“What the blazes hit me?” exclaimed Kennedy. He got stiffly to his feet and staggered toward where Nick Carter still lay on the beach, ere he went on, in a confused way: “That’s it, eh? Well, I’m willing to tackle anything human. But when it comes to stopping a whirlwind, I’ll duck every time.” For a few moments he stood looking down at the detective, who did not make a move to indicate that he was conscious, although he was keeping close watch of everything from beneath his half-shut eyelids. Kennedy was deeply impressed with the wonderful battle the detective had put up, and he looked over the splendidly built frame with the admiration that one strong man always vouchsafes to another--even though that other may be a foe. Neither Kennedy nor the two sailors still on their feet had any idea that there was somebody else gazing at Nick Carter from behind the bushes, with anxious eyes and rapidly heaving bosom. Yet so it was. More remarkable still, it was a woman! The Baroness Latour, as she was called in the Hotel Amsterdam--although better known to Nick Carter and to many others in different parts of the world as the lovely Mademoiselle Valeria, the adventuress who always had kept out of the grip of the law, despite many illegitimate transactions--had known what was going to take place when the boat left the hotel, carrying the unconscious Lord Vinton. She had not been so sound asleep in her room as might have been thought. What she was doing now was quite in accord with her usual methods. She liked to be sure that her directions were properly carried out, and one of the secrets of her hold over her men was that they never knew when she would appear before them. In the present case there was no necessity for her to make herself known, she thought. So she contented herself with looking in silence. There was a particular reason for her coming now to see what would be done about getting Drago from the place where he had been left in the woods to the yacht. That reason was that she had learned of the intention of Nick Carter to find Drago, somehow, and she knew the detective well enough to hear that he would stumble on the boat that was to put in at the edge of the woods to get the prisoner. If Nick Carter happened to find out what was going on, she did not know what might be the end of it all. Perhaps the strange power he exercised over her heart without desiring to do so may have had something to do with Mademoiselle Valeria’s anxiety. Be that as it may, she was there. Not a word or movement escaped her. She was content to let her men carry out their work in their own way. Now that Nick Carter had been overcome, and his man, the porter, lay on the ground with a bullet through his thigh, she had no doubt that all would go as she had planned.