"I guess he will take his chance," said Peter. "He'll see we are not Venezuelans."
"That is the very thing that will make him refuse," protested Roddy. "Why should he trust himself to strangers--to gringos? No, I tell you, we can't go on without credentials." He lowered his voice and glanced suspiciously into the dark corners of the _patio_. "And the only people who can give them to us," he added, tapping impressively upon the table, "live in Curaçao."
With sudden enthusiasm Peter de Peyster sat upright.
"We will toss," compromised Peter. "The head of Bolivar, you go. The arms of Venezuela, I go, and you stay here and catch eels."
The silver peso rang upon the table, and Roddy exclaimed jubilantly:
"Heads! I go!" he cried. But the effort of Peter to show he was not disappointed was so unconvincing that Roddy instantly relented.
"We had better both go!" he amended. "Your headwork is better than mine, so you come, too. And if you give me the right signals, I'll try to put the ball where you can reach it."
As though in his eagerness he would set forth on the instant, Roddy sprang to his feet and stood smiling down at Peter, his face lit with pleasurable excitement. Then suddenly his expression grew thoughtful.
"Peter," he inquired, "how old do you think the daughters are?"
The next day Roddy and Peter sailed for Willemstad, the chief port and the capital of the tiny island colony of Holland. In twelve hours they had made their land-fall and were entering the harbor mouth. The sun was just rising, and as its rays touched the cliff from which, twelve hours later, Señora Rojas and her daughters would look toward Porto Cabello, they felt a thrill of possible adventure.
Roddy knew that, as a refuge for revolutionists exiled from Venezuela, Willemstad was policed with secret agents of Alvarez, and he knew that were these spies to learn that during his visit either he or Peter had called upon the family of Rojas they would be reported to Caracas as "suspect," and the chance of their saving the Lion of Valencia would be at an end. So it became them to be careful.
Before leaving Porto Cabello Roddy had told McKildrick, the foreman of the Construction Company's work there, that some boxes of new machinery and supplies for his launch had gone astray and that he wished permission to cross to Curaçao to look them up. McKildrick believed the missing boxes were only an excuse for a holiday, but he was not anxious to assert his authority over the son and heir of the F. C. C., and so gave Roddy his leave of absence. And at the wharf at Porto Cabello, while waiting for the ship to weigh anchor, Roddy had complained to the custom-house officials at having to cross to Curaçao. He gave them the same reason for the trip, and said it was most annoying.