He subjected Virginia to an espionage which would have done credit to one of Portiforo’s professional spies, shrewdly suspecting that she was the keystone to the whole situation. But if the girl was in communication with the Camera Chap she was managing it with a skill and cautiousness which outclassed his keen powers of observation; for he was unable to detect even any indication that she had knowledge of Hawley’s whereabouts. One discovery he did make, though: she seemed to have grown very friendly with a certain good-looking, husky young officer of the battleship _Kearsarge_. Gale learned that this man’s name was Ridder. He and Virginia met frequently and with a secretiveness which made the reporter wonder whether the daughter of his host hadn’t already forgotten all about Hawley and was going through the early stages of a new romance. Strange to say, it did not occur to Gale that the naval officer might be acting as an intermediary between Virginia and the exiled snapshotter. He began to feel less positive that the latter had returned to Baracoa. At all events, he was pretty sure that the Camera Chap hadn’t ventured to show his face in the capital or its environs, for he had reason to believe that Portiforo’s spies were keeping a sharp lookout for that unwelcome visitor, and if he had been there it was scarcely likely that those human ferrets wouldn’t have unearthed him by this time. Having come to this conclusion, the reporter gradually ceased his close watch of Virginia’s movements, and spent most of his time in Puerto Cabero, cultivating the acquaintance of the soldiers of the fortress, particularly that of Captain Ernesto Reyes. He managed to persuade the latter to take him on another tour of inspection through the prison of El Torro, but was unable to find any trace of Felix there. One day, as he sat drinking with Reyes in a café much frequented by officers of the army, the captain asked him whether he had received an invitation to the banquet on the warship. “What banquet is that?” Gale inquired curiously. Captain Reyes produced a card on which was engraved a formal invitation requesting his presence at a dinner to be tendered by the officers of the _Kearsarge_ to the officers of El Torro garrison. “I supposed that surely you would receive an invitation, Señor Gale,” the army officer remarked. “The American minister and Miss Throgmorton are going to be there, so it is queer that you should have been overlooked.” “Maybe mine will arrive later,” the reporter said. “Are you going to attend?” The other announced that he expected to be among those present. “I was going to send my regrets at first, on account of my eyesight,” he declared. “I was afraid that with these glasses I should not be exactly an ornament at the festive board, and in such a well-lighted room I would not dare to leave them off. But Miss Throgmorton insisted upon my accepting the invitation.”