French seemed to be a college educated man and a gentleman by instinct.
While they were preparing supper he amused them with stories of his
travels and adventures, and both boys heartily wished he was with them
as a friend instead of an enemy. When it grew dark he sent all the
Filipinos away but two, and they sat down to a good meal.

Frank questioned French, cautiously of course, but could gain little
information from him. The fellow seemed fully aware of the purpose of
the boy, and replied to his questions with the most extravagant stories
of the empire that was to be raised in the Philippines after the United
States protectorate had ceased.

"You're a queer chap," Frank said, at the conclusion of one of French's
stories of the grandeur of the coming empire, "and I'd like to hear you
spin yarns all night, but, if you don't mind, I'll go to bed."

"Just as you like," was the amiable reply. "I'll sit here and smoke a
few more cigarettes and then follow your example. It is such a wild
night that your friends may have stopped at a down-town hotel!"

"Perhaps they've stepped over to the Waldorf!" Jack replied.

The lads occupied the same bunk, and talked in whispers all through the
night. They had no idea what had become of Ned and Jimmie except the
supposition that they had been captured by their enemies. French retired
about midnight, as calmly as if he were in his own rooms, leaving the
two Filipinos on guard in the cabin.

Once Frank arose and tried to slip out, his idea being to reach the
shore and look for his chums, but the brown men lifted their guns
automatically as he looked out on them. All through the night they sat
unblinkingly, looking out in the dim light much as glass eyes might have
looked out of the head of a wooden image.

"We're sure in a bad box," Jack whispered, after this attempt at escape.
"I don't believe they'll turn us loose on the island, knowing what we
know. They won't take any chance of our getting away! If Ned was free,
he'd have been here before this, so we may as well make up our minds
that he's in trouble also."

With daylight came a cessation of the storm, and soon the sun was
shining smotheringly down on the little bay. Sweltering in the cabin,
Frank looked out of a port and saw a pole lifted above a clump of low
bushes just back from the distant beach. As he looked the pole moved
forward and back, then to the right, ducking three times and coming back
to a vertical position. T