Those thoughts were not pleasant ones. For some time the president’s photographic envoy sat on the edge of his iron cot, his hands supporting his chin, reflecting moodily on the situation. He realized that he was confronted by the most serious predicament of his career. If he revealed the real motive of his expedition to the fortress, it would, of course, clear him of the charge of being a revolutionary spy. They couldn’t do much to an American newspaper photographer for attempting to take a snapshot of a political prisoner. They would be compelled to let him off with a slight punishment. But he had not the slightest intention of making such a revelation. From the demeanor of Lopez he had an uneasy suspicion that the truth was already known to that perspicacious person, and that this threat of condemning him as a spy had been made with the idea of forcing him to show his hand. Still, there was a chance that he might be mistaken, that in spite of all that had happened Portiforo and his fellow conspirators might still be under the impression that their secret was safe, and while there was that chance Hawley did not feel at liberty to betray the confidence of the President of the United States and imperil the life of Felix in order to save his own neck. He realized that Lopez had not exaggerated the peril which he faced, for he knew that under martial law, capital punishment is the fate of a spy; and as Rodriguez, since his escape from prison, had fled to the hills and started an incipient revolution, he believed that it was under martial law that he would be tried. That his government would see that he had a fair trial he felt confident, but as his lips were sealed by this threat to call Virginia and Señora Felix as witnesses if he sought to make his accusers prove their charge, he already looked upon himself as doomed. “I guess I’m up against it,” he mused grimly. “It looks as if friend Portiforo holds all the trump cards.” CHAPTER XXIX. A VAIN APPEAL. Greatly alarmed by what Gale had told her concerning the Camera Chap’s peril, Virginia lost no time in seeking an interview with her father. She found the latter seated in his library engaged in the preparation of a long dispatch to Washington. He looked up from his cipher code with a frown as she entered. “Some other time, my dear; I am exceedingly busy just now,” he protested. “This dispatch has got to be sent off at once.” “But I can’t wait,” the girl announced. “The business I want to talk over with you is more important than what you are doing. Unless,” she added, with a flash of intuition, “that telegram you are writing concerns the arrest of Mr. Hawley.” The United States minister swung around in his swivel chair and regarded his daughter with surprise. “How on earth did you guess that?” he demanded. “Then it is about Mr. Hawley!” the girl exclaimed joyously. “You are cabling the state department that you are going to get him out of prison immediately?”