. While Ned
looked over the city they were approaching the three boys came to his
side.

None of them had ever looked upon a Japanese city before. The scene
before them was one well calculated to excite their interest and appeal
to their imagination. The fishing junks sailing over the glassy waters
of the bay did not seem at all like any fishing boats they had ever seen
before.

The colored wooden roofs of the town seemed to have been cut out from a
picture book of fairy tales. The narrow streets in sight from the deck
seemed steep and not too straight. The buildings seemed to lap over on
each other. To the west, standing straight up in the sky, as it seemed,
loomed the pile of Oyama mountain. To the north showed the roofs of
Kanagawa.

Night fell while they gazed at the unfamiliar scene, and the lanterns on
the sampans, bound for the customs _hatoba_, glistened over the bay like
fireflies. The shampooer's whistles drifted out on the offshore breeze.

"Doesn't look much like coming into little old New York!" Frank
exclaimed.

"Queer lookin' country!" Jimmie added.

"I'd rather be back in the _Manhattan_, among the islands north of
Luzon," Jack observed. "I don't like this smell of the Orient they talk
so much about."

"Not much Orient about this!" Ned said.

"I hope we'll get out of it before long," Jack went on. "I'm hungry for
the wash of the China Sea."

"We'll have a little China Sea made for you, an' tuck it away in Central
Park," Jimmie laughed.

"All right!" replied Jack. "I wonder why some one didn't think of that
before! Fine scheme!"

On leaving the bay where such an eventful night had been passed, the
boys had driven the _Manhattan_ at full speed directly to Manila. The
boat was rather small for such a trip, but it had behaved nobly, and the
lads had enjoyed the trip immensely.

They had for a time been pursued by the launches which had anchored on
the opposite side of the little island, but the chase had soon been
abandoned, as the _Manhattan_ was the fastest boat of the three.

On the way to Manila, Ned had held several long conversations with
French, but had gained little information from him. He corroborated what
little was known regarding the conspiracy for the establishing of a
native government on the Philippines, but would not reveal what he knew
of the interests interested or of the men at the head of the movement.

At Manila, French had been released on parole at the urgent reques