But he passed through this ordeal like the others without mishap, and was curtly informed that he could put on his clothing again. This Hal did, next standing at ease between the two soldiers. “Do you find anything?” asked the captain, turning to his subordinate. “Nothing,” replied the lieutenant. “A mare’s nest, eh?” smiled the captain, grimly. Hal duplicated the smile, but in a more genial manner, then turned to look at Vasquez. But that Spaniard suddenly darted over to the trunk, knelt beside the lieutenant, and began to help rummage among the few remaining articles there. “Ha! Here is something,” announced Vasquez, holding up a slip of paper. Hal looked on, wide-eyed, for he knew well that no such paper had been among his possessions when he packed them. Then he gave a gasp, for he realized the Spaniard’s game at last. That scoundrel, by some clever legerdemain, had slipped a paper among Maynard’s effects. “Ho!” grunted the Spaniard, running his eyes over the page. “This is a note, apparently, from one of the comrades of that bandit chief, Gomez.” He finished reading, while the captain stood looking calmly on. “An American plotter!” screamed Vasquez. “This is proof conclusive enough to merit for him a dozen deaths if that were possible!” He held the page in one hand, pointing a denouncing finger at our startled hero. “Let me see it,” commanded the captain. “A letter relating to a filibustering expedition, eh? This is, indeed, evidence. So!” turning to Maynard. “You are one of the Yankees who help his majesty’s subjects to rebel.” “Upon my honor,” protested Hal, “I know nothing about that letter.” “Your honor?” cried the captain. “Bah, you Yankee pig! Lieutenant, bring him along under guard. To the Prefatura.” To the Prefatura! To Havana’s police headquarters? Over the door of that grim building might well be written, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” It was at the door of this building that all trace had been lost of countless Cuban insurgents, the members of their families, and of others who had in any way been suspected of sympathy with the cause of the rebels. From here, in the late hours of night, countless doomed ones had been led away, ostensibly to imprisonment in Morro Castle or Cabanas Fortress--with this horrible peculiarity, that they had never reached their destinations or been heard from again! To the Prefatura! For an instant, contemplating the letter which the captain now held in his hand, Hal felt his heart sinking utterly. “I was sure I could not be mistaken,” murmured Senor Vasquez, softly. That voice aroused the American as the bite of a snake would have done. “Senor Vasquez,” he cried, throwing his head back proudly, “we have not seen the end of this matter!” Then, bowing to the captain, Hal stepped between the two files of soldiers as they formed. Down the stairs they started. Vasquez brought up the rear, gnashing his teeth. He had found no trace of the money.