“I thought you were looking another way,” commented the little fellow.  “That was Hans, all right.’

“But why does he remain inactive?  He knows there is something doing down here, else he would not have shown the signal of warning.  He ought to be out of that window by this time.”

“This is a country of hard knots,” laughed Jimmie.  “They may have tied up his fat little trotters.”

In spite of the serious situation, Ned laughed.

“The tying up in this case makes it seem like a cheap drama on the lower East Side in New York,” he said.

“I think I might get up to that window,” Jimmie suggested.

“How?” asked Ned.

“By the lower window frames an’ castings.  If you’ll manage to keep the Chinks off me I’ll try.”

“It is worth trying,” Ned mused.

The other windows opening on the court were now closed.  The sleepy natives, possibly doped with opium, had wearied of watching the figures in the rear room of the telegraph office and tumbled back into bed, or back on such miserable heaps of dirty matings as they chose to call beds.

The sounds of conflict had already died out in the front office, and another visit from the evil-faced detective was momentarily expected, so Jimmie was urged to make the proposed attempt to reach Hans at once.

He passed out of the window, crossed the beaten earth floor of the court, and began to climb.  Ned was pleased to see that he had little difficulty in ascending to the window.  Once there he heard him rap on the pane.  There was a pause, and then the boy pushed up the sash and clambered inside.

Ned was glad to see that the boy had the good judgment to draw the sash down, as soon as he was in the room.  What he would discover there the watcher had no idea.

He might find Hans there under guard.  He might discover, when it was too late, that the German had been, unwillingly, used as a decoy by cunning natives into whose hands he might have fallen.

Still, there were the signals!  The natives could not have known of the Boy Scout system of warnings, and Hans would certainly have volunteered nothing in the way of allurement.

He watched the window for what seemed to him to be a very long time.  The pane remained dark.

“If the lad finds the situation favorable,” Ned thought, “he may not return here at all.  I should have instructed him to leave the room by the main stairway, if possible, and return to the marines.  It would look comfortable, just now, to see that file of bluecoats marching into the telegraph office.”

However, there was now no help for the omission, and Ned waited with varying emotions for some sign from the window.  None came, but presently the door of the rear room was opened and the detective blustered in.

“Where is the other prisoner?” he demanded, looking keenly about the room.  “He was here not long ago.  Where is he?”