er campong to ascertain what damage had been
done there.

On their return Sing was setting the table on the verandah for the
evening meal. The two men were talking, and without making his
presence noticeable the Chinaman hovered about ever within ear shot.

"I cannot make it out, von Horn," Professor Maxon was saying. "Not a
board broken, and the doors both apparently opened intentionally by
someone familiar with locks and bolts. Who could have done it?"

"You forget Number Thirteen," suggested the doctor.

"But the chest!" expostulated the other. "What in the world would he
want of that enormous and heavy chest?"

"He might have thought that it contained treasure," hazarded von Horn,
in an innocent tone of voice.

"Bosh, my dear man," replied Professor Maxon. "He knew nothing of
treasures, or money, or the need or value of either. I tell you the
workshop was opened, and the inner campong as well by some one who knew
the value of money and wanted that chest, but why they should have
released the creatures from the inner enclosure is beyond me."

"And I tell you Professor Maxon that it could have been none other than
Number Thirteen," insisted von Horn. "Did I not myself see him leading
his eleven monsters as easily as a captain commands his company? The
fellow is brighter than we have imagined. He has learned much from us
both, he has reasoned, and he has shrewdly guessed many things that he
could not have known through experience."

"But his object?" asked the professor.

"That is simple," returned von Horn. "You have held out hopes to him
that soon he should come to live under your roof with Virginia. The
creature has been madly infatuated with her ever since the day he took
her from Number One, and you have encouraged his infatuation until
yesterday. Then you regained your sanity and put him in his rightful
place. What is the result? Denied the easy prey he expected he
immediately decided to take it by force, and with that end in view, and
taking advantage of the series of remarkable circumstances which played
into his hands, he liberated his fellows, and with them hastened to the
beach in search of Virginia and in hopes of being able to fly with her
upon the Ithaca. There he met the Malay pirates, and together they
formed an alliance under terms of which Number Thirteen is to have the
girl, and the pirates the chest in return for transporting him and his
crew to Borneo. Why it is all perfec