On the outward trip to Cock Island, Black Pablo used to carry large stocks of gasoline for German craft operating in these waters...”
“There's a group of sheds on the other side of the island which Clubfoot's men called 'The Petrol Store,'” I put in.
“Precisely,” said Bard. “There was a regular traffic here. The island is, after all, conveniently enough situated for the work they had in hand: not too far from the Central American coast, yet well off the trade routes. It was naturally, you might say, selected as the rendezvous in connection with what was intended to be Germany's biggest coup against the Americans in the war ... the destruction of the Panama Canal!”
“By George!” I commented.