Shortly Riley was back.

“Lieutenant Trent is coming, sir,” whispered the coxswain.  “There he is, turning the corner now.”

“Stand before this door, and if you hear anything inside, so much the better,” Darrin murmured, then hastily moved down the street, saluting his superior officer as he met him.

“Riley told you, perhaps, he got the sniper, sir,” Dave began, “but I have something even more astounding to report.  I have every reason to believe that Lieutenant Cantor is in that house.”

“A prisoner?” cried Trent, in an undertone.

“I have reason to believe that he isn’t a prisoner,” Dave went on.  “The house is the same from which I saw Cosetta peer yesterday, and I have reason to think that Lieutenant Cantor and the bandit are on fairly good terms.”

“Be careful what you say, Darrin,” cautioned Lieutenant Trent.  “In effect, you are accusing an officer of the United States Navy of treason!”

“That is the very crime of which I suspect him, sir,” Dave answered, bluntly.

“Are you sure that your personal animosity has no part in that suspicion?”

“No dislike for a brother officer could induce me to charge him falsely,” Dave answered simply.

“I beg your pardon, Darrin!” exclaimed Trent in sincere regret.  “I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

“Here is the door, sir,” Dave reported, in a whisper, halting and pointing.

“I heard some one talking in there in low tones,” reported Riley.  “I couldn’t make it out, for he was talking in Spanish.”

“I suspect that the voices were those of Lieutenant Cantor and Cosetta,” Dave whispered.

“If they don’t get away, we’ll soon know,” Trent whispered.  “Stone and Root, I want you two to head the party that rushes the door.  As soon as you get inside don’t stop for anything else, but rush to the rear windows and shoot any one who attempts to escape by the rear fence.  Now, men, rush that door!”

So hard and sudden was the assault that the door gave way at the first rush.

Revolver in hand, Dave Darrin was directly behind the two seamen who had been ordered to rush to the rear windows.

Just as the door yielded to the assault an excited voice in Spanish exclaimed: 

“This way—–­quick!”

The two sailors, who had been ordered to do nothing else except guard the rear windows, saw a figure vanish through the cellar doorway.  Leaving that individual to others, Stone and Boot dashed into a rear room, throwing up the window.

In the darkness a second man also rushed for the cellar doorway.  But Dave Darrin’s extended right hand closed on that party’s collar.

“You’re my prisoner,” Dave hissed, throwing his man backward to the floor.

As several men rushed past them one sailor halted, throwing on the rays of a pocket electric light.

“You, Cantor, and here?” exclaimed Lieutenant Trent, aghast, as he recognized the features of his brother officer.  “In mercy’s name-----”