the moment; but have
no doubts, you, Captain Barry and Mr. Little, that at the proper time
you will be let in on what seems no doubt a mystery just now."

"Mystery's right," retorted Little. "You know, Vandersee, I have always
looked upon you as a sort of Admirable Crichton among sailors. Yet you
let me make that awful mess back at the river entrance, letting go the
anchors by meddling with the gears you had showed me. Now here you crop
up, when I am half eaten, and tell me when the proper time comes I'll
know all! It's like a yellow-backed novel."

Vandersee smiled broadly. He admired the cheery ex-salesman. He rose to
his feet, carefully dusting off his knees, and replied:

"That accident with the anchors was nothing but chance, Mr. Little. If I
smiled, it was simply because there was an element of humor in your
amazement at the result of your meddling. I assure you that was all."

"Then why not push right after Leyden now and get the thing settled one
way or the other?" blurted Barry. "All this stuff about opium smuggling
doesn't concern us much. We came here on a definite errand for Cornelius
Houten, and it seems that's a flivver. What's to hinder Little and
myself clearing out from here? Your affair with Leyden isn't our affair,
is it?"

"Oh, Cap'n, I forgot to tell you the _Barang's_ sunk," put in Jerry
Rolfe, who had approached and had been listening. "It clean slipped my
mind, in the excitement."

"_Barang's_ sunk?" echoed Barry and Vandersee together. And queerly
enough, Vandersee evinced the greater alarm.

"Sure. She was scuttled by some water rats, and her lines cut. I just
managed to get her down river and across the channel, so as to block up
the _Padang_; then she settled in the mud."

"Thank Heaven!" burst from Vandersee, and his round face, which had
gone dead white, became normal in color again. Barry and Little stared
at him in amazement, but his smile told them nothing.

"I'm thankful even that your ship is sunk, Captain, since it is sunk as
a barrier to the _Padang_," he said, and left them still in a fog. "But
I am forgetting, and you, Miss Sheldon, are permitting me to forget,
that our friends here need more comfort than we can give them in the
jungle."

"I need no comfort!" growled Barry, staggering to his feet. Little
followed his example with a twisted grin. Both tottered and pitched to
the earth again, groaning dismally.

"I know, gentlemen," Vandersee said, motioning to some of t