Aided by the rascally guide, who had been employed for the express purpose of decoying Nat, the three men carried the lad’s limp form into the doorway. Inside they ascended a steep flight of stairs, and at length arrived in a room on the upper story.

A lamp was smoking and flaring on a table, which, besides one chair, appeared to be all the furniture there was in the place.

“Fling him on the floor,” ordered Captain Lawless brutally, and poor Nat was chucked into a corner with as scant ceremony as if he had been a sack of potatoes.

The appearance of both Lawless and his rascally mate was materially changed since we last saw them leaving their crew marooned on the tropic island. Both had shaved off their beards, and wore the South American style of dress, so that it would not have been an easy matter to recognize them.

The two rascals had arrived in Callao a week before, and at Lima had exchanged their pearls for substantial sums, so that they were well provided with money. They made no long stay at Lima, but hastened to Santa Rosa, where Durkee fell in with two old acquaintances, to wit, the two South Americans who were now leagued with them.

As soon as the news of the approach of the Motor Rangers’ craft spread along the water front, Lawless and Durkee engaged a sailboat. They wanted to look the craft over, and ascertain the lay of the land, as it were. But, as we know, darkness fell before the Nomad was anchored, and they were chagrined to find no easy way of getting close to the vessel. But they saw the professor and Nat leave her for the shore, and made the cowardly attempt to run them down that we have related.

When this scheme failed, they hastened back to the port, landing at a wharf not far distant from the one at which Nat and his companion had disembarked. Having found their satellites, they deputed one of them to track Nat and lure him into the alley where they lay in wait for him. How easily and unsuspectingly the lad had walked into the trap, we know.

“What are we going to do with this cub, now that we have him?” asked Lawless, as Nat was thrown into the corner.

“Better put him in Manuello’s pit downstairs,” said Durkee. “He’ll come to in a minute or so and may make us a lot of trouble.”

Lawless bent over Nat and examined him carefully.

“You must have hit him a terrible crack, Manuello,” he said to one of the South Americans, who stood by, impassive and indifferent, while this dialogue was carried on.

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“What would you?” he said. “You told me to knock him senseless, and I did so.”

“You certainly did,” said Lawless, with a brutal laugh.

“Well, if we are going to keep him in the pit over night, we had better put him there now,” remarked Durkee.

“All right. Bear a hand in packing him down stairs again, then. Confound it, I wish we hadn’t brought him up here. He’s a heavy youngster.”

“He is that,” agreed Durkee. “And he’s got muscles like iron. He’d be an ugly customer in a rough-and-tumble fight, all right.”

“No danger of such a thing as that occurring,” said Lawless, as he lifted Nat’s feet, while Durkee took his head.

Followed by the South Americans, one of whom held the lamp, they descended the stairs, and opening a trap-door in the passage, they clambered down another flight leading into a damp, earthy-smelling cellar. In the centre of this cellar, the light revealed a deepish pit. Into this pit Nat was lowered. All this time he had given no sign of consciousness and was as limp as a rag-doll.

“Now, get the dogs, Manuello,” ordered Lawless.

In obedience to his commands, the South American approached a small door at the rear of the cellar and opened it. He whistled softly, and two ferocious, half famished looking blood-hounds came leaping out. Their dripping fangs were drawn back, exposing sharp, white teeth.

“Watch that boy carefully,” said Manuello in Spanish to the brutes.

They seemed to comprehend him instantly. They uttered a low growl and crouched close to the edge of the pit. Their red-rimmed eyes were fixed on the boyish form lying at the bottom.

The creatures were vicious to a degree; in fact, Manuello used them in fighting, the scene of the brutal sport being the pit in which Nat now lay.

“Humph!” said Captain Lawless, as he regarded the two dogs, “those fellows are better than human guards. If that boy ever escapes from them, he’ll be——”

“Look out!” yelled Durkee suddenly.

An astonishing thing had happened. Nat’s limp form had suddenly galvanized into aggressive, fighting life.

He sprang erect like a flash, and in one bound was out of the pit. Another instant, and his fist was crashing into Lawless’s face. The man, taken utterly off his guard, reeled backward, waving his arms wildly.

He fell into the pit with a crash and lay still.

Before Durkee could recover from his amazement, he, too, had joined him. There remained only the two Spanish-Americans for Nat to face. But they had had more time to prepare themselves. Both brandished wicked-looking knives as the boy came at them.

Moreover, the dogs had now awakened to the situation. With frantic yaps and snarls, they sprang at Nat.

The lamp which had lighted their progress to these lower regions stood on the ground. Nat saw in it a weapon of necessity. Snatching it up, he swung it round his head and then sent it crashing at the brutes as they leaped for his throat.

As the crash of splintering glass resounded, the place was plunged in darkness, but the howls of the two savage brutes showed that the burning oil had singed their skins.

Without waiting an instant, Nat plunged off through the darkness, in the direction in which he judged the door lay. As he dashed forward, he collided with a body, no doubt one of the South Americans. Down went the fellow before Nat’s onrush, just as if he had opposed him on the football field.

But in the meantime, Durkee had recovered his wits and scrambled out of the dog-pit. His rough voice came bawling through the darkness with appalling ferocity.

Fear of this ruffian lent Nat winged feet. He found the door, darted through it and then down the passage and out into the dark street. At the far end of it he could see lights gleaming. He made for these at top speed and found himself in a well-lighted plaza opposite the cathedral.

He knew that the ruffians would not dare to pursue him there, and, spying an alguzil, or native policeman, he made his way to him. In Spanish Nat explained the outrage that had been perpetrated on him, and demanded that the police investigate instantly.

To his astonishment, the man merely shrugged his shoulders, and twisted his little black moustache. He said that nothing could be done that night.

“To-morrow, perhaps, but not to-night, seÑor,” he replied, and turned away to strut off on his beat once more.

“Gee whiz!” muttered Nat, as he watched this competent conserver of law and order, “what wouldn’t I give for a good American cop with a big nightstick, right now. However, it’s no good trying to wake that chap up, and those rascals must have decamped by this time, anyhow. Wonder if they meant to rob me, or what? Funny thing that two of the voices sounded so familiar. If it hadn’t been for the impossibility of their being here, I could almost have sworn that they were the voices of Lawless and Durkee.”

As it was past the hour at which he had promised to return to the consulate, Nat set off at a brisk pace. Once he had to ask his way. The man he inquired of, a woe-begone looking personage in a long cloak and a cone-shaped hat, replied with great volubility.

“I will guide the seÑor there,” he declared.

“I guess not,” rejoined Nat, with such vigor that the fellow fell back a pace, “I’ve had all I want of guides in this place.”

As Nat walked along, he felt the back of his neck, where he had been struck, for it was becoming quite painful.

“Good thing the force of that blow was mostly wasted on my shoulder,” he said to himself, “or I might have been knocked unconscious in good earnest. As it was, it was a lucky thing I shammed insensibility, or I might have got another tap.”