“And what is it you have learned?” cried Meeker, advancing on me again in a menacing manner, and plainly surprised at what I had said.

“A few things about you and Petrak that Captain Riggs should know,” I retorted.

“Mr. Harris, take Mr. Trenholm to his room,” and the mate took me by the arm and led me down the passage.  As I went out Meeker grinned after me and whispered something to Captain Riggs behind his hand.

Harris opened the door and thrust me before him into the dark stateroom and commanded me to light the gimbal-lamp, passing me a match.  When I had the lamp lit he took a quick glance inside.

“That man Meeker is a spy,” I began.  “It was for him that Petrak killed Trego, and all day in Manila he and that little fellow were at my heels—­”

“Stow that,” said Harris.  “Take what you need out of yer gear, and hand the rest of it out, and mind that thar’s no gun-play about it.  I’m well heeled, and if ye make a move I’ll let daylight through yer innards.  Look lively now.”

I took a pair of pajamas and a few toilet-articles from my bag.  He would not let me have my razors, or any of the packets of papers or my money belt.  When he had taken my grip he demanded my clothes, and left me in my pajamas and locked the door, with a growl of caution about monkey-business.

“We hain’t takin’ no chances with gents like ye be,” he said.  “And mind that ye stick close here, ’cause we’ve got a watch outside, and the first time we ketch ye up to any didoes we’ll have ye below with brass bracelets on with yer pal Petrak, where ye belong.”

At this he slammed the heavy oak door and turned the key in the lock.

My first emotions were anger and the sense of humiliation.  I was beaten, outwitted, captured by Meeker, and by my own stupidity.  But I realized that the battle had but just begun, and my first task must be to attempt some defence, some counter move against the old fraud who had drawn his plot about me for his own mysterious object.

I berated myself for my conceit in imagining that I could play with such a dangerous man as Meeker proved himself to be, especially since I had seen through his disguise almost from the first.  One of two things in Manila would have saved me from my position—­either I should have told Meeker at once that he was mistaken in thinking me a spy and warned him to keep clear of me, or I should have told the police that I was being annoyed by a suspicious character.  I had had grounds enough for making a complaint against Meeker and Petrak when I found the little red-headed man sneaking outside my door in the hotel, and the supposed missionary blocking my pursuit on the stairway.

Even if the police had given me no satisfaction, I could have warned Meeker that I would not submit to his espionage—­a hundred ways of protecting myself from the fellow came into my mind as I sat there on my berth and reviewed what had taken place in Manila before I ever went on board the Kut Sang.