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 "In quarantine?"

"Yes."

"Do they say why?"

"The comandante has ordered us to be held here. They are sending a detachment of soldiers to watch the ship. We are to be kept here, prisoners."

"But there's no fever!"

"No; of course not! It's the old trick! They daren't outrage our flag openly—we are an American ship! They daren't insult our colours by open capture. But they draw what they call a dead line, and they shoot down everyone who crosses it!"

"So that's how they intend to hold us!"

"Yes—I heard Ganley say, in Spanish, that he'd keep up here until he finished his game. He told Captain Yandel that he was going to tie him up here until his anchor-flukes were barnacled.

"But what's their excuse for this?" he asked, with absent and preoccupied eyes, for his busy brain was already reconnoitring into the menacing future.

"He claims that it's yellow fever—that we've entered the affected zone."

"So that was his trump card, after all!" said the meditative McKinnon.

"It's the card that makes us lose," was the