"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."