hour, if necessary."

"But who's in charge of the boat?"

"I am."

Mr. Hays Jordan looked Matt over, up and down, and started to give an incredulous whistle. But there was something in the youth's bearing, and in the firm, gray eye that caused him to quit whistling.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Pretty young to be skipper of a submarine, aren't you?"

"Belay a bit, sir," spoke up Dick. "He's old for his age, if I do say it, and Captain Nemo, Jr., is a master hand at taking the sizing of a fellow. He selected Motor Matt to engineer this piece of work, and, if you keep your weather eye skinned, it won't be long until you rise to the fact that the captain knew what he was about."

"The captain ought to have a doctor without loss of time," interposed Matt, impatient because of the time they were losing, "and he must have a place to stay."

"We'll not send a sick man to the hotel," said Mr. Jordan, "but to a boarding house kept by an American. And we'll also have an American doctor to look after him." He slapped his hands. In answer to the summons a negro appeared from inside the house. "Go over to Dr. Seymour, Turk," said the consul, "and ask him to come here."

"We might be able to save time," put in Matt, "if my friend went with your servant and took the doctor directly to the submarine."

"Fine!" exclaimed the consul, and Dick and the negro hurried away.

"Sit down, my boy," said the consul, waving his hand toward a chair, "and we'll palaver a little. I don't reckon I ought to say much to you until I talk with Captain Nemo, Jr., and make sure everything is right and proper. Still——"

"Here are my credentials," said Matt, and handed over the letter which he had recently read aloud in the periscope room of the Grampus.

The consul glanced over the letter.

"I'll take you on that showing, Motor Matt," said he heartily, as he handed the letter back. "If anything is done for my friend Coleman, it's got to be done with a rush. The dinky little states all around us are able to have a revolution whenever some one happens to think of it. There's one on now, and Captain James Sixty was to help on the fighting by landing a cargo of guns and ammunition. Sixty's work, as I reckon you may know, was nipped in the bud, and the revolutionists are having a hard time of it. But they're still active, and about two weeks ago, when Sixty failed to arrive with the war material and they were afraid he had been captured by the United States authorities, the hot-headed greasers planned reprisal. That reprisal was about the most foolish thing you ever heard of. They spirited away my friend Coleman; then they sent me a letter saying that Coleman would be released whenever the United States Government gave up Sixty—and, at that time, Sixty wasn't in the hands of the authorities, at all. He had just simply failed to show up with the contraband of war, and the revolutionists imagined he had been bagged. I communicated with Washington at once, and it was that, I reckon, that gave the State Department a line on Sixty."

"Is Mr. Coleman in any danger?" asked Matt.

"You never can tell what a lot of firebrands will do. They're bound to hear of Sixty's capture, and of the confiscation of his lawless cargo. The news will get to them soon, and when that happens Coleman is likely to have trouble. If possible, he must be rescued from the revolutionists ahead of the receipt of this information about Sixty and the lost guns. It's a tremendously hard piece of work, and only a submarine boat with an intrepid crew, to my notion, will stand any show of success. If a small boat from a United States warship was to try to go to the rescue, the revolutionists would learn she was coming and would immediately take to the jungles of the interior with their captive. See what I mean?"

"Mr. Coleman's captors are somewhere on the sea coast?"

"Not exactly. They have a rendezvous on the river Izaral, which runs into the gulf of Amatique, to the south of here. The revolutionists have tried to make people think that they have Coleman somewhere on the Rio Dolce, but that would put the whole unlawful game in British territory, and wherever the British flag flies you'll find lawbreakers mighty careful."

The consul looked around cautiously and then hitched his chair closer to Matt's.

"I haven't been idle, Motor Matt," he went on, lowering his voice. "I have had spies at work, and one of them has reported the exact location of the revolutionists' camp. Acting as a log-cutter, he came close to the place. This man will lead you to the exact spot—and, as good luck has it, he's a pilot and knows the coast."

"I should think," hazarded Matt, "that the United States government could make a demand on the president of the republic where all this lawless work is going on, and force him to rescue Mr. Coleman."

The consul laughed.

"You don't know Central America, my lad," he answered. "It's as hard for the president of the republic to get at the revolutionists as for anybody else. Meanwhile, Coleman's in danger. We can't wait for a whole lot of useless red-tape proceedings. We've got to strike, and to strike hard and quick. But we've got to do it secretly, quietly—getting Coleman away before the revolutionists know what we're doing. Understand?"

Matt nodded.

"We'll not do any fighting if it's possible to avoid it," proceeded the consul, "for that would merely complicate matters. Besides, what could a handful of strangers do against a horde of rascally niggers? Softly is the word. We've got to jump into 'em, and then out again quicker than scat—and when we come out we've got to have Coleman."

"Are you going with us, Mr. Jordan?" asked Matt.

The consul started and gave Matt a bored look.

"Going with you?" he drawled. "Why not? It isn't often we have anything exciting, here in Honduras, and I wouldn't miss the chance for a farm. Coleman lives where he never knows what minute is going to be his next, and he's continually guessing as to where the lightning is going to strike, and when. About all I do is lie around in a hammock, fight mosquitoes, take a feed now and then at Government House, and drop in at an English club here every evening for a rubber at whist. It's deadly monotonous, my lad, to a fellow who comes from the land of snap and ginger."

"I'll be glad to have you along," said Matt. "When had we better start?"

"This afternoon." The consul picked his solar hat off the railing of the veranda and got up. "I'm going over to the boarding house," he added, "to make arrangements for Captain Nemo, Jr. It's just around the corner and I'll only be gone a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable until I return."

"I'll get along all right," answered Matt.

Jordan got up, descended the steps, swung away down the street and quickly vanished around a corner.

The scenery was all new and strange to Matt, and he allowed his eyes to wander up and down the street. The houses were white bungalows, some of them surrounded by high white fences, and with tufted palms nodding over their roofs.

Negro women passed by with baskets on their heads, dark-skinned laborers in bell-crowned straw hats slouched up and down, and a group of tawny soldiers from a West India regiment, wearing smart Zouave uniforms and turbans, jogged past.

As soon as Matt had exhausted the sights in his immediate vicinity, he lay back in the chair and gave his thoughts to the captain.

He had always liked Nemo, Jr. The captain had been a good friend to Motor Matt and his chums, and the young motorist hoped in his heart that his present illness would not take a serious turn.

While Matt was turning the subject over in his mind, two men came along the walk and started for the steps leading to the veranda of the consulate.

Matt, suddenly lifting his eyes, was surprised to note that one of the men was