his sleep, grasped the hitch at once.

"You think I'm in trouble and running from the police, eh? Not a bit of
it! Here, run up to this preacher's. I'll convince him, in a minute."

A little further on, the machine turned to the left, and just as it
turned off, a racing car flashed by. Something about one of the figures
was familiar.

"Whose car was that?"

The driver turned and stared at the cloud of dust.

"I didn't rightly see, it might ha' been----" He stopped. "I'll tell you
whar you can get a boat, Sah!" he suggested. "Mr. Cecil, he keeps one
down at his place a bit down de road."

"Cecil!" Stuart had to control himself to keep from shouting the name.
"Has he a place on this coast?"

"Yes, Sah; fine place, Sah, pretty place. Awful nice man, Mr. Cecil.
He'll lend you de boat, for nuffin', likely. Brother Fliss, good man,
you un'erstand, but he stick close to de money."

"Let's go there, just the same," said Stuart, "I don't want to be under
obligations. I'd rather pay my way."

The negro shrugged his shoulders and, in a few minutes, the car stopped
at the preacher's house.

As the driver had suggested, Brother Fliss "stick close to de money" and
his charge was high. He was an intensely loyal British subject, and an
even more loyal Jamaican, and when Stuart showed his card from the paper
and at the same suggested that he needed this help in order to trace up
a plot against Jamaica, the preacher was so willing that he would
almost--but not quite--have lent the boat free.

Being afraid that the automobile driver might talk, if he returned to
Spanish Town, and thus overset all the secrecy that Stuart flattered
himself he had so far maintained, the boy suggested that the negro come
along in the boat. This suggestion was at once accepted, for the mystery
of the affair had greatly excited the Jamaican's curiosity.

The preacher, himself, received the suggestion with approval.
Usually--for the craft, though, sturdy, was a small one--he was his own
steersman and engineer. Now, he could enjoy the luxury of a crew, and
the driver, who was a fairly good mechanic, was quite competent to
handle the small two-cylinder engine.

So far as the boy was concerned, he had another reason. The quest might
be dangerous. Undoubtedly Cesar Leborge and Manuel Polliovo would be
there. Equally certainly, Guy Cecil, who had protected him before, would
not. A companion would be of aid in a pinch.

And it was all so dark, so mys