ack at Culebra."

While the temporary disposition of the prisoner was being discussed, and
while Ned was questioning him as to the immediate movements of the
plotters and receiving no satisfactory replies, the lights in the house
were extinguished and the men who had occupied the front room were heard
descending the stairs. In a moment some one called out:

"Gaga."

"Is that your name?" demanded Ned of the prisoner.

"Yes."

"Then answer him."

Gaga did not respond at once, and the keen point of a knife came in
contact with his throat.

"Answer him."

The call came again, farther away now.

"What shall I say?" asked the captive.

"Answer him as you would have answered if nothing had happened to you
here," was the reply.

The prisoner uttered a long, low cry, and the boys waited with suspended
breath. Even at the peril of his life the fellow might warn the others.
Ned knew how loyal the people of his nation are.

But the reply was not a warning, or a call for help. The man who had
called out the prisoner's name answered now with an "All right. Remain
about here." Then the men moved away in a body, taking the road to
Gamboa.

"Are they coming back to-night?" asked Ned.

"I can tell you nothing," was the reply.

When the men who had left the house had disappeared from sight Ned bade
the captive rise that he might be searched closely for weapons.

"Say," Jimmie cried. "There's your tall, slender man with black hair
turning gray in places. Ever in New York, Mister?" he added.

The prisoner made no reply.

"You are enough like Itto to be his brother," Ned said. "Perhaps you won't
mind telling me which one of you stole Frank Shaw's necklace?"

The prisoner turned his back indignantly. He was indeed a fair copy of the
man called Itto, and his shoulders, narrow and high, might have made the
damp stains Ned had found on the wall of the closet in the Shaw house in
New York.

The stone house was now, seemingly, without an occupant and the thickets
about were silent save for the noises of the night. A faint clamor came
from the canal, where workmen were hewing away at the ribs of the
Cordilleras, now the slight jar of an explosion, now the grinding of a
steam shovel, now the nervous shrieking of the trains pushing back and
forth.

The electrics over the cut drew lines of silver light on the tall trees
and the foliage of the hills farther away, but here there was only a faint
suggestion of illumination.