“I had heard the rumor, and I thought it was a good chance to find out whether it was true. I could see that poor Captain Reyes was startled by my request. He protested that it was against the rules to admit visitors to El Torro. He begged me to put him to some other test. But I insisted that it must be that or nothing. I taunted him with being afraid to take a chance, and at last I got the poor man so worked up that he gritted his teeth and said that he would do it, no matter what the consequences might be.” “Good for him!” said Hawley. “He must be a pretty plucky chap.” “He is no coward,” said the girl soberly. “I hated to demand such a sacrifice of him; for although I didn’t let him know it, I realized that I was making him do something which, if he had been caught, would have meant the ruin of his career--and, perhaps, worse. But it was for a good cause, and I considered myself justified. Anyway,” she added brightly, “thank goodness, nothing like that happened.” “He got away with it, all right?” “Evidently; for that was several months ago, and he is still in command of the prison guard; which wouldn’t be the case, of course, if even a hint of my visit to El Torro had reached the ears of Portiforo.” “So he is still in charge of the prison guard!” murmured the Camera Chap, inwardly resolving to make the acquaintance of Captain Ernesto Reyes at the earliest possible opportunity. “Do you mean to say that he took you all over the prison--even to the cell in which they’ve got Felix locked up?” he continued wonderingly. “Surely it would have been an easy matter for him to avoid showing you that particular cell.” The girl laughed. “He didn’t find it so easy. He did attempt to hurry me past that cell, but, to borrow your own expression, he couldn’t get away with it. I peeped through the hole in the panel before he had a chance to stop me.” “The hole in the panel?” “They have put sheets of tin over the bars of President Felix’s dungeon to prevent anybody in the corridor from getting a glimpse of him,” the girl explained. “But the tin had rusted, and there was a tiny hole in one corner which evidently had escaped the attention of the prison officials. It was through this hole that I got my peep at the unfortunate man.” “How did you know he was in there?” the Camera Chap queried.