“So, it is you, my young friend, is it?” he cried, advancing toward them. “I had heard that my men had made a capture, but had no idea that it was any one but a brace of seamen.” He stood looking down at them, a smile showing his white, even teeth, and one hand tapping the hilt of his sword. “So,” he went on after a pause, “you have joined with the Lascar, have you?” “Joined with him,” repeated Ethan in surprise. “Ay, and don’t seek to deceive me. I am not Monsieur Fochard.” Ethan and the Irish dragoon laughed at this, and Danvers glowered at them blackly. “You have seen Monsieur Fochard, then,” smiled the young American. “Less than a half hour after you had gone. Your trick was a most clever one; I am an admirer of cleverness, even when it is displayed against me, and I beg of you to accept my congratulations.” Despite the man’s evident anger, it seemed as though he meant this; as an adept in trickery himself, he was forced to admiration at Ethan’s apparent excellence in this line. “But tell me,” he went on, bending over them, “how did you know that Fochard was concerned in this matter? and how did you learn that I was to visit him upon the night you and this man,” indicating Longsword, “impersonated Wheelock and myself?” Ethan smiled, but shook his head. It was plain that the man was mystified, and, of course the lad had no desire to enlighten him. “That,” he replied, “is a secret.” Danvers bent his brows still more, and his lips tightened. “A secret--yes, I suppose it is. And you thought to have the later developments a secret, too, didn’t you?” “What do you mean?” “I mean with regard to the man Siki.” “This,” said Ethan in a puzzled way, “is the second time within a very few minutes that you have hinted a mysterious something about this slippery Lascar. But I don’t just grasp your meaning.” “You may evade the fact as you please,” said Danvers, “but it remains the same. I’ll tell you what I have found out. When you discovered who had the dispatch that night in your visit to the secret agent, Fochard, you conceived the idea which you and your friend, Captain Jones, have so admirably carried out.” “And what was that?” “To seek the Lascar, and enter into a compact with him to sell the dispatch.” Ethan turned white; his eyes blazed and he struggled desperately with the stout ropes that bound him. “If I were free,” he gasped, “I’d make you regret those words.” “Oh, spare me any heroics,” sneered the British spy. “I know that both you and that Scottish renegade, John Paul Jones, profess a most lofty patriotism. But neither of you can deceive me.” “That,” cried Longsword, who had not been able to speak before, so great was his astonishment, “is the most bla’guardly accusation I ever heard in me life, so it is. D’ye mean to say that this lad whom I held in me two arms as a babe, would sell his country to your mad old king?”