“His father, you were going to say,” laughed the other, an evil look crossing his countenance.  “Yes, you are quite right, I am——­”

“You are not!” cried Jack hotly.  “You married my mother a year or so after my own father’s death, and made her life miserable, but that does not make you my father, and you well know that I have never admitted your claim.  No court would admit it.  Courts?  You take good care to keep away from all of them, Mr. Rollins, as you choose to call yourself.”

“Take them away,” said the man with the white mustache.  “Let no harm come to them.  I don’t understand why they are on the island, but it would be awkward if any of their friends should know of our presence here.  Don’t let them get away, but don’t hurt them.”

The men were much stronger than the boys, and Jack saw the futility of a struggle during which the younger boy might be hurt, and he, therefore, submitted to being led away, hoping to escape at some later time.

The boys were led some little distance to a little opening where they saw a number of small crudely built houses, several dark-skinned men, who were neither Indians nor negroes, but perhaps a combination of both, and a number of domesticated animals, calves, pigs, a sheep and several fowls.

There were people on the island, therefore, as they had supposed, and these men visited the place on occasion as in the present instance.

There was a strongly built house somewhat larger than the rest on one side of the little village, and here the three boys were taken and locked in a small square room with one window, this being small and protected with an iron bar, evidently to make it safer, Jack noticing several cases in one corner opposite the window.

“Make yourselves comfortable, young gentlemen,” laughed Rollins, as he called himself.  “You will be set free, but not at present,” and with that he went away, and the door was stoutly locked.

CHAPTER XV

JESSE W. IS SENT FOR HELP

All was quiet in a few minutes after the man with the white mustache had left the boys in the room with the barred windows, and presently Percival said, half apologetically, but with the greatest kindness: 

“You know I did not mean to call that man any relation of yours, Jack, but the sudden recollection of the last time you met him when I did not see him at all made me blurt out suddenly.  I did stop, though.”

Jack had come unexpectedly upon his stepfather during his first term at the Academy, several months previous, the man at that time being concerned in the robbery of a bank near the Academy, but escaping capture and suddenly disappearing, Jack had hoped, forever.

He felt nervous and discouraged now that the man had again come into his life, and he sat in a corner of the room on a chest and thought deeply, Percival presently saying to him in cheery tones: