"Buck!" cried Jack. "What about that fellow who stopped me on Rushmere Heath and then turned up in Brindisi? Can he have something to do with it?" "Now you're talking, Jack," said Risley, nodding at the young man. "'Twas all runnin' through my mind. It all hangs together, as straight as a gun." Buck knitted his brows in deep thought, and stared into the fire. Mr. Buxton was about to speak, but Buck held up his hand for silence, and the quiet remained unbroken till the American slapped his knee with a crack like a pistol-shot, looked round on them, and nodded briskly. "I've worked it out," said Buck. "The Professor's been kidnapped, and I'll lay all I'm worth I can spot the parties who have boned him." "Kidnapped!" The cry burst in irrepressible surprise and excitement from the other two. "Sure thing," said Risley. "Just listen to me. That half-caste Saya Chone comes from up-country somewhere in the direction the Professor headed for after leaving Mogok. That's the starting-point for the whole business. He's mixed up in it from first to last, that's plain enough, by his showing up at Rushmere and then followin' Jack to Brindisi as he must have done. What brought him trackin' us all this way if he didn't know about the big ruby and was in with the gang that's carried off the Professor?" "But why are you so sure that they have carried Tom Haydon off, Risley?" asked Mr. Buxton. "Perhaps they--" Mr. Buxton paused, unable to put into words the terrible thought which filled his mind. "Say it right out, sir," said Buck encouragingly. "You can say it out, for I don't believe it's the least bit true. You meant, suppose they've murdered the Professor for the ruby?" Mr. Buxton nodded, and Jack went white about the lips. "Well, that's all right," said Buck cheerfully, "they ain't done that, anyway. First thing, if so we'd ha' found the Professor, for all they wanted was the stone; they'd no use in the world for his body. But there's a lot more in it than that. They want the Professor himself. It's a dead sure thing that where that big stone came from there's a lot more, and they intend to make him show them the place." "Ah," said Mr. Buxton, "there's a good deal in that, Risley. I hadn't thought of that." "Then, Buck," cried Jack, "you think that my father has been seized and is being carried back to Burmah?" "I'm as sure of it as I am that we are in this room," said Buck solemnly. Jack drew a long breath of immense relief. To feel that his father might be alive, and possibly could be rescued, was to bring a bright gleam of hope into the darkness of this strange affair. "How have they carried him away?" cried Jack. "By sea," replied Buck. "Couldn't be done by land, nohow. But you can get a quiet road by sea easy enough. I wonder how much that boat that disappeared from the harbour had to do with it. They might have nailed him, pulled him out in it to a vessel waiting off the harbour, and then sent it adrift when they'd done with it."