"Why?" demanded T. B. irritably. "How can we hope to capture one of the fastest war vessels afloat when the men who control her have all the seas to run in?" They had reached the water-port, and T. B. stopped before his hotel. "Come in," he said suddenly. The two men passed through the paved vestibule and mounted the stair to T. B.'s room. "I'm going to look again at our clue," he said grimly, and extracted from his portfolio the drawing of the little cross with the circular ends. T. B. himself does not know to this day why he was moved to produce this disappointing little diagram at that moment. It may have been that, as a forlorn hope, he relied upon the application of a fresh young mind to the problem which was so stale in his, for Van Ingen had never seen the diagram. He looked and frowned. "Is that all?" he asked, without disguising his disappointment. "That is all," responded T. B. They sat looking at the diagram in silence. Van Ingen, as was his peculiarity, scribbled mechanically on the blotting pad before him. He drew flowers, and men's heads, and impossible structures of all kinds; he made inaccurate tracings of maps, of columns, pediments, squares, and triangles. Then, in the same absent way, he made a rough copy of the diagram. Then his pencil stopped and he sat bolt upright. "Gee!" he whispered. The detective looked up in astonishment. "Whew!" whistled Van Ingen. "Have you got an atlas, Smith?" The detective took one from his trunk. Van Ingen turned the leaves, looked long and earnestly at something he saw, closed the book, and turned a little white, but his eyes were blazing. "I have found 'Lolo,'" he said simply. He took up his pencil and quickly sketched the diagram: [Illustration: Van Ingen's first diagram] "Look," he said, and added a few letters: [Illustration: Van Ingen's second diagram] "Longitude, nought; latitude nought--L. o, L. o!" whispered the detective. "You've hit it, Van Ingen! By Jove! Why, that is off the African coast." He looked again at the map. "It is where the Greenwich meridian crosses the Equator," he said. "It's 'nowhere'! The only 'nowhere' in the world!" CHAPTER XXXIII AT "LOLO" Under an awning on the quarter-deck of the _Maria Braganza_, George T. Baggin was stretched out in the easiest of easy-chairs in an attitude of luxurious comfort. Admiral Lombrosa, passing on his way to his cabin, smacked him familiarly upon the shoulder--an attitude which epitomised the changed relationships of the pair. The _Maria Braganza_ was steaming slowly eastward, and, since it was the hour of siesta, the deck was strewn with the recumbent forms of men. Baggin looked up with a scowl. "Where is Poltavo?" he asked, and the other laughed. "He sleeps, Señor Presidente," said the "Admiral."--There had been some curious promotions on board the _Maria Braganza_.--"He is amusing, your count."