PARA.

Ensign Glennie was a happy man. In that blissful moment, when he was hugging his dispatches, he wanted to be friends with everybody, and would have shaken hands as rapturously with Dick and Carl as he did with Matt.

"Before you do too much rejoicing, Glennie," said Matt, "you'd better first examine the envelope, and see if it has been tampered with."

An examination showed the seal to be intact.

"I don't believe Tolo had any right to tamper with it," said Glennie. "What I mean is, that those other Sons of the Rising Sun who are leading the expedition against the Grampus, would probably demand that they be allowed to open the dispatches with their own hands. Tolo didn't have time to see the others of the Young Samurai between the time he left La Guayra and the time he presented himself to me, in the rÔle of Ah Sin, on board the Grampus."

"Ah Sin!" commented Carl. "I nefer t'ought vat a goot name dot vas for der feller. Ven he dook dot he dook der vone vat fitted."

"We can begin to understand, too," spoke up Dick, "why he never took off that old hat. He kept it on so the letter wouldn't get away from him."

"And so that we wouldn't see him without the queue," added Matt. "If he had removed the hat, Dick, he would have been recognized."

"By Jove, fellows!" said Glennie, "I'd like to do something to celebrate."

"Ain't you fellows getting hungry?" called Speake through the torpedo-room tube. "I'll jump in and scrape together a meal, if you say so. I reckon we can all get a square feed in Para, in the mornin'."

"Get us something, Speake," answered Matt. "That's the way we'll celebrate, Glennie," he added to the ensign.

"It's the biggest streak of luck I ever had in my life!" declared Glennie. "And you brought it to me, Matt!"

"Dot's vat I say," cried Carl. "Anypody vat dravels mit Modor Matt iss pound to haf some oof der luck vat comes py him. I know, pecause I have hat id meinseluf. Ain'd dot so, Tick?"

"Luck hands around her favors to everybody that ships with Matt, matey," agreed Dick. "It don't make any difference whether they're entitled to the favors or not, they get 'em."

This last remark may have been a bit of a slap at Glennie, but the ensign was too happy to notice it.

"What gave you the notion of looking into that hat, Matt?" inquired Glennie. "I'd have thrown it overboard to get it out of the way."

"Why, Glennie," answered Matt, "you and Carl both saw what I did, and spoke about it."

Carl and the ensign exchanged astonished glances.

"Now you haf got me some more, Matt," said Carl. "Vat's der answer?"

"Didn't the prisoner seem to wake up and brighten perceptibly a little while ago?"

"Yah, I rememper dot."

"So do I."

"Well, he did it when I threw the hat out of the locker. His eyes followed it as it flew across the room, and they rested on it as it lay on the floor. I read a good deal of concern in that glance—more concern, in fact, than the old headgear and the attached queue called for. There could be but one thing to make Tolo act like that, and I figured that he had put the envelope in there. It's not a new place for hiding things, boys. Lots of people, out in the Western part of the United States, stow valuable things away in their sombreros."

"Nod me any more," wailed Carl. "Subbose I hat peen foolish enough to pud my money in dot cap oof mine? Den vat? Id vould now be in der pottom oof der ocean. Dalk aboudt your glose shafes! Vy, dot Chap feller vat looked like a safage, sent dot shpear so near my headt dot he dook a lock oof hair along mit der cap. I don'd like dot. Shpears iss pad pitzness. Vat for dit der Chaps use shpears ven refolfers is handtier?"

"They were playing a part, Carl," said Matt, "and whenever a Jap plays a part he does it well. If Tolo and those with him had had firearms they would have been playing out of their character."

"Dey don'd got mooch character to be oudt oof, anyvay. Dey hat bombs, und safages don't haf dose."

"The bombs weren't in sight."

A few minutes later Speake came up with the supper. After the meal was out of the way, Speake took Dick's place at the wheel in order to give him a chance to rest, and later assume Gaines' place at the motor. Carl went down to give Clackett a rest, and Matt stretched out on the locker.

It was midnight when the Grampus rounded Cape Magoari and turned into the Para arm of the Amazon. The port of Para was seventy-five miles up the river, and Matt decided to submerge the Grampus, pass the rest of the night on the river bottom, and then ascend to the town with daylight to help.

This arrangement enabled all hands to sleep, and morning found the submarine's complement fresh and ready for whatever fate held in store.

The ascent of the river was made on the surface of the stream, with all who could be spared on deck, searching the shipping with careful eyes. Matt and his friends were looking for the mysterious steamer that carried the fighting contingent of the Sons of the Rising Sun, and were vastly relieved when they failed to sight the vessel.

It was nearly noon when the red roofs of Para came into view. The river, opposite the town, was about twenty miles wide, but so cut up with islands that the steamer with the black funnel and the red band might have lain among them and so escaped observation. However, Matt and his companions chose to think that the Young Samurai were too discreet to make them any trouble in a peaceable port.

The Grampus was moored alongside a wharf, and a gayly uniformed harbor official came aboard to learn the submarine's business, and to find whether there was any need of a customs inspector. The sight of Glennie, and his declaration that the boat had merely put in at the port to give some of her crew a chance to pay their respects to Mr. Brigham, the United States consul, was enough.

Matt, although he fancied the boat secure, did not intend taking any chances. Dick, Carl, and Speake were to be left aboard as an anchor watch, while Matt and Glennie called on the consul, and Gaines and Clackett whiled away a few hours in the river metropolis. The prisoner was to be left in the steel room until the consul should advise what had better be done with him.

Consul Brigham, Matt and Glennie quickly learned, lived on the finest avenue in Para—the Estrada de Sao JosÉ. Through this thoroughfare bordered with a colonnade of royal palms, Matt and Glennie were driven on their way to the consulate.

In the office of the consulate was a gentleman in shirt sleeves and white duck trousers. His feet were elevated on the top of a table, and he was trying to keep himself cool with an immense palm-leaf fan.

The sight of a United States naval uniform brought the consul to his feet immediately.

"Mr. Brigham?" asked Glennie.

"What's left of him, my dear sir," was the answer. "I've melted considerably during this spell of hot weather. You'd naturally think the trade winds, which blow continually in this section, would temper the air. But trade winds, my dear sir, are not what they're cracked up to be."

Glennie introduced himself, and then presented Matt. Mr. Brigham smiled expansively, and drew a bandanna handkerchief over his perspiring brow.

"I've been expecting the pair of you," he announced, shaking each by the hand.

"Expecting us?" queried Glennie, astonished.

"Sure. Read that."

The consul tucked a cablegram into Glennie's fingers. It had come from Belize, and was signed by the captain of the Seminole. Glennie read it aloud:

"Motor Matt and Ensign John Henry Glennie, U. S. N., will reach Para in submarine Grampus. Glennie carries dispatches for you. Read them, and see that both Matt and Glennie understand them thoroughly."

"Nice, long message, eh?" queried Brigham, slapping Glennie on the back. "Plenty of useless words, but what does the captain of the Seminole care? Uncle Sam stands the cable toll, and, besides, on grave matters it is well to be explicit. Hang a few extra dollars, anyway. Where's the dispatches?"

Glennie imagined how he would have felt if he had been obliged to report, in view of that cablegram, that his dispatches had been lost and not recovered.

"I want to tell you something about those dispatches before you read them, Mr. Brigham," said the ensign.

"Well, sit down, my lads. What's the good word, ensign?"

Thereupon Glennie told the whole story connected with the loss of the dispatches and their final recovery. Everything went in, and a half hour was consumed in the telling. More than once Brigham whistled and puckered his brows ominously. But he was absorbed in the narrative. When it was done, he reached his hand toward Matt.

"Pardon me, youngster," said he, "but I never miss a chance to shake hands with a live one. Possibly it's because I've lived so long in this dead place, where you can't turn around without having some sluggard tell you 'maÑana.' You're the clear quill, and I'll gamble you'll get along. If I was younger, blamed if I wouldn't like to trot a heat with you myself. Put 'er there!"

Matt, flushing under the compliment given him by the consul, allowed his hand to be wrung cordially.

"Now," said Brigham, "look out of the windows at the beautiful palms while I go through these papers."

The consul was all of half an hour getting the gist of his dispatches.

"I'm ready for you two lads," he presently called.

Matt and Glennie returned to the chairs they had previously occupied. They were surprised at the change that had come over Mr. Brigham's face. On their arrival, it had been bright and smiling, while now it was dark and foreboding.

"I guess you lads know how it feels to be in the jaws of death, and just slip out before they close," said he, "but you don't know the whole of it, not by a jugful. Of all the high-handed proceedings I ever heard of, this certainly grabs the banner. Now, listen."