by deviating from the paths usually followed by
investigators, but he believed that he held the right clues in his
hands. It remained for him now to find the island where the treaty was
to be signed and await developments.

It was sure that if the king-pins of the conspiracy could be captured
the whole fabric would fall to the ground. He believed that large sums
of money were being used, though he could not tell where the cash was
coming from. Sometimes he thought commercial interests guilty of the
reckless thing that was being done. Sometimes he thought the plot
original with the foxy prime minister of some nation looking for
additional possessions in the Orient.

At Manila he had learned that Lieutenant Rowe had been restored to
liberty, badly wounded, but in a fair way to recover. The Lieutenant,
however could do little to assist the investigation, as he had learned
little during his captivity, had not been permitted to see the leading
spirits. As Ned had believed from the first, the men who attacked him
were not inclined to do murder unnecessarily. All they sought was the
sealed orders carried by the officer and the man who had followed on
after him and entered unceremoniously through the window.

One thing Ned could not understand was the matter of the despatches
handed the Lieutenant by the man who had entered the nipa hut in so
strange a manner, shortly after midnight on the night of the attack.
These instructions, according to reports, countermanded the ones
Lieutenant Rowe had received in person at Manila, and would have turned
him back without conferring with Major Ross or the lads he had with him.

The fourth man had declared, when seen by by Ned at Manila, that he had
managed to follow on the heels of the Lieutenant with the supplemental
instructions, and had reached the island at midnight. He said that he
had entered by way of the window because the front of the house seemed
to be watched with hostile intent, and because there was a ladder there
ready to his hand.

This story seemed a little fishy to Ned, but he had no means of proving
that the man was not telling the truth. The fellow certainly had been
given despatches to deliver to Lieutenant Rowe, with orders to follow
him and place them in his hands personally. But the instructions
received by the Lieutenant were not, it was asserted, the ones sent to
him.

The supplemental instructions would have taken him back to Manila at
once, as has been sa