none other than Number Thirteen," insisted von Horn.
"Did I not myself see him leading his eleven monsters
as easily as a captain commands his company? The fellow
is brighter than we have imagined. He has learned much
from us both, he has reasoned, and he has shrewdly
guessed many things that he could not have known
through experience."

"But his object?" asked the professor.

"That is simple," returned von Horn. "You have held
out hopes to him that soon he should come to live under
your roof with Virginia. The creature has been madly
infatuated with her ever since the day he took her from
Number One, and you have encouraged his infatuation
until yesterday. Then you regained your sanity
and put him in his rightful place. What is the result?
Denied the easy prey he expected he immediately decided
to take it by force, and with that end in view, and taking
advantage of the series of remarkable circumstances
which played into his hands, he liberated his fellows,
and with them hastened to the beach in search of
Virginia and in hopes of being able to fly with her
upon the Ithaca. There he met the Malay pirates,
and together they formed an alliance under terms
of which Number Thirteen is to have the girl, and the pirates
the chest in return for transporting him and his crew to Borneo.
Why it is all perfectly simple and logical, Professor Maxon;
do you not see it now?"