"Don't let wicked man get Dodo!" sobbed the little girl. "He's bad man! He hurt Dodo."
With a cry Mollie jumped to her feet, an arm about each of the twins, and looked about for the man. The passengers who had also come ashore in the boat stood looking on in bewilderment. But the Spaniard had disappeared.
"Where did that man go?" cried Mollie frantically. "There he is!" she added, as she caught sight of him just approaching the foot of the bluff, evidently bent on flight. "Don't let him get away! He's a kidnapper!"
Several of the men were already racing off in pursuit, and as the Spaniard was a heavy man and not over agile, the foremost of them soon overtook him.
He seemed to put up little resistance, evidently realizing that he was too heavily out-numbered. He surrendered to the inevitable and contented himself with merely glowering.
"Come on," cried Mollie, taking the beloved twins by the hand and starting back along the beach while the girls joyfully accompanied her, talking and ejaculating all at the same time, no one knowing what the other was saying—nor caring. The wonderful fact was enough for them.
When they scrambled up to the top of the bluff they found the men awaiting them with the sullen captive in their midst.
"What'll we do with him, Miss?" asked one of them respectfully, touching his cap to Mollie.
"Do with him?" cried Mollie, regarding the Spaniard with flashing eyes. "There isn't anything bad enough to do to him. But for the present, we'll have to be satisfied with locking him up. We have plenty of evidence," she added, waving that part of it aside with a motion of her hand. "Letters and things, you know. He kidnapped my little brother and sister," indicating the twins, who snuggled close against her and regarded their former captor with terrified eyes, "and then demanded twenty thousand dollars of my mother for their return."
"Blackmail, eh?" growled one of the men, throwing a scornful look at the Spaniard. "Well, you'll get paid up this time, old boy. Get on there, will you?"