“Guess, Mr. Yankee!”

“Why, I would guess that you are a Russian.”

“You are worthy of the name of Yankee, then.  Yes; I am a Russian.”

Another party of sight-seers passed them at that moment, and one man was heard to remark: 

“At the south end of the castle is a stairway leading down to an underground dungeon.  Legend tells us that some forty Spanish pirates were once confined there, for a month, before permission was received from the governor to hang the Spaniards.”

“Did you hear that?” murmured Jack, interestedly.  “A real, old dungeon, with an interesting history.”

“Such a history merely afflicts me with a shudder,” replied Mlle. Nadiboff, shrugging her shoulders.

“By Jove, I believe I’d like to have just a glimpse of that old dungeon, Mademoiselle, if I am not tiring you or wasting your time.”

“You will have to go alone, then,” replied the young woman.  “I will wait, my Captain.”

“I will remain with Mlle. Nadiboff,” volunteered Hal.

So Jack Benson, after raising his cap, stepped off rapidly toward the southern end of the old ruin.

With much difficulty he found the entrance to the stairway leading below.  At the head of the stairs two youngish men were standing.  The face of one of them looked familiar.

“How do you do, Captain?” nodded that one.  “You don’t recall me, I guess.  I saw you, yesterday, only for a moment at the rail of the gunboat.  My name is Hennessy, one of the newspaper men who visited your wonderful craft yesterday.”

“I am glad to meet you again,” Jack replied, “and sorry that we couldn’t show you more.”

“This is my friend, Mr. Graham,” continued the newspaper man.  “Graham is the Washington correspondent for my paper, so of course he has heard of your boats before.”

“If you had been aboard,” smiled Jack, “you might have seen something in the way of a little news happening.”

“What was that?”

“Why, we found a new Japanese steward, whom we had engaged, absorbed in his study of some of our mechanisms.  So we had to induce him to quit our service and go back to shore again.”

“A spy, eh?” smiled Graham.  “There are many of them about.  Wherever there is anything connected with our national defense the spies of Europe are sure to flock, until they have learned all they want to know.  And I suspect that they rarely fail, in the end.  You were fortunate to catch your Japanese at his tricks at so early a stage in the game.”

“I wish all these spies could be herded together and hanged!” muttered Captain Jack, in honest indignation.

“Do you?” asked Graham, looking at the boy, with a queer smile.

“Can you doubt it?” challenged Jack.

Graham was silent for a few moments, puffing at his cigar.  Then, speaking very slowly, he went on: 

“Captain Benson, I wonder if you would be much offended if I offered you some information that might prove of much value to you?”