ok up a position on
the side of the table opposite to that occupied by the skipper, while
the sentry posted himself close alongside the prisoner. Then the
Peruvian busied himself with some papers for a few minutes, apparently
oblivious of Jim's presence. At length, having found that for which he
was searching, he glanced up, and his gaze flickered over Jim like
summer lightning, inspiring in the young man so strong a feeling of
repulsion that it almost amounted to nausea. There was something
horribly magnetic in the look, and Jim felt that this man possessed some
strange occult power which was lacking in most human beings.

After looking at the young man for a few seconds, Villavicencio turned
to the sentry and remarked, "I shall not need your presence, I think,
Jacinto. You may leave the room, but post yourself outside my cabin
door, and see that we are not interrupted."

The sentry gravely presented arms, and walked out of the cabin, closing
the door softly behind him. When he had gone the skipper took up a
blank sheet of paper and a pencil, wrote down a few lines on the paper,
and then looking at his prisoner, said in a low, purring tone--

"You are the young Chilian naval officer who was in charge of the
torpedo-boat which destroyed three of our ships the night before last,
are you not?"

Jim replied that he was.

"Well," resumed Villavicencio, "you will be sorry, I am sure, to hear
that all your comrades were drowned when the _Janequeo_--that was the
name of the boat, I believe--went down. You are the sole survivor. By
the way, how many men had you with you?"

"There were eighteen of us altogether," replied Douglas.

The skipper made a brief note on the paper before him and then remarked
softly, "H'm, it is a pity that they were all drowned. I should have
much liked to have saved a few more of them."

Although there was absolutely no fault to be found with the sentiment
expressed by the captain, Jim felt instinctively that the words
possessed a double meaning, and he shivered in spite of the heat of the
morning, which was already becoming excessive.

"What is your name, young man?" was the next question, and upon Jim
answering, his reply was noted down by his interrogator upon the paper
before him. Just as he had finished writing a thought seemed to strike
him suddenly and he looked up quickly from the sheet.

"Were you ever on board the Chilian cruiser _Angamos_?" he inquired,
still in the sam