ssed out of this street of misery and entered the town.
The boys had forgotten their own troubles in the contemplation of the
suffering of the unhappy creatures behind them. The guards who had been
slouching along at a swinging gait now straightened up and assumed a
more soldierly air. At a word of command from their fat commander they
halted before a building which was more imposing in appearance than its
neighbors, and looked to be a public edifice of some sort. They marched,
with their prisoners still between them, up the few steps that led to a
wide doorway and into a large room on the right, where an officer was
reclining in a lounging chair, lazily puffing a cigarette. It was now
growing dark outside and the room was dimly lighted by a lamp that stood
on the flat desk in front of the only occupant.

The man straightened himself up as the squad entered, and the little
commander saluted with great deference.

"I told you so," said Harry, who noticed the air of deep respect that
now marked their captor. "The little fat man is only an understrapper.
Now we shall have a hearing."

While the little officer reported to his superior, the latter looked the
boys over with some apparent curiosity. He asked a few questions and
then uttering something that sounded like a judicial decision, he sank
back in his chair again and lighted another cigarette.

The guard faced about, prodded the boys in the back again with their
guns to indicate that they were to move on, and the procession filed out
into the street again. For a moment the boys could scarcely realize that
they were to have no hearing, and then Harry turned to the fat man
indignantly.

"Are we not to be permitted to tell our story?" he demanded. "Where are
you taking us? I demand a hearing as an American citizen in the presence
of the American consul."

The little man, who evidently understood much of what he said, chuckled,
and the men, taking their cue from their commander, jabbed the boys once
more in the back.

"It's no use, Hal," said Bert. "We might as well wait and see what they
intend to do with us."

They passed from one narrow street to another until they again halted
in front of a building whose narrow windows were closely barred.

"Looks uncomfortably like a jail," said Harry, as he surveyed the white
front of the gloomy structure. A door on the level with the street
opened, the guns prodded the boys in the back again, and they entered
through the