"Why, I would guess that you are a Russian."

"You are worthy of the name of Yankee, then. Yes; I am a Russian."

Another party of sight-seers pa.s.sed them at that moment, and one man was heard to remark:

"At the south end of the castle is a stairway leading down to an underground dungeon. Legend tells us that some forty Spanish pirates were once confined there, for a month, before permission was received from the governor to hang the Spaniards."

"Did you hear that?" murmured Jack, interestedly. "A real, old dungeon, with an interesting history."

"Such a history merely afflicts me with a shudder," replied Mlle.

Nadiboff, shrugging her shoulders.

"By Jove, I believe I'd like to have just a glimpse of that old dungeon, Mademoiselle, if I am not tiring you or wasting your time."

"You will have to go alone, then," replied the young woman. "I will wait, my Captain."

"I will remain with Mlle. Nadiboff," volunteered Hal.

So Jack Benson, after raising his cap, stepped off rapidly toward the southern end of the old ruin.

With much difficulty he found the entrance to the stairway leading below.

At the head of the stairs two youngish men were standing. The face of one of them looked familiar.

"How do you do, Captain?" nodded that one. "You don't recall me, I guess. I saw you, yesterday, only for a moment at the rail of the gunboat. My name is Hennessy, one of the newspaper men who visited your wonderful craft yesterday."

"I am glad to meet you again," Jack replied, "and sorry that we couldn't show you more."

"This is my friend, Mr. Graham," continued the newspaper man. "Graham is the Washington correspondent for my paper, so of course he has heard of your boats before."

"If you had been aboard," smiled Jack, "you might have seen something in the way of a little news happening."

"What was that?"

"Why, we found a new j.a.panese steward, whom we had engaged, absorbed in his study of some of our mechanisms. So we had to induce him to quit our service and go back to sh.o.r.e again."

"A spy, eh?" smiled Graham. "There are many of them about. Wherever there is anything connected with our national defense the spies of Europe are sure to flock, until they have learned all they want to know.

And I suspect that they rarely fail, in the end. You were fortunate to catch your j.a.panese at his tricks at so early a stage in the game."

"I wish all these spies could be herded together and hanged!" muttered Captain Jack, in honest indignation.

"Do you?" asked Graham, looking at the boy, with a queer smile.

"Can you doubt it?" challenged Jack.

Graham was silent for a few moments, puffing at his cigar. Then, speaking very slowly, he went on:

"Captain Benson, I wonder if you would be much offended if I offered you some information that might prove of much value to you?"

"What makes you think, sir, I'm such a fool as that?" asked Jack, gazing at the Washington correspondent in great astonishment.

"One sometimes has to use a good deal of caution, even in offering well-intended information," replied the Washington correspondent, "Benson, I've been stationed at the national capital for eight years, now. I meet all kinds of people, and I see a good many others whom I don't get to know, and don't want to know, and yet I become familiar with their histories."

"I don't doubt that, sir," Jack a.s.sented. "The life of a Washington correspondent must be full of interesting things and experiences."

"Washington itself is full of foreign spies," pursued Graham, studying the ash on the end of his cigar. "After a newspaper man has been in Washington a while he begins to have people pointed out to him who are either known or believed to be in the employ of foreign governments for the purpose of getting information that our national authorities would much rather conceal."

"That must be true," agreed Benson. "And I suppose there are some very clever men engaged in that peculiar line of business."

"Some of the smartest of them are not men, but women," continued Mr.

Graham. "Men, perhaps, direct them, but the women spies, when they are young and good-looking, can usually coax a lot of information."

"Oho! I'd like to get a look, some time, at one of these clever women spies," declared Jack, much interested.

"That's just what I'm coming to," pursued the Washington correspondent.

"I hope you won't be offended, Benson, but I understand you have already paid some attention to one of the brightest women in this line."

"Mlle. Nadiboff?" cried Jack, guessing instantly what the other sought to convey.

"Yes," nodded Graham. "Though I believe, when I first saw her, eight years ago, she was using some other name than Nadiboff."

"Eight years ago," smiled Jack, "she must have been about thirteen years old. Do they employ, spies at such a tender age?"

"Eight years ago," retorted Graham, "this young woman was, I should say, about twenty-one years old. I am aware that she looks hardly older to-day. When I saw you with her ten minutes ago it was the first hint I had that she was in Florida."

"So she's a spy?" muttered Jack Benson, speaking more to himself. "Then I can understand why she seemed so anxious to interest me. I was not wrong about that."

"No," laughed Graham. "Beyond a doubt the young woman is very anxious to please you, and to keep your interest. You happen to command a type of submarine torpedo boat in which all the world is at present much interested. By the way, I wonder if Mlle. Nadiboff, as you call her, works under the directions of the same chief? He was a man--"

Here the Washington correspondent gave a description that caused Jack Benson to exclaim:

"Why, that's M. Lemaire, to a dot!"

"I guess there's no doubt about it, then," laughed Mr. Graham. "You've fallen into the hands of a pair of the boldest, wickedest and cleverest of foreign spies."

"I thank you heartily for informing me about them," breathed Jack Benson, his eyes gleaming as he thought of the pair. "But there's one thing that puzzles me. Mlle. Nadiboff is a Russian, and M. Lemaire must be a Frenchman. Then which country owns that precious pair?"

"Spies rarely have any country," smiled the washington correspondent.

"They work for whichever government will pay them best. Today they will sell out their employers of yesterday."

"They're a n.o.ble lot, then," grunted Jack, disgustedly.

Mr. Hennessy proposed that they go down to have a look at the dungeon underground. While they were examining that damp, slimy old cell, the conversation continued.

"Has either of that pair seen you, Mr. Graham?" asked Jack.

"I don't believe it. I'm not stopping at the Hotel Clayton."

"Then neither of them will suspect that I've been posted," muttered Benson, with a short laugh.