CHAPTER XVIII--THE CONSPIRACY LAID BARE

It was too late then for Mr. Dowd to correct his mistake. In the dark he had gone to the wrong closet in the captain's chart room. There were loaded small arms of several kinds in one closet, while in the other were stored spare arms that were not oiled and loaded and ready for use.

The flaxen-haired man swarmed over the rail. He had a pistol in his hand. A moment later another man came up the ladder that had been put over the rail when the captain's launch was manned for departure. This second man bore a powerful electric lamp.

"Drop that torch and your guns!" he commanded sharply. "Put up your hands!"

"It's Dykman!" muttered Mr. Dowd. "The cut-throat villain!"

But he obeyed the command. So did Rollife. And could Ruth Fielding do otherwise? They stood in line with their hands in the air, palms outward. Dykman crossed the deck with his lamp warily, while the flaxen-haired man held the three under the muzzle of his pistol.

"What do you mean by such actions, Dykman?" demanded Dowd angrily.

"I'll let you guess that, old man," said the other. "But I advise you to do your guessing to yourself. We are in no mood to listen to you."

Then he shot a question at the radio man: "Did you get those wires fixed?"

"Hanged if I don't wish I hadn't touched 'em," growled the radio man.

"You've sent no message, then?"

Rollife shook his head.

"All right. Krueger!" shouted Dykman, who seemed to be in command of the traitors.

"I thought so!" muttered Rollife. "That squarehead never did look right to me."

Several other men as well as Krueger came up the ladder. Their dress proclaimed them seamen or stokers. Ruth wondered if Miss Lentz was with them.

She began to feel fearful for herself. What would these rough men do, now they had possession of the ship? And what would they do to her? That was the principal query in her mind. Dykman merely patted the pockets of Dowd and Rollife to make sure they had no other arms. He gave Ruth slight attention at the moment.

"I'll have to lock you fellows in a stateroom," Dykman said coolly. "Can't have you fooling around the ship. You'll both be taken home in time and held as war prisoners."

"By 'home' I suppose you mean Germany!" snorted Rollife.

"That is exactly what I mean."

"But man!" exclaimed Dowd, "you don't expect to get this ship through the blockade? And you've got to repair the damage your explosion did, too."

"Don't worry," grinned Dykman. "She's not damaged much. We opened seacocks----"

"Oh, yes, I found that out," admitted Dowd. "And I closed them."

"Thanks," said the other coolly. "So much trouble saved us. We'll get to work at the pumps. We ought to be clear of the water by morning. Only one boiler is injured. We can hobble along with the use of the other boilers, I think."

"Man, but you have the brass!" exclaimed Dowd. "Some of these destroyers will catch you, sure."

"We'll see about that," grumbled Dykman. "We'll put you two men where you will be able to do no harm, at least."

"And Miss Fielding?" questioned Dowd quickly. "You will see that she comes to no harm, Mr. Dykman?"

"She is rather an awkward prisoner, considering the use we intend to make of the _Admiral Pekhard_. Women will be much in the way, I assure you."

"But there is Miss Lentz," murmured Ruth.

"Miss Lentz? She is not here. She went in the captain's boat," the sub-officer said shortly. "I wish you had gone with her."

"It was your fault I did not," said Ruth boldly.

"Perhaps," admitted the German. "But necessity knows no law, Miss Fielding. It was said you knew too much--or suspected too much. I dislike making a military prisoner of a woman. But, as I said before, necessity knows no law. You and Dowd and Rollife had to be separated from Captain Hastings and the rest of them. There are only a few of us--at present," he added.

"And how the deuce do you expect to augment your crew?" demanded the chief officer. "You can't work this ship with so few hands. And you've got none of the engineer's crew."

"I am something of an engineer myself, Mr. Dowd," returned the other, smiling with a satisfied air. "We shall have proper assistance before long." He hailed Krueger, who had climbed to the roof of the radio house. "Is everything all right?"

"Will be shortly, Mr. Boldig," said the assistant radio man.

Ruth started. Then "Dykman" was "Boldig," whose name she had formerly heard mentioned between Irma Lentz and the flaxen-haired man. The man with two names turned upon Ruth.

"You had better go immediately to your own room, Miss Fielding," he said respectfully. "I shall be obliged to lock you in, as I shall Mr. Dowd and Rollife here. I assure you all," he added significantly, "that it is much against my will that you remain prisoners. I would much rather you had all three gone with the captain.

"By the way, Dowd, Captain Hastings was told you were in command of this small motor launch. I am afraid you will have much to explain, later. And you, too, Rollife."

Rollife only growled in reply and Dowd said nothing. When they started aft with Boldig, Ruth followed. She knew it was useless to object to any plan the German might have in mind.

Before they left the deck she heard the spark sputtering at the top of the radio mast. Krueger was at the instrument, and without doubt he was sending a call to friends somewhere on the ocean. It would be no S O S for help in the Continental code, but in a German code, she was sure.

The jar and thump of the pumps already resounded through the ship. By the light of Boldig's electric lamp they went below to the cabin. Ruth again produced her own torch and found her way to her stateroom, while Dowd and Rollife went the other way.

Alone once again, the girl of the Red Mill gave her mind up to a thorough and searching examination of the situation, and especially her own position.

She was the single woman with and in the power of a gang of men who were not only desperate, but who were of a race whose treatment of women prisoners had filled the whole civilized world with scorn and loathing. Ruth wished heartily that Irma Lentz had come back with the motor boat. She would have felt safer if Miss Lentz had been of the party.

Ruth realized that neither Dowd or Rollife could come to her help if she had need of them. They would be locked in their rooms at so great a distance from hers that they could not even hear her if she screamed!

One thing she might do. She hastily secured the key that was in the outside of the stateroom lock and locked the door from the inside. Scarcely had she done this when Boldig came along the corridor. He rapped on her door; then coolly tried the knob.

"Unlock the door and give me the key, Miss Fielding," he commanded. "I will lock you in from outside and carry the key myself. Nobody will disturb you."

"No, Mr. Boldig. I shall feel safer if I keep the key," said Ruth firmly.

"Come, now! No foolishness!" he said angrily. "Do as you are told."

"No. I shall keep the key," she repeated.

"Why, you--well," and he laughed shortly, "I will make sure that you stay in there, my lady."

He went hastily away. Ruth waited in some trepidation. She did not know what would next happen. She wished heartily that she had a loaded weapon. She certainly would have used it had need arisen.

Soon Boldig was back, and he proceeded without another word to her to nail fast the stateroom door as he had nailed the radio room door. When this was completed to his satisfaction, he said bitterly:

"If we feed you at all, Miss Fielding, it will have to be through the port. _Au revoir_!"

It was with vast relief that Ruth heard him depart. The thought of food--or the lack of it--did not at present trouble her mind.

The steady thump and rattle of the pumps by which the fireroom was being cleared of water continued to sound in her ears. She laid aside her coat and hat, for the night was warm. She flashed the pocket lamp upon the face of her traveling clock. It was already nearly midnight.

The thought of sleep was repugnant to her. How could she close her eyes when she did not know what the morning might bring forth? It was not wholly that she feared personal harm. Not that so much. But there was, she felt, a conspiracy on foot that might do much harm to the Allied cause.

These Germans had played a shrewd game to get possession of the _Admiral Pekhard_. It was not for the purpose of sinking the transport ship that they had brought about her abandonment. No, indeed!

As Boldig--the erstwhile "Dykman"--had intimated, nothing like destroying the steamship was the intention of the plotters. The rascals had been very careful not to injure seriously the engines or any other part of the ship's mechanism.

With the fireroom suddenly filling with water after the explosion, the dampened fires caused such a volume of steam that it was no wonder the engineer and his force were driven from their stations. As long as the panic-stricken passengers and terrified crew remained aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, undoubtedly it appeared that a hole had been blown through the outer skin of the ship and that she was on the verge of sinking.

Had Mr. Dowd been on deck and in possession of his senses, Ruth was quite sure that the panic would have been stayed. Captain Hastings was not a big enough man to handle such a situation as the German plotters had brought about. He lost his head completely, although he doubtless had remained on the ship's deck until every other soul (as he supposed) was in the small boats.

The very character of the pompous little skipper had made the success of the Hun plot possible. All that was passed now, however. Nothing could be done to avert the successful termination of the conspiracy. Or so it seemed to the girl of the Red Mill, sitting alone and in the darkness of her small stateroom.

After a time she rose and pushed back the blind at her port. She opened the thick, oval glass window, which was pivoted. She saw the phosphorescent waves slowly marching past the rolling steamship.

Suddenly she heard voices. They were of two men talking near the rail and near her window as well. One was Boldig. He said in German:

"You have shown yourself to be a good deal of a coward, Guelph. Always fearful of disaster! Look you: If you _will_ that nothing shall balk us, no disaster will arrive. It is the _will_ of the German people that will make them in the end the victors in this war. Remember that, Guelph."

The other muttered something about taking unnecessary chances. Boldig at once declared:

"No chances. Krueger will pick up the U-714. Have no fear. She is one of the newest type of cruiser-submarines. She carries the crew arranged to man this _Admiral Pekhard_. Ha, we will make the Englanders gnash their teeth in rage!"

"We shall hope so," said the other man. Ruth thought it must be the flaxen-haired fellow; but of this she could not be sure.

"This will be one of our greatest coups," went on Boldig. "The cargo awaits us in a friendly port--you know where. We will sail from thence to carry supplies to the submarines that will be sent from time to time from the Belgian bases. She shall be a 'mother ship' indeed, and, lurking out of the lanes of travel, will make long submarine voyages possible.

"Ah, we will do much with this old tub of a steamer to increase the despair of the enemy. Rejoice, Guelph! We shall receive honor and much gold for this."

"Huh!" growled the other, "gold is good, I grant you."