into it and began
to weep.

What in the world should a fellow do in a case like this? Jack didn't
know. Usually, he was equal to emergencies, but this one was something
beyond his understanding. He stood helpless, while the duenna
alternately glared at him and patted her young charge on the back,
muttering soft words of comfort to her meanwhile.

Quickly as the shower came, however, it disappeared. Rafaela pushed
Donna Ana aside impatiently and looked at Jack, smiling through her
tears.

"Well, sir," she said, demurely, "that did not succeed. What do you
intend to do with your prisoners?"

This wasn't so bad. Jack grinned.

"Look here," he said, sensing a kindred spirit. "I'm not a rascal. You
will have to believe me. I haven't done anything so terrible, after
all. You need not be scared of me."

"But who are you, then?" asked the girl. "Listen. They are shouting
through the house. Soon they will be making a search from room to
room."

Jack started. If that were true, when the searchers came to this
locked door, what would happen? He thought for a moment. The daring
idea to take the girl into his confidence and enlist her aid had been
budding in his mind. He regarded her keenly for the first time. Would
she help? Perhaps the romantic nature of his enterprise would appeal
to her, even though he was fighting against her father. Well, it would
do no harm to try.

"You asked who I am," he said, "and why I am here. Well, I shall tell
you."

And speaking rapidly in his fluent Spanish, in a few brief statements,
he laid before her the main fact that Mr. Hampton, whom she doubtless
knew, was his father, and that he had come to the rescue in an
airplane.

"Only now," he concluded mournfully, "I have been discovered. I expect
my chum will be forced to fly away. And it looks as if I were bound to
fail."

During his recital, the girl's eyes had grown bright with interest.
She leaned forward, listening with eager attention. As Jack ceased,
apparently she was about to speak, but there came a tattoo of
knuckles on the door which caused her to halt abruptly.

"Our deliverers," murmured Donna Ana, who had never entirely ceased
trembling, and she cast a spiteful glance at Jack. To the duenna,
young men, and especially one so unceremonious, were terrible
creatures.

"Silence," hissed the girl, and the old duenna in evident fear of her
imperious young mistress, trembled the more.

"Quick," whispered Rafaela to Jack, "