She was a true child of romance, a wonderful prodigy of a strange and weird fate, and he could not but picture to himself what a ravishingly lovely creature she would be under different auspices; and he wondered not that the Cuban villain, Garcia, was anxious to secure possession of her.

The detective quickly thought over the whole matter.  He discerned the Cuban’s purpose; the man meant to take the girl to Cuba, perchance, to make her his wife, and why not?  She was beautiful, and there was a possibility that she might develop into a great heiress.

The detective, however, did not have much time to meditate on his strange meeting with the girl and the stranger incidents that followed that meeting.  He was warned that it was necessary for him to take measures for the safety of his life.

Spencer Vane was a thoroughly experienced detective.  He was no tyro at the business, and he was up to all the tricks and devices of the modern science of criminal detection.  He was as good at the art of disguise as any in the profession, and it was his skill in the latter particular which make him so indifferent as to the approach of the gang of madly drunken smugglers.

Our hero walked over behind a high sand drift, and in a few minutes had worked a most startling and extraordinary “transform;” no living man, unless posted as to his disguise, could ever have recognised in the dark-faced, rough-looking man who issued from behind the drift, the same light-haired, dashing-looking fellow who had a moment before disappeared behind it.

CHAPTER X.

The detective had just completed his change in appearance, when he was startled by hearing a shrill piercing scream in a female voice from the direction of Tom Pearce’s cabin.

“As I feared!” he muttered, and he walked rapidly toward the cabin, and approaching, he saw an excited group of men standing outside, while something of a more ordinary character appeared to be transpiring beneath the humble roof.

The detective approached the group of men standing outside and inquired: 

“Hello, what’s going on here?”

The men crowded around the new-comer, and glared in his face, and one of the men called out,

“Ahoy there, bring a glim here, quick!  Here’s stranger, and by all that’s fatal, I believe Tom’s enemy!”

The detective was perfectly cool as he answered;

“Will you tell me what’s going on here”

“Who are you, anyhow?” came the query in a rough tone.

Meantime one of the men had brought out a ship’s lantern, and it was held up in front of the detective’s face, and the men glared at him.

“Do any of you know this fellow?” came the question.

One man after another declared his utter ignorance of the identity of the stranger.

“Who are you, my man?” again came the question;