"Well, I'm willing to start just as soon as Dick gets back with the gasolene. We'll get along, after that, until we reach Rio, unless there's some extra cruising in the Amazon."
"I'm obliged to you, Mr. King."
Glennie half extended his hand, but Matt did not seem to see it. Now that the ensign wanted aid in his time of trouble, he appeared anxious to get on the friendly footing which Matt had mentioned a little while before. But Matt, once rebuffed, wasn't going halfway to meet him on that ground.
"It seems to me, Mr. Glennie," said he, "that there is something more behind this than just a desire, on the Jap's part, to sell his dispatches to the highest bidder. The Japs are wily little fellows, and as brave as they are wily."
"What else can you make out of it?" queried Glennie, with a troubled look.
"Nothing; only the theft strikes me as queer, that's all. If the papers were so important, I should think you ought to have kept them in your possession every minute."
"I did," protested Glennie, a gleam of resentment rising in his eyes over the implied rebuke. "They were under my pillow, and Tolo, who came and went in my room just as he pleased, must have taken them while I was asleep."
"Speake has been doing the cooking for us," remarked Matt; "but if we've got to have the Chinaman along we'll make him earn his pay and take the cooking off Speake's hands."
"I'm more than willing to have you consider Ah Sin one of the crew. He'll probably be useful to me in Para, and not until we get there."
"There are not many Japs in La Guayra, are there?" queried Matt, with a sudden thought.