st indignant at the outrage, and
was at first very strongly disposed to make a personal matter of it by
lodging a formal complaint with the Capitan-General against Alvaros; but
after listening to all that his son and Jack had to say he finally
allowed himself to be dissuaded from taking so decisive a step,
especially as he fully shared their doubts as to its effectiveness: but
he cordially approved of Milsom's suggestion that the affair should be
laid before the English Consul, and the final result of the talk was
that Jack and Carlos forthwith rode into Pinar del Rio, and from thence
took train to Havana, where they arrived rather late in the afternoon,
yet still early enough to catch the Consul ere he left his office for
the day. This official gave the two young men a cordial welcome, and
listened to Jack's story with the utmost attention, his mouth setting
ever more firmly and the frown upon his brow lowering ever more darkly
as the story proceeded. When at length it was finished he said:

"I have heard of this man Alvaros before, but never any good of him.
Yet I believe he stands well with the Capitan-General. But of course I
shall not allow that to influence me; one of my duties here is to
protect British subjects, and I intend to do it. It is rather
unfortunate, Mr Singleton, that you should have chosen this particular
period for your visit to Cuba, for I may tell you--if you don't happen
to know it already--that foreigners of all kinds, and particularly
Americans and English, are looked upon with scant favour by the
Spaniards just now, as the latter suspect them of favouring the
aspirations of the Cubans toward independence. And that reminds me that
the Spaniards somehow got hold of the notion that you were bringing out
a cargo of contraband of war for the Cuban insurgents. I suppose there
is no truth in that story, is there?"

Jack had been expecting some such question as this, sooner or later, and
was fully prepared for it. He had made up his mind that to tell the
Consul the whole truth of the matter would only be to place that
official in an extremely embarrassing position, so he answered, with a
laugh:

"They took good care to test the truth of the story for themselves by
sending out a torpedo boat to accompany us from Key West and see that we
did not land anything of the kind. But something went wrong with her--
she apparently broke down--and we left her. But, to make assurance
doubly sure, they