Frank questioned French, cautiously of course, but could gain little information from him. The fellow seemed fully aware of the purpose of the boy, and replied to his questions with the most extravagant stories of the empire that was to be raised in the Philippines after the United States protectorate had ceased.
"You're a queer chap," Frank said, at the conclusion of one of French's stories of the grandeur of the coming empire, "and I'd like to hear you spin yarns all night, but, if you don't mind, I'll go to bed."
"Just as you like," was the amiable reply. "I'll sit here and smoke a few more cigarettes and then follow your example. It is such a wild night that your friends may have stopped at a down-town hotel!"
"Perhaps they've stepped over to the Waldorf!" Jack replied.
The lads occupied the same bunk, and talked in whispers all through the night. They had no idea what had become of Ned and Jimmie except the supposition that they had been captured by their enemies. French retired about midnight, as calmly as if he were in his own rooms, leaving the two Filipinos on guard in the cabin.
Once Frank arose and tried to slip out, his idea being to reach the shore and look for his chums, but the brown men lifted their guns automatically as he looked out on them. All through the night they sat unblinkingly, looking out in the dim light much as glass eyes might have looked out of the head of a wooden image.
"We're sure in a bad box," Jack whispered, after this attempt at escape. "I don't believe they'll turn us loose on the island, knowing what we know. They won't take any chance of our getting away! If Ned was free, he'd have been here before this, so we may as well make up our minds that he's in trouble also."
With daylight came a cessation of the storm, and soon the sun was shining smotheringly down on the little bay. Sweltering in the cabin, Frank looked out of a port and saw a pole lifted above a clump of low bushes just back from the distant beach. As he looked the pole moved forward and back, then to the right, ducking three times and coming back to a vertical position. The pole wavered to right and left and to the front for a time, and the boy waved his hand from the open port.
"Wigwag!" he whispered. "It says: 'Brace up!' That's Jimmie!"