cide when we ought to have our interview with Senor
Kenwardine, and I think we should put it off until just before we land."

"Why?" Jake asked. "It would be much pleasanter to get it over and have
done with it."

"I think not," Don Sebastian answered quietly. "We do not know how Senor
Kenwardine will meet the situation. He is a bold man, and it is possible
that he will defy us."

"How can he defy you when he knows you can hand him over to the British
authorities?"

"That might be necessary; but I am not sure it is the British authorities
he fears the most."

"Then who is he afraid of?"

"His employers, I imagine," Don Sebastian answered with a curious smile.
"It is understood that they trust nobody and are not very gentle to those
who do not serve them well. Senor Kenwardine knows enough about their
plans to be dangerous, and it looks as if he might fail to carry their
orders out. If we give him too long a warning, he may escape us after
all."

"I don't see how he could escape. You have him corralled when he's under
the British flag."

Don Sebastian shrugged as he indicated the steamer's low iron rail and
the glimmer of foam in the dark below.

"There is one way! If he takes it, we shall learn no more than we know
now."

He left them, and Jake looked at Dick. "It's unthinkable! I can't stand
for it!"

"No," said Dick very quietly; "he mustn't be pushed too far. For all
that, his friends can't be allowed to go on sinking British ships."

CHAPTER XXX

THE LAST ENCOUNTER

Dick awoke next morning with a feeling of nervous strain that got worse
as the day wore on. By going down to the saloon immediately the
breakfast-bell rang and making a hurried meal, he and his companions
avoided meeting Kenwardine, and, after bribing a steward, were given
lunch with the second-class passengers. Two difficulties were thus got
over, but the time passed heavily while they kept out of sight in quiet
corners of the after well, and Dick found it a relief when a friendly
engineer invited him below. Here he spent some hours, smoking and
watching the machinery, while the fingers of the clock on the bulkhead
crawled with painful slowness round the dial.

When he went up on deck the bold ridge of the Blue Mountains rose above
the dazzling sea, but the lower slopes were veiled in haze and he could
not tell how far the land was off. A mate informed him that they would
have the coast close aboard at dusk, but did not thin