their occupants, they were forced to scurry under cover, as from a clear sky rain poured down in torrents, blotting out the distant mountains and veiling the near-by quay and town with a white curtain.

“Golly!” exclaimed Tom. “It’s pouring cats and dogs and there wasn’t a cloud overhead.”

Rawlins laughed. “That’s Dominica all right!” he replied. “Rainiest spot in the world, I guess. My father used to say they measured the rainfall here by yards and not by inches.”

“But how can it rain when there are no clouds?” persisted Tom, to whom this phenomenon was most mystifying.

“I think I can explain that,” volunteered Commander Disbrow. “It’s the moisture laden air from the Atlantic blowing across these forest-covered mountains. The moisture is condensed and falls as rain before it has time to gather in a vapor and form clouds. I’ve seen the same thing in the Azores.”

But now the rain had ceased as abruptly as it had begun and presently the ship’s cutter was in the water. Five minutes later the boys stepped ashore at the little stone and concrete pier.

While Mr. Pauling, Mr. Henderson and Commander Disbrow turned up the hill towards Government House, the two boys and Rawlins strolled through the quaint little town and entered the big botanic station. Never had Tom and Frank been so delighted or so enthusiastic over new and strange sights as in Roseau, for it was utterly unlike anything they had ever seen or imagined. The chattering colored women in their long, trailing, stiffly starched, gaudy dresses with brilliant silk foulards or kerchiefs about their necks and their jaunty, rainbow-hued turbans gave a very foreign, out-of-the-world effect to the spot. The narrow cobbled streets, with the open ditches, filled with swiftly flowing water; the French names over the shops and stores; and the wooden houses with outjutting balconies forming shelters for great casks of lime juice, trays of cacao beans, and diminutive native ponies--all lent a most picturesque touch to the place. The boys even declared that the miserable huts with their walls made partly from discarded kerosene tins and rusty corrugated iron and which were oddly sandwiched in between the good buildings only added to the attractions of the little town.

But when they reached the gardens and strolled along the perfectly kept drives and walks between broad green lawns dotted with every imaginable tropic shrub, palm, and flower, and wandered through dark avenues of clove, nutmeg and cinnamon trees, with the air heavy with the mingled odors of orchids, jasmine and spices, they could not find words to express their appreciation.

“Gee, a fellow could wander here for a week and not see it all!” declared Tom.

“And say, wouldn’t it be just great to ride up that valley into the mountains?” cried Frank. “Golly, it looks wild and interesting.”

“It is,” Rawlins assured him. “Maybe you’ll have a chance to try it. You can go to the Mountain lake and back in a day and anyway you can climb up Morne Bruce here to-morrow morning and have a fine view of the valley.”

Reluctantly, the boys turned back and taking a different route through the town, reached the waiting boat. To the boys’ intense delight, although their elders chafed at the delay, Mr. Pauling told them that he planned to stay in Dominica to await expected news of the Devonshire’s arrival at Trinidad or Demerara and that he had no objection to their proposed ride up the valley as it would be impossible for the Devonshire to reach port within the next twenty-four hours.

As a result, the enthusiastic boys could scarcely wait to eat breakfast the next morning, but hurried ashore with Rawlins and found the ponies, which the diver had ordered through one of the native boatmen the night before, waiting for them.

Even their boyish imaginations had never prepared them for the beauties, the constant surprises, the strangeness and the interests of that ride. They passed for miles beside the tumbling, roaring river through endless lime orchards; they climbed steep grades that wound around hillsides glorious with masses of brilliant flowers; they rode under arches of giant bamboos rising fifty feet above their heads, and as they mounted higher the way led through forests of stupendous trees, enormous tree ferns, and tangled, cable-like lianas, where even at midday, it was like twilight. Often the narrow road wound around the verges of terrific precipices and, involuntarily, the boys shuddered and drew back as the sure-footed mountain ponies picked their way so close to the brink that stones, dislodged by their passage, went crashing down to the dark forest a thousand feet beneath. Sometimes too, they halted for brief rests and listened to the flute-like songs of the “mountain whistler” or watched humming birds flashing like living gems among the flowers of orchids or begonias.

Then at last they came out upon the topmost mountain ridge and as the heavy mist, which Rawlins told them was a cloud, drifted away, they looked upon a vast sea of forest-covered mountains with a glimmering little lake nestled among the verdure in a bowl-like crater at their feet. Here, above the clouds, they ate their lunch and, heedless of the drenching rain, returned down the mountains late in the afternoon. As they came out upon the waterfront, they saw smoke pouring from the funnels of the destroyer.

“Holy mackerel!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They must have heard something. They’ve got steam up.”

Scarcely had the three scrambled into the waiting cutter, when the little craft was speeding towards the destroyer and to Rawlins’ questions the petty officer in command replied that the Commander was only awaiting their arrival before sailing.

No sooner had the cutter left the dock than the roar of the winch engines and the incoming cable told of the anchor coming in, and scarcely were the diver and the two boys over the little ship’s side and the cutter hooked to the davit falls before the destroyer was forging ahead and making for the open sea.

“What’s up?” cried Rawlins as he gained the deck. “Get a message?”

“Yes, an hour ago,” replied Mr. Pauling. “Here it is.”

The diver and the two boys glanced eagerly over the slip, and read: “Devonshire and crew held according to request. May, Inspector Police. Port of Spain.”

“Hurrah!” cried the boys in unison. “They’re caught!”

“I’ll say they are!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Walked right into our trap!”