"You may imagine us in the open sea, with nothing but the 'chica clucka, clucka!' of the engine of our little boat! Alverez and myself sat at the bow with our hands on the butts of our revolvers--we knew our captain--and he himself steered us for the lights that soon came up over the horizon. We landed at Cadiz, and were provided with papers to the Brazilian consul, should our return be noticed. But none saw us, or if they did, thought nothing of the spectacle of two Brazilian seamen walking through the streets at that hour of the night; remember that none but the port authorities were aware that the _Maria Braganza_ had sailed. The next morning we procured some civilian clothing, and left by the afternoon train for Seville. By easy stages we came first to Madrid, then to Paris. Here we stayed some time." He chuckled again. "Alverez," he resumed, "is a man of spirit, but, as I have said, of no great originality. In Paris a man of spirit may go far, a man of money farther, always providing that behind the spirit and the wealth there is intelligence. My poor Alverez went his own way in Paris. He made friends." Again he smiled thoughtfully. "Alverez I left," he explained; "his ways are not my ways. I came to England. I do not like this country," he said frankly. "Your lower classes are gross people, and very quarrelsome." A few more questions were asked, and answered, and ten minutes later T. B. was flying back to Scotland Yard with the story of the stolen battleship. CHAPTER XXVIII THE "MARIA BRAGANZA" Once more were the Nine Men in the bill of every newspaper in London. Once more the cables hummed from world's end to world's end, and slowly, item by item, came fragmentary scraps of news which Scotland Yard pieced together. "Of all extraordinary developments," said the _London Journal_, "in any great criminal case, nothing has ever equalled, in its improbability, the present phase of this remarkable case. "And now we have reached the stage which we confidently hope will be a final one. It is clear that these men, having command of enormous riches, gained at the sacrifice of life, and by the ruin of thousands of innocent people, secured to their service the Captain of the Brazilian warship, _Maria Braganza_. So that somewhere in the wide seas of the world is a stolen battleship, having on board a congregation of the world's worst rascals, Napoleonic in the largeness of their crimes.