Part 2

Peter gathered up his beloved leather-bound book from the table, and held it under his arm. It was his most precious possession, and the protective act was quite unconscious. Then, for the second time that night, he went into his bedroom, followed by the four Germans. He was white and shaking. He could not understand what these men were after, and the message they proposed seemed to be useful to his own side. After all, the only kind of message that he could send would be something very like it. He might as well deliver it, since these crazy autocrats had decided that it must be given thus, and not otherwise.

He laid the precious book down on the bed, turned to the telephone, and lifted the receiver to his ear. As he did so, the cold muzzle of a revolver pressed against his right temple. The first buzzings of the telephone resolved themselves into a voice from the coast of England, asking what he wanted. Then, it seemed as if a new light were thrown upon the character of the words he was about to speak. He knew instinctively that, if he spoke them, he would be working for the enemy.

In the same instant, he saw exactly what he must do.

"This is Peter Ramsay speaking," he said, "from the _Hatchets' Light_. I have just sighted three submarines due north of the _Hatchets'_."

He paused. Then, with a rush, he said:

"Trap! Germans in light-house, forcing me to say this!"

The hand of one of his captors struck down the hook of the receiver. In the same instant, the shot rang out, and Peter Ramsay dropped sidelong, a mere bundle of old clothes and white hair, dabbled with blood.

The German at the telephone replaced the receiver on the hook which he was still holding down.

"Crazy old fool," muttered Bernstein. He was staring at the red-lined scrap-book on the bed. It lay open at a page describing in Peter's big sprawling hand, an open-air service among some Welsh miners which he had once witnessed, a memorial service on the day of Gladstone's funeral. He had been greatly impressed by their choral singing of what was supposed to be Gladstone's favorite hymn, and it ended with a quotation:

"_While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyelids close in death, When I soar through tracts unknown, See Thee on Thy Judgment Throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in Thee._"

The murderer stooped and laid the revolver near the right hand of the dead man. One of his men touched him on the elbow as he did it, and pointed to Peter's own old-fashioned revolver on the little shelf beside the bed. Captain Bernstein nodded and smiled. The idea was a good one, and he put Peter's own revolver in his stiffening fingers. He had just succeeded in making it look quite a realistic suicide, when the telephone bell rang sharply, making him start upright, as if a hand were laid upon his shoulder. He took the receiver again and listened.

"Can't hear," he said, trying to imitate Peter's gruff voice. "No--I dropped the telephone on the floor--no--it was a mistake--no--I said three submarines--two hundred yards due north of the _Hatchets' Light_--all right, sir."

He hung the receiver up again, and looked at the others.

"We may succeed yet," he said. "Come quickly."

A minute later they were standing on the lee of the reef. Bernstein blew a whistle thrice. It was answered from the darkness by another, shrill as the cry of a sea-gull; and in five minutes more, the four men and the collapsible boat were aboard their submarine. It submerged at once, and went due south at twelve knots an hour below the unrevealing seas.

* * * * *

Commander Pickering, the officer on duty at the naval base, was not sure whether it was worth while paying any attention to the message from the old man at the _Hatchets'_. He went to the window and looked at the starry flash of the light-house in the distance.

"Old Peter probably sighted a school of porpoises. They frightened him into a fit," he said.

The two men of the naval reserve who were waiting for orders, watched him like schoolboys expecting a holiday; but he could not make up his mind. He left the window and studied the big chart on the wall, where the movements of a dozen submarines were marked in red ink from point to point as the daily reports came in, till the final red star announced their destruction. He chewed his lip as he pondered. There was a fleet of submarine destroyers in Westport Harbor at this moment, but they had only just come in from a long spell, and he was loath to turn them out on a wild-goose chase.

"Confound the old idiot," he muttered again. "He can't even talk straight. Wanted to say that he had seen submarines, and starts jabbering about Germans in the light-house. Ring him up again, Dawkins, and find out whether he is drunk or talking in his sleep."

Dawkins went to the telephone. For five minutes, he alternately growled into the mouth-piece and moved the hook up and down.

"Don't get any answer at all, sir."

"That's queer. He can't be asleep yet after that beautiful conversation."

Commander Pickering went to the window again with his night-glasses.

"Damned if there isn't a light in both his rooms, and it's getting on for two o'clock in the morning. There's something rum happening. We'll take a sporting chance on it, and make a regular sweep of the bay. I'll go out to the _Hatchets'_ myself on the _Silver King_. I think the old boy is dotty, and I suppose the Admiral will have my scalp for it to-morrow; but there's just one chance in a hundred thousand that Mr. Peter Ramsay did spot a squadron of U-boats. If so, we may as well strafe them properly."

He went to the telephone himself this time, and began issuing orders all over the base. His final sentence was an after-thought, an echo and an elaboration of the queer warning he had received from the _Hatchets'_.

"Don't go straight out. Make a sweep round by the south. There may be a trap; and you may as well let the dirigibles go ahead of you and do some scouting."

* * * * *

"It often happens with these chaps," said Commander Pickering to Dawkins, as they stood in Peter's bedroom an hour before dawn. "It's the lonely life that does it. They ought always to have a couple of men in these places; and, if it hadn't been for the war, of course, there would have been two men at the _Hatchets'_. Look here, at all this stuff. The poor chap had religious mania or something. See what he has written on these scraps of paper, twenty or thirty times over, every blessed text he could find about lanterns and lights, and it's all mixed up with bits from Herbert Spencer on the Unknowable."

"It was well known all over Westport," said Dawkins, "that old Peter had a screw loose about religion, but he seemed such a reliable old boy. You don't think he could have seen anything to set him off like, sir? It seems funny that the door was left open like that."

"Lord knows what he may have been playing at before he did this. We'd better go upstairs, and have a look at the light."

The two men plodded up the steep winding stair, poking into every corner on their way up, till they emerged on the little railed platform under the great crystal moons of the lantern. The glare blinded them.

"Turn those lights off," said Commander Pickering.

Dawkins ducked into the tower and obeyed.

Half a dozen patrol boats, each with its tiny black gun, at bow and stern, were cruising to and fro over rough seas, that looked from that height very much like the wrinkles on poor old Peter's gray face. Another sailor hauled himself to the platform, breathing hard from the ascent, and saluted.

"A telephone message for you, sir," he said. "There's been a lot of mines discovered off the point. We should have run straight into them, if we had neglected your warning and steered a straight course out."

Commander Pickering looked at Dawkins in silence. Far away to eastward, the dawn was breaking, red as blood, through a low fringe of ragged gray clouds. In a few moments the crystal moons of the _Hatchets' Light_ were afire with it, and breaking it up into the colors of the rainbow round the black figures of the three men.

"We'll have to apologize to Peter," said Dawkins at last.

"It was a very lucky coincidence," said Commander Pickering; and he led the way downstairs at a smart pace to Peter's room again.

"There's no doubt that he shot himself," he said. "Look at all this. The man was stark mad. See what he has written on the title-page, under his own name: '_Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church_.'"

II

UNCLE HYACINTH

On a bright morning, early in the year 1917, Herr Sigismund Krauss, secret agent for the German Government, stopped at the entrance of Harrods' Stores, looked at himself in one of the big mirrors, thought that he really did look a little like Bismarck, and adjusted his tie. To relieve the tension, let it be added that this scene was not enacted in London, but in the big branch of Harrods' that had recently been opened in Buenos Aires.

Nevertheless, it was because it looked so very much like the London branch that it had rasped the nerves of Herr Krauss. He was in a very nervous condition, owing to the state of his digestive system, and he was easily irritated. He had been annoyed in the first place because the German houses in Buenos Aires were unable to sell him several things which he thought necessary for the voyage he was about to take across the Atlantic. He had been almost angry when the bald-headed Englishman who had waited on him in Harrods' advised him to buy a safety waistcoat. All that he needed for his safety was the fraudulent Swedish passport, made out in the name of Erik Neilsen, which he carried in his breast pocket.

"I am an American citizen," he said, complicating matters still further. "I am sailing to Barcelona on an Argentine ship, vich the Germans are pledged nod to sink."

"This is the exact model of the waistcoat that saved the life of Lord Winchelsea," said the Englishman. "I advise you to procure one. You never know what those damned Germans will do."

Here was a chance of raising a little feeling against the United States, and Herr Krauss never lost an opportunity. He pretended to be even more angry than he really was.

"That is a most ungalled-for suggestion to a citizen of a neutral guntry," he snorted. "I shall report id to the authorities."

These mixed emotions had disarranged his tie. But he had obtained all that he wanted, and when he emerged into the street the magic of the blue sky and the brilliance of the sunlight on the stream of motor cars and gay dresses cheered him greatly. After all, it was not at all like London; and there were still places where a good German might speak his mind, if he did not insist too much on his allegiance.

He was in a great hurry, for his ship, the _Hispaniola_, sailed that afternoon. When he reached his hotel he had only just time enough to pack his hand luggage and drive down to the docks. His trunk had gone down in advance. It was very important, indeed, that he should not miss the boat. There was trouble pending, which might lead to his arrest if he remained in Argentina for another week; and there was urgent--and profitable--work for him to do in Europe.

In his cab on the way to the docks he examined the three letters which had been waiting for him at the hotel. Two of them were requests for a settlement of certain bills. "They can wait," he murmured to himself euphemistically, "till after the war."

The third letter ran thus:

_Dear Erik: Bon voyage! Most amusing news. Operation successful. Uncle Hyacinth's appetite splendid. Six meals daily._

_Yours affectionately,_

_Bolo._

This was the most annoying thing of all. Herr Krauss knew nothing about any operation. He knew even less about Uncle Hyacinth; and in order to interpret the message he would require the code--Number Six, as indicated by the last word but two, and the code was locked up in his big brass-bound steamer trunk. It was not likely to be anything that required immediate attention. He had received a number of code messages lately which did not even call for a reply. It was merely irritating.

When he reached the docks he found that his trunk was buried under a mountain of other baggage on the lower deck of the _Hispaniola_, and that he would not be able to get at it before they sailed. He had just ten minutes to dash ashore and ring up the German legation on the telephone. He wasted nearly all of them in getting the right change to slip into the machine. A most exasperating conversation followed.

"I wish to speak to the German minister."

"He is away for the week-end. This is his secretary."

"This is Sigismund Krauss speaking."

"Oh, yes."

"I have received a message about Uncle Hyacinth."

"I can't hear."

"Uncle Hyacinth's appetite!" This was bellowed.

"Oh, yes." The voice was very cautious and polite.

"I want to know if it's important."

"Whose appetite did you say?"

"Uncle Hyacinth's!" This was like Hindenburg himself thundering.

There seemed to be some sort of consultation at the other end of the wire. Then the reply came very clearly:

"I'm sorry, but we cannot talk over the telephone. I can't hear anything you say. Please put your question in writing."

It was an obvious lie for any one to say he could not hear the tremendous voice in which Herr Krauss had made his touching inquiry; but he fully understood the need for caution. He had tapped too many wires himself to blame his colleagues for timidity. He had only a minute to burst out of the telephone booth and regain the deck, before the gang-planks were hoisted in and the ship began to slide away to the open sea.

He was more than annoyed, he was disgusted, to find that half the people on board were talking English. Two or three of them, including the captain, were actually British subjects; while the purser, a few of the stewards and several passengers were citizens of the United States.

It was late that evening and the shore lights had all died away over the pitch-black water when the brass-bound trunk belonging to Mr. Neilsen, as we must call him henceforward, was carried into his stateroom by two grunting stewards. The mysterious letter could be of no use to the Fatherland now, and he certainly did not expect it to be important from a selfish point of view. Also, he was hungry, and he did not hurry over his dinner in order to decode it. It was only his curiosity that impelled him to do so before he turned in; but a kind of petrefaction overspread his well-fed countenance as the significance of the message dawned upon him. He sat on a suitcase in his somewhat cramped quarters and translated it methodically, looking up the meaning of each word in the code, like a very unpleasant schoolboy with a dictionary. He was nothing if not efficient, and he wrote it all down in pencil on a sheet of note-paper, in two parallel columns, thus:

_Bon voyage_ _U-boats_

_Most_ _Instructed_

_Amusing_ _Sink_

_News_ _Argentine_

_Operation_ _Ships_

_Successful_ _Destruction_

_Uncle Hyacinth's_ _Hispaniola_

_Appetite_ _Essential_

_Splendid_ _Cancel_

_Six_ _Code number_

_Meals_ _Passage_

_Daily_ _Immediately_

Perhaps to make sure that his eyes did not deceive him Mr. Neilsen wrote the translation out again mechanically, in its proper form, at the foot of the page, thus:

_U-boats instructed sink Argentine ships. Destruction Hispaniola essential. Cancel passage immediately._

It seemed to have exactly the same meaning. It was ghastly. He knew exactly what that word "destruction" meant as applied to the _Hispaniola_. He had been present at a secret meeting only a month ago, at which it was definitely decided that it would be inadvisable to carry out a certain amiable plan of sinking the Argentine ships without leaving any traces, while an appearance of friendship was maintained with the Argentine Government. Evidently this policy had suddenly been reversed. There would be a concentration of half a dozen U-boats, a swarm of them probably, for the express purpose of sinking the _Hispaniola_, just as they had concentrated on the _Lusitania_; but in this case there would be no survivors at all. The ship's boats would be destroyed by gunfire, with all their occupants, because it was necessary that there should be no evidence of what had happened; and necessity knows no law. There was no chance of their failing. They would not dare to fail; and he himself had organized the system by which the most precise information with regard to sailings was conveyed to the German Admiralty.

He crushed all the papers into his breast pocket and hurried up on deck. It was horribly dark. At the smoking-room door he met one of the ship's officers.

"Tell me," said Mr. Neilsen, "is there any possibility of our--of our meeting a ship--er--bound the other way?"

The officer stared at him, wondering whether Mr. Neilsen was drunk or seasick.

"Certainly," he said; "but it's not likely for some days on this course."

"Will it be possible for me to be taken off and return? I have found among my mail an important letter. A friend is very ill."

"I'm afraid it's quite impossible. In the first place we are not likely to meet anything but cattle ships till we are in European waters."

"Oh, but in this case, even a cattle ship--" said Mr. Neilsen with great feeling.

"It is impossible, I am afraid, in any case. It is absolutely against the rules; and in war-time, of course, they are more strict than ever."

"Even if I were to pay?"

"Time is not for sale in this war, unfortunately. It's _verboten_," said the officer with a smile; and that of course Mr. Neilsen understood at once.

He was naturally an excitable man, and his inability to obtain his wish made him feel that he would give all his worldly possessions at this moment for a berth in the dirtiest cattle boat that ever tramped the seas, if only it were going in the opposite direction.

He returned to his stateroom almost panic-stricken. He sat down on the suitcase and held his head between his hands while he tried to think. He was a slippery creature and his fellow countrymen had often admired his "slimness" in former crises; but it was difficult to discover a cranny big enough for a cockroach here, unless he made a clean breast of it to the captain. In that case he would be incriminated with all the belligerents and most of the neutrals. There would be no place in the world where he could hide his head, except perhaps Mexico. He would probably be penniless as well.

At this point in his cogitations there was a knock on the door, which startled him like a pistol shot. He opened it a cautious inch or two--for his papers were all over his berth--and a steward handed him a telegram.

"This was waiting for you at the purser's office, sir," he said. "The mail has only just been sorted. If you wish to reply by wireless you can do so up to midnight." The man was smiling as if he knew the contents. There had been some jesting, in fact, about this telegram at the office.

A gleam of hope shot through Mr. Neilsen's chaotic brain as he opened the envelope with trembling fingers. Perhaps it contained reassuring news. His face fell. It simply repeated the former sickening message about Uncle Hyacinth. But the steward had reminded him of one last resource.

"Yes," he said, trying hard to be calm; "I shall want to send a reply."

"Here is a form, sir. You'll find the regulations printed on the back."

Mr. Neilsen closed the door and sank, gasping, on to the suitcase to examine the form. The regulations stated that no message would be accepted in code. This did not worry him at first, as he thought he could concoct an apparently straightforward and harmless message with the elaborate vocabulary of his Number Six. But the code had not been intended for agonizing moments like these. It abounded in commercial phrases, medical terms and domestic greetings; and though there were a number of alternative words and synonyms it was not so easy as he had expected to make a coherent message which should be apparently a reply to the telegram he had received. After half an hour of seeking for the _mot juste_ which would have melted the heart of a Flaubert, he arrived at the purser's office with wild eyes and handed in the yellow form.

"I wish to send this by Marconi wireless," he said.

The purser tapped each word with his pencil as he read it over:

_Splendid. Most--amusing. Use--heaps--butter. Congratulate--Uncle Hyacinth._

_Love._

_Erik._

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the purser, "but we can only accept messages _en clair_."

"It is as clear as I can make it," said Mr. Neilsen; and he was telling the truth. "It is the answer to the telegram which was handed to me on board."

"It looks a little unusual, sir."

"It is gonnected with an unusual operation," said Mr. Neilsen, who was getting thoroughly rattled, "and goncerns the diet of the batient."

"I see," said the purser. "Well, I'll take your word for it, sir, and tell the operator."

At this moment the steward, who had entered Mr. Neilsen's stateroom during his absence, was laying out that gentleman's pyjamas on his berth. He shook them out in order to fold them properly; and in doing so he shook a round ball of paper on to the floor. He unrolled it and discovered two parallel columns of words, which gave a new meaning to the telegram. He put it in his pocket, looked carefully round the room, took all the torn scraps out of the wastepaper basket and put those also in his pocket. Then he went out, just in time to avoid meeting Mr. Neilsen, and trotted by another companionway to the purser's office.

Ten minutes later a consultation was held in the captain's cabin. The two messages and the scraps of paper were spread out on the table, while the purser took another large, clean sheet, on which he jotted down as many of the words as could be deciphered, together with their equivalents, in two parallel columns, almost as neat as those of Mr. Neilsen himself. When he had finished there was a very nice little vocabulary--though it was only a small part of the code; and in a very short time they were staring in amazement at the full translation of the messages concerning Uncle Hyacinth. Then they proceeded to business.

Captain Abbey was an Englishman who had commanded many ships in many parts of the world. He had worked his way up from before the mast, and in moments of emotion he was still inclined to be reckless with his aitches. He was very large and red-faced, and looked as the elder Weller might have looked if he had taken to the sea in youth. Captain Abbey was not a vindictive man; but the _Hispaniola_ was the finest ship he had yet commanded, and the opportunity had come to him as a result of the war and the general dearth of neutral skippers who were ready to take risks. He was not anxious to lose the ship on his first voyage, and his face grew redder and redder as he sat reading the messages on the table.

"What's the translation of '_onions_'?" he said.

"I think it means '_abroad_,' according to this column," said the purser.

"Put it down. Now, what does '_tonsils_' mean?"

"_Tonsils? Tonsils?_ Oh, yes; here we are. It means '_von Tirpitz_.'"

"The devil it does," said Captain Abbey.

"And what does '_meat_' mean?"

"'_German_,' I think."

"And '_colossal_'?"

"I had it here a moment ago. Ah, '_colossal_' means _twenty_."

"Just like 'em," said the captain. "Here's _appendix_! I suppose they find these medical terms useful. How do you translate that?"

"_Appendix?_ H'm; let me see. Appendix means _false_."

"'E deserves to 'ave it cut out with a blunt saw, blast 'is eyes. And what d'you make of this message 'e's just 'anded in?"