"Well, stay where you are and we'll send a boat."
"You mustn't let Pedro go, Matt!" exclaimed Ysabel.
"That's so," said Matt. "Suppose you go down, little girl, and set Pedro free. Send him to the torpedo room and tell him to wait there until the cruiser is gone."
Meanwhile the cruiser had been clearing away a boat. When she hove alongside the submarine, Carl Pretzel, wearing a grin that could have been tied behind his ears, was sitting in the bow.
"I vill go mit you part oof dis groose, anyvay," he whooped. "Drow some lines so dot I may come apoard."
A line was thrown and Carl was heaved from the rocking rowboat to the submarine's deck. He threw his arms around Matt and almost hugged him over the side of the _Grampus_.
"I vas so habby as I don'd know!" he bubbled. "I t'ought you vas gone for goot, und dot I don'd vas going to see you some more. Dere iss a lod to dell, I bed you, und----"
"We haven't time to tell anything just now, Carl," said Matt. "As soon as we get rid of our prisoners we'll have a little leisure."
Carl restrained himself, assisted in the work of getting the prisoners up and transferred, and then watched while the launch pulled back to the cruiser with its melancholy load.
"What will you do with Pitou, captain?" called Matt through his megaphone.
"Turn him over to the government of that country down there to be punished for running off the American consul, and for his many other outrages against peaceable Americans."
"What do you think the government will do with him?"
"Firing squad at sunrise," was the laconic response.
"Our country will take care of him. He'll make a good cellmate for his brother, Jim Sixty. Sorry you didn't capture Don Carlos Valdez. The governor at Belize would like to lay hands on him. He made an unprovoked attack on the Spanish consul, and, if caught, would do time for it."
By that time the launch had got back to the ship's side, and Matt, bidding the captain of the cruiser a hearty good-by, started the _Grampus_ onward toward Belize.
Speake took the wheel for a while, and the three chums were able to enjoy a quiet little talk together. While they were at it, the door of the prison room opened and Ysabel Sixty stepped out. Carl almost fell off his seat.