essel's light out at sea, and saw no more flashes,
although he looked for them for several minutes.

"Well, I can't go to waking the captain in the middle of the night," he
said, "and it is likely this fellow has gone. It is simply another
disappointment. I think I'll go to bed."

CHAPTER XIV

THE MAN WITH THE WHITE MUSTACHE

In the morning Jack told the captain, Dr. Wise, and a few of his most
intimate friends among the boys under the promise of keeping it quiet, the
strange event of the previous night, asking the doctor if he had done
right in not calling the captain.

"If you had aroused me I would probably have been mad," chuckled the
captain, "and could not have done anything anyhow. It is clear that there
is a way in here, although we don't know it, and that this fellow you saw
signaling mistook our lights for those of one of his evil associates. I'd
like to watch him, but there is no use in crying over spilled milk, and
you did all right in not calling me."

"It is all very singular," said the doctor, knitting his brows. "Of course
we would like to get out of here, but as to seeking the assistance of a
smuggler----"

"I'd as soon go out under his escort as that of any one else," laughed
Storms, "although we might get in trouble afterward if a government vessel
happened to see us in company with smugglers. Well, I guess it won't be
long now before the relief steamer comes, but----"

"But they may not know the way in, and we are as badly off as before,"
finished the doctor. "I don't see that we have advanced any, except,
perhaps, to let people know where we are."

"And you think there is little satisfaction in that?" with a grin. "We
might be worse off, however, so I guess we had better wait and trust to
good luck. Clever game, that of Jack's, wasn't it, stealing the fellow's
despatches?"

"Why, yes, clever in a way," admitted the doctor, glaring at the captain
through his big black-rimmed glasses, "but does it not savor somewhat
of--h'm--of deception? Pretending to be one person when he was another,
and quite a different one, by the way?"

"But he did not pretend to be anybody. He simply flashed a message, and if
that fellow outside took him for another person it was not Mr. Sheldon's
fault. All is fair in love and war, you know."

"H'm! so I have heard, but as I have been in neither I cannot say whether
it is so or not. However, I am not accusing you, Sheldon, you understand?
I suppose, und