Inside the Lines

"Nothing, General Sahib."

"Very good. Come, Woodhouse; sorry to have kept you waiting." The general started for the double doors. Woodhouse followed. He passed very close to the Indian, but the latter made no sign. His eyes were on the burning wisp of paper between his fingers.

CHAPTER XVI
THE PENDULUM OF FATE

The next day, Thursday, was one of hectic excitement for Gibraltar. Focus of the concentrated attention of town and Rock was the battle fleet, clogging all the inner harbor with its great gray hulks. Superdreadnaughts, like the standing walls of a submerged Atlantis, lay close to the quays, barges lashed alongside the folded booms of their torpedo nets. Behind them, battle cruisers and scouts formed a protecting cordon. Far out across the entrance to the harbor, the darting black shapes of destroyers on constant guard were shuttles trailing their threads of smoke through the blue web of sea and sky. Between fleet and shore snorting cockleshells of launches established lanes of communication; khaki of the Rock's defenders and blue of the fleet's officers met, passed, and repassed. In wardroom and club lounge glasses were touched in pledges to the united service. The high commander of the Mediterranean fleet paid his official visit to the governor of Gibraltar, and the governor, in, turn, was received with honors upon the quarterdeck of the flagship. But under the superficial courtesies of fanfare and present arms the stern business of coaling fleet progressed at high tension. It was necessary that all of the fighting machines have their bunkers filled by noon of the following day. Every minute that the Channel up under the murky North Sea fogs lay without full strength of her fleet protection was added danger for England.

That morning, Captain Woodhouse went on duty in the signal tower. Major Bishop, his superior, had summoned him to his office immediately after breakfast and assigned him to his tasks there. Sufficient proof, Woodhouse assured himself, with elation, that he had come through the fire in General Crandall's library, tested and found genuine. Through this pretext and that, he had been kept off duty the day before, denied access to the slender stone tower high up on the Rock's crest which was the motor center of Gibraltar's ganglia of defense.

The small office in which Woodhouse was installed was situated at the very top of the tower—a room glassed on four sides like the lantern room of a lighthouse, and provided with telescope, a telephone switchboard, range finders, and all the complicated machinery of gunfire control. On one side were trestle boards supporting charts of the ranges—figured areas representing every square yard of water from the nearer harbor below out to the farthest reaching distance of the monster disappearing guns. A second graphic sheet showed the harbor and anchorages and the entrance to the straits; this map was thickly spotted with little, red, numbered dots—the mines. Sown like a turnip field with these deadly capsules of destruction were all the waters thereabouts; their delicate tendrils led under water and through conduits in the Rock up to this slender spire called the signal tower. As he climbed the winding stairway to his newly assigned post, Woodhouse had seen painted on a small wooden door just below the room he was to occupy the single white letter "D."

Room D—where the switches were, where a single sweep of the hand could loose all the hidden death out there in the crowded harbor—it lay directly below his feet.

Captain Woodhouse's duties were not arduous. He had as single companion a sergeant of the signal service, whose post was at the window overlooking the harbor. The sergeant read the semaphore message from the slender signal arm on the flagship's bridge—directions for the coal barges' movements, businesslike orders to be transmitted to the quartermaster in charge of the naval stores ashore, and such humdrum of routine. These Woodhouse recorded and forwarded to their various destinations over the telephone.

He had much time for thought—and much to think about.

Yesterday's scene in the library of Government House—his grilling by the two suspicious men, when a false answer on his part would have been the first step toward a firing squad. Yes, and what had followed between himself and the little American—the girl who had protected and aided him—ah, the pain of that trial was hardly less poignant than had been the terror of the one preceding it. She had asked him to prove to her that he was not what she thought him. Before another day was past she would be out of his life and would depart, believing—yes, convinced—that the task he had set himself to do was a dishonorable one. She could not know that the soldiers of the Hidden Army have claim to heroism no less than they who join battle under the sun. But he was to see Jane Gerson once more; Woodhouse caught at this circumstance as something precious. To-night at Government House Lady Crandall's dinner to the refugee Americans on the eve of their departure would offer a last opportunity. How could he turn it to the desire of his heart?

One more incident of a crowded yesterday gave Woodhouse a crust for rumination—the unmasking Jaimihr Khan, the Indian, had elected for himself at that critical minute when it lay in his power to betray the stranger in the garrison. The captain reviewed the incident with great satisfaction—how of a sudden the wily Indian had changed from an enemy holding a man's life in his hand to that "friend in Government House," of whose existence the cautious Almer had hinted but whose identity he had kept concealed. Almer had said that this "friend" could lay his hand on the combination to Room D in the signal tower when the proper moment arrived. Now that he knew Jaimihr Khan in his true stripe, Woodhouse made no doubt of his ability to fulfill Almer's prophecy.

And the proper moment would be this night! To-night, on the eve of the great fleet's sailing, what Woodhouse had come to Gibraltar to do must be accomplished or not at all.

The man's nerves were taut, and he rose to step to the bayward window, there to look down on the embattled splendor of England's defense. Steel forts ranged all in rows, awaiting but the opportunity to loose their lightnings of obliteration against the ships of an enemy. Cardboard ships! Shadows of dreams! In Room D, just below his feet, a hand on the switches—a downward push, and then——

Lady Crandall's dinner in Government House was in full tide of hilarity. Under the heavy groined ceiling the spread table with its napery and silver was the one spot of light in the long shadowed dining-room. Round it sat the refugees—folk who had eaten black bread and sausage and called that a meal; who had dodged and twisted under the careless scourge of a war beyond their understanding and sympathies, ridden in springless carts, been bullied and hectored by military martinets and beggared by panicky banks. Now, with the first glimpse of freedom already in sight and under the warming influence of an American hostess' real American meal, they were swept off their feet by high spirits almost childlike. Henry J. Sherman, Kewanee's vagrant son returning from painful pilgrimage, sat at the right of Lady Crandall; his pink face was glowing with humor. To Consul Reynolds, who swore he would have to pay for thus neglecting his consulate for so much as two hours, had fallen the honor of escorting Mrs. Sherman to table. Willy Kimball, polished as to shirt bosom and sleek hair, had eyes and ears for none but the blithe Kitty. Next to General Crandall sat Jane Gerson, radiant in a dinner gown of tricky gauze overlaid on silk. At her right was Captain Woodhouse, in proper uniform dinner coat faced with red and gold. Of the whole company, Woodhouse alone appeared constrained. The girl by his side had been cool in her greeting that evening; to his conversational sallies she had answered with indifference, and now at table she divided her favors between General Crandall and the perky little consul across the table. It seemed to Woodhouse that she purposely added a lash of cruelty to her joy at the approaching departure on the morrow.

"Oh, you must all listen to this!" Kitty Sherman commanded the attention of the table, with a clapping of hands. "Go ahead, Will; he had the funniest accident—tell them about it."

Young Kimball looked conscious and began to stammer.

"You're getting us all excited, Willy," Henry J. boomed from the opposite side of the table. "What happened?"

"Why—ah—really quite ridiculous, you know. Hardly a matter to—ah—talk about." Willy fumbled the rose in the lapel of his jacket and searched for words. "You see, this morning I was thinking very hard about what I would do when I got back to Kewanee—oh, quite enthusiastic I am about the little town, now—and I—well, I mean to say, I got into my bath with my wrist watch on."

Shouts of laughter added to the youth's confusion. Sherman leaned far across the table and advised him in a hoarse whisper:

"Buy a dollar Ingersoll, Willy. It floats!"

"Well, you might give him one of yours, father," Kitty put in, in quick defense. "Anybody who'd carry two watches around——"

"Two watches?" Lady Crandall was interested.

Henry J. beamed expansively, pulled away his napkin, and proudly lifted from each waistcoat pocket a ponderous watch, linked by the thick chain passing through a buttonhole.

"This one"—he raised the right-hand time-piece—"tells the time of the place I happen to be in—changed it so often I guess the works'll never be the same again. But this one is my pet. Here's Kewanee time—not touched since we pulled out of the C., B. & Q. station on the twentieth of last May." He turned the face around for the others to read. "Just three in the afternoon there now. Old Ed Porter's got the Daily Enterprise out on the street, and he's tilted back in his office chair, readin' the Chicago Tribune that's just got in on the two-five train. The boys at the bank are goin' out to the country club for golf—young Pete Andrews wearin' the knickerbockers his wife cut down from his old overcoat; sort of a horse-blanket pattern, you might say. The town's just dozin' in the afternoon sun and—and not givin' a hang whether Henry J. Sherman and family gets back or not."

"You're an old dear!" Lady Crandall bubbled. "Some day Kewanee will erect a statue to you."

The talk turned to art, and the man from Kewanee even had the stolid general wiping the tears from his eyes by his description and criticism of some of the masters his wife had trotted him around to admire.

"Willy, you'll be interested to know we got a painter in Kewanee now," Henry J. cried. "'Member young Frank Coales—old Henry Coales' son? Well, he turned out to be an artist. Too bad, too; his folks was fine people. But Frank was awfully headstrong about art. Painted a war picture about as big as that wall there. Couldn't find a buyer right away, so he turned it over to Tim Burns, who keeps the saloon on Main Street. Been busy ever since, sorta taking it out in trade, you might say."

Table talk was running at a gay rate when Mrs. Sherman, who had sent frequent searching glances at Captain Woodhouse over the nodding buds of the flower piece in the center of the board, suddenly broke out:

"Ah, Captain Woodhouse, now I remember where I've seen you before! I thought your face was familiar the minute I set my eyes on you this evening."

Jaimihr Khan, who stood behind the general's chair, arms folded and motionless, swiftly lifted one hand to his lips, but immediately mastered himself again. General Crandall looked up with a sharp crinkle of interest between his eyes. Captain Woodhouse, unperturbed, turned to the Kewanee dowager.

"You have seen me before, Mrs. Sherman?"

"I am sure of it," the lady announced, with decision. The other diners were listening now.

"Indeed! And where?" Woodhouse was smiling polite attention.

"Why, at the Winter Garden, in Berlin—a month ago!" Mrs. Sherman was hugely satisfied with her identification. She appealed to her husband for confirmation. "Remember, father, that gentleman I mistook for Albert Downs, back home, that night we saw that—er—wicked performance?"

"Can't say I do," Sherman answered tolerantly.

Woodhouse, still smiling, addressed Mrs. Sherman:

"Frightfully sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Sherman, but I was not in Berlin a month ago. I came here from Egypt, where I had been several years." Woodhouse heard Jane at his elbow catch her breath.

"See, mother, there you go on your old hobby of recognizin' folks," Sherman chided. Then, to the others: "Why, she's seen all Kewanee since she came here to Europe. Even got a glimpse of the Methodist minister at Monte Carlo."

"I have never been in Berlin in my life, Mrs. Sherman," Woodhouse was adding. "So, of course——"

"Well, I suppose I am wrong," the lady admitted. "But still I could swear."

The governor, who had kept a cold eye on his subordinate during this colloquy, now caught Woodhouse's glance. The captain smiled frankly.

"Another such unexpected identification, General, and you'll have me in the cells as a spy, I dare say," he remarked.

"Quite likely," Crandall answered shortly, and took up his fork again. A maid stepped to Lady Crandall's chair at this juncture and whispered something. The latter spoke to Woodhouse:

"You're wanted on the telephone in the library, Captain. Very important, so the importunate person at the other end of the wire informs the maid."

Woodhouse looked his confusion.

"Probably that silly ass at the quay who lost a bag of mine when I landed," he apologized, as he rose. "If you'll pardon me——"

Woodhouse passed up the stairs and into the library. He was surprised to find Jaimihr Khan standing by the telephone, his hand just in the act of setting the receiver back on the hook. The Indian stepped swiftly to the double doors and shut them behind the captain.

"A thousand pardons, Cap-tain"—he spoke hurriedly—"the cap-tain will stand near the telephone. They may come from the dining-room at any minute."

"What is all this?" Woodhouse began. "I was called on the telephone."

"A call I had inspired, Cap-tain. It was necessary to see you—at once and alone."

"Tactless! With the general suspecting me—you heard what that woman from America said at the table—she has eyes in her head!"

"I think he still trusts you, Cap-tain," the Indian replied. "And to-night we must act. The fleet sails at noon to-morrow."

"We?" Woodhouse was on his guard at once. "What do you mean by 'we'?"

Jaimihr Khan smiled at the evasion.

"Yesterday in this room, Cap-tain, I burned a roll of plans——"

"Which I had good reason to wish saved," Woodhouse caught him up.

"No matter; I burned them—at a moment when you were—in great peril, Cap-tain."

"Burned them, yes—perhaps to trap me further."

The Indian made a gesture of impatience. "Oh, excellent discretion!" he cried in suppressed exasperation. "But we waste time that is precious. To-night——"

"Before another word is spoken, let me have your card—your Wilhelmstrasse number," Woodhouse demanded.

"I carry no card. I am more discreet than—some," the other answered insinuatingly.

"No card? Your number, then?"

Jaimihr Khan brought his lips close to the white man's ear and whispered a number.

"Is that not correct?" he asked.

Woodhouse nodded curtly.

"And now that we are properly introduced," Jaimihr began, with a sardonic smile, "may I venture a criticism? Your pardon, Cap-tain; but our critics, they help us to per-fection. Since when have men who come from the Wilhelmstrasse allowed themselves to make love in drawing-rooms?"

"You mean——"

"You and the young woman from America—when I found you together here yesterday——"

"That is my affair," was Woodhouse's hot response.

"The affair on which we work—this night—that is my affair, be veree sure!" There was something of menace in the Indian's tone.

Woodhouse bowed to his demand for an explanation. "That young woman, as it happens, must be kept on our side. She saw me in France, when Captain Woodhouse was supposed to be in Egypt."

"Ah, so?" Jaimihr inclined his head with a slight gesture craving pardon. "For that reason you make a conquest. I did not un-derstand."

"No matter. The fleet sails at noon."

"And our moment is here—to-night," Jaimihr whispered in exultation. "Not until to-day did they admit you to the tower, Cap-tain. How is it there?"

"A simple matter—with the combination to the door of Room D."

With a single stride the Indian was over before the door of the wall safe. He pointed.

"The combination of the inner door—it is in a special compartment of that safe, protected by many wires. Before dawn I cut the wires—and come to you with the combination."

"At whatever hour is best for you," Woodhouse put in eagerly.

"Let us say three-thirty," Jaimihr answered. "You will be waiting for me at the Hotel Splendide with—our friends there. I shall come to you there, give you the combination, and you shall go through the lines to the signal tower."

"There must be no slip," Woodhouse sternly warned.

"Not on my part, Cap-tain—count on that. For five years I have been waiting—waiting. Five years a servant—yes, my General; no, my General; very good, my General." The man's voice vibrated with hate. "To-morrow, near dawn—the English fleet shattered and ablaze in the harbor—the water red, like blood, with the flames. Then, by the breath of Allah, my service ends!"

Voices sounded in the hallway outside the double doors. Jaimihr Khan, a finger to his lips, nodded as he whispered: "Three-thirty, at the Splendide." He faded like a white wraith through the door to General Crandall's room as the double doors opened and the masculine faction of the dinner party entered. Woodhouse rose from a stooping position at the telephone and faced them. To the general, whose sharp scrutiny stabbed like thin knives, he made plausible explanation. The beggar who lost his bag wanted a complete identification of it—had run it down at Algeciras.

"I understand," Crandall grunted.

When the cigars were lit, General Crandall excused himself for a minute, sat at his desk, and hurriedly scratched a note. Summoning Jaimihr, he ordered that the note be despatched by orderly direct to Major Bishop and given to no other hands. Woodhouse, who overheard his superior officer's command, was filled with vague apprehension. What Mrs. Sherman had said at table—this hurried note to Bishop; there was but one interpretation to give to the affair—Crandall's suspicions were all alive again. Yet at three-thirty—at the Hotel Splendide——

But when Crandall came back to join the circle of smokers, he was all geniality. The women came in by way of Jane Gerson's room; they had been taking a farewell peek at her dazzling stock of gowns, they said, before they were packed for the steamer.

"There was one or two I just had to see again," Mrs. Sherman explained for the benefit of all, "before I said good-by to them. One of them, by Madam Paquin, father, I'm going to copy when we get home. I'll be the first to introduce a Paquin into little Kewanee."

"Well, don't get into trouble with the minister, mother," Henry J. warned. "Some of the French gowns I've seen on this trip certainly would stir things up in Kewanee."

Jaimihr served the coffee. Woodhouse tried to maneuver Jane into a tête-à-tête in an angle of the massive fireplace, but she outgeneraled him, and the observant Mrs. Sherman cornered him inexorably.

"Tell me, Captain Woodhouse," she began, in her friendly tones, "you said a while ago the general might mistake you for a spy. Don't you have a great deal of trouble with spies in your army in war time? Everybody took us for spies in Germany, and in France they thought poor Henry was carrying bombs to blow up the Eiffel Tower."

"Perhaps I can answer that question better than Captain Woodhouse," the general put in, rising and striding over to where Mrs. Sherman kept the captain prisoner. "Captain Woodhouse, you see, would not be so likely to come in touch with those troublesome persons as one in command of a post, like myself." The most delicate irony barbed this speech, lost to all but the one for whom it was meant.

"Oh, I know I'm going to hear something very exciting," Mrs. Sherman chortled. "Kitty, you'd better hush up Willy Kimball for a while and come over here. You can improve your mind better listening to the general."

Crandall soon was the center of a group. He began, with sober directness.

"Well, in the matter of spies in war time, Mrs. Sherman, one is struck by the fact of their resemblance to the plague—you never can tell when they're going to get you or whence they came. Now here on the Rock I have reason to believe we have one or more spies busy this minute."

Jane Gerson, sitting where the light smote her face, drew back into the shadow with a swift movement of protectiveness. Woodhouse, who balanced a dainty Satsuma coffee cup on his knee, kept his eyes on his superior's face with a mildly interested air.

"In fact," Crandall continued evenly, "I shouldn't be surprised if one—possibly two spies—should be arrested before the night is over. And the point about this that will interest you ladies is that one of these—the one whose order for arrest I have already given—is a woman—a very clever and pretty woman, I may add, to make the story more interesting."

"And the other, whose arrest may follow, is an accomplice of hers, I take it, General!" Woodhouse put the question with easy indifference. He was stirring his coffee abstractedly.

"Not only the accomplice, but the brains for both, Captain. A deucedly clever person, I'm frank to admit."

"Oh, people! Come and see the flagship, signaling to the rest of the fleet with its funny green and red lights!" It was Jane who had suddenly risen and stood by the curtains screening the balcony windows. "They look like little flowers opening and shutting."

The girl's diversion was sufficient to take interest momentarily from General Crandall's revelation. When all had clustered around the windows, conversation skipped to the fleet, its power, and the men who were ready to do battle behind its hundreds of guns. Mrs. Sherman was disappointed that the ships did not send up rockets. She'd read somewhere that ships sent up rockets, and she didn't see why these should prove the exception. Interruption came from Jaimihr Khan, who bore a message for Consul Reynolds. The fussy little man ripped open the envelope with an air of importance.

"Ah, listen, folks! Here we have the latest wireless from the Saxonia. 'Will anchor about two—sail six. Have all passengers aboard by five-thirty.'" Excited gurgles from the refugees. "That means," Reynolds wound up, with a flourish, "everybody at the docks by five o'clock. Be there myself, to see you off. Must go now—lot of fuss and feathers getting everybody fixed." He paused before Jane.

"You're going home at last, young lady," he chirped.

"That depends entirely on Miss Gerson herself." It was the general who spoke quietly but emphatically.

Reynolds looked at him, surprised.

"Why, I understood it was all arranged——"

"I repeat, it depends entirely on Miss Gerson."

Woodhouse caught the look of fear in Jane's eyes, and, as they fell for the instant on his, something else—appeal. He turned his head quickly. Lady Crandall saved the situation.

"Oh, that's just some more of George's eternal red tape. I'll snip it when the time comes."

The consul's departure was the signal for the others. They crowded around Lady Crandall and her husband with voluble praise for the American dinner and thanks for the courtesy they had found on the Rock. Woodhouse, after a last despairing effort to have a word of farewell with Jane, which she denied, turned to make his adieu to his host and hostess.

"No hurry, Captain," Crandall caught him up. "Expect Major Bishop in every minute—small matter of official detail. You and he can go down the Rock together when he leaves."

Woodhouse's mind leaped to the meaning behind his superior's careless words. The hastily despatched note—that was to summon Bishop to Government House; Crandall's speech about the two spies and the arrest of one of them—Louisa, he meant—and now this summary order that he wait the arrival of Bishop—would the second arrest be here in this room? The man who carried a number from the Wilhelmstrasse felt the walls of the library slowly closing in to crush him; he could almost hear the whisper and mutter of the inexorable machine moving them closer—closer. Be alone with the man whose word could send bullets into his heart!

"A very pleasant dinner—Lady Crandall's," Woodhouse began, eager to lighten the tenseness of the situation.

"Yes, it seemed so." Crandall offered the younger man his cigarette case, and, lighting a smoke himself, straddled the hearth, his eyes keenly observant of Woodhouse's face.

"Rather odd, Americans. But jolly nice." The captain laughed in reminiscence of the unspoiled Shermans.

"I thought so—I married one," Crandall retorted.

The ear of Woodhouse's mind could hear more plainly now the grinding of the cogs; the immutable power of fate lay there.

"Oh—er—so you did. Very kind she has been to me. I got very little of this sort of thing at Wady Halfa."

"By the way, Woodhouse"—Crandall blew a contemplative puff toward the ceiling—"strange Mrs. Sherman should have thought she saw you at Berlin."

"Odd mistake, to be sure," Woodhouse admitted, struggling to put ease into his voice. "The lady seems to have a penchant, as her husband says, for finding familiar faces."

"Major Bishop!" Jaimihr Khan announced at the double doors. The major in person followed immediately. His greeting to Woodhouse was constrained.

"Woodhouse will wait for you to go down the Rock with him," Crandall explained to the newcomer. "Captain, excuse us for a minute, while we go into my room and run over a little matter of fleet supplies. Must check up with the fleet before it sails in the morning." Woodhouse bowed his acquiescence and saw the door to the general's room close behind the twain.

He was not long alone. Noiselessly the double doors opened and Jaimihr Khan entered. Woodhouse sprang to meet him where he stood poised for flight just inside the doors.

"The woman's prattle of Berlin——" the Indian whispered.

"Yes, the general's suspicions are all aroused again."

"Listen! I saw the note he sent to Bishop. The major is to be set to watch you to-night—all night. A false step and you will be under arrest." Jaimihr's thin face was twisted in wrath. "One man's life will not stand in our way now."

"No," Woodhouse affirmed.

"Success is veree near. When Bishop goes with you down the Rock——"

"Yes, yes! What?"

"The pistol screams, but the knife is dumb. Quick, Cap-tain!" With a swift movement of his hand the Indian passed a thin-bladed dirk to the white man. The latter secreted the sheathed weapon in a pocket of his dinner jacket. He nodded understanding.

"One man's life—nothing!" Jaimihr breathed.

"It shall be done," Woodhouse whispered.

Jaimihr faded through the double doors like a spirit in a medium's cabinet. He had seen what the captain was slower to notice. The door from Jane Gerson's room was opening. The girl stepped swiftly into the room, and was by Woodhouse's side almost before he had seen her.

"I could not—go away—without—without——"

"Miss Gerson—Jane!" He was beside her instantly. His hand sought and found one of hers and held it a willing prisoner. She was trembling, and her eyes were deep pools, riffled by conflicting currents. Her words came breathlessly:

"I was not myself—I tried to tell myself you were deceiving me just—just as a part of this terrible mystery you are involved in. But when I heard General Crandall tell you to wait—that and what he said about the spies—I knew you were again in peril, and—and——"

"And you have come to me to tell me as good-by you believe I am honest and that you care—a little?" Woodhouse's voice trembled with yearning. "When you think me in danger, then you forget doubts and maybe—your heart——"

"Oh, I want to believe—I want to!" she whispered passionately. "Every one here is against you. Tell me you are on the level—with me, at least."

"I am—with you."

"I—believe," she sighed, and her head fell near his shoulder—so near that with alacrity Captain Woodhouse settled it there.

"When this war is over, if I am alive," he was saying rapturously, "may I come to America for you? Will you—wait?"

"Perhaps."

The door to General Crandall's room opened. They sprang apart just as Crandall and Bishop entered the library. The former was not blind to the situation; he darted a swift glance into the girl's face and read much there.

"Ready, Captain?" Bishop chirped, affecting not to notice the momentary confusion of the man and the girl.

Woodhouse gave Jane's hand a lingering clasp; mutely his eyes adjured her to remember her plighted troth. In another minute he was gone.

The general and his guest were alone. Jane Gerson was bidding him good night when he interrupted, somewhat gruffly:

"Well, young woman, have you made up your mind? Do you sail in the morning—or not?"

"I made up my mind to that long ago," she answered briskly. "Of course I sail."

"Then you're going to tell me what I want to know. Sensible girl!" He rubbed his hands in satisfaction.

"What is it you want to know, General Crandall?" This almost carelessly from her.

"When did you meet Woodhouse before—and where?"

"How do you know I met him before?" She attempted to parry, but Crandall cut her short with a gesture of impatience:

"Please don't try that tack again. Answer those two questions, and you sail in the morning."

Jane Gerson's eyes grew hard, and she lifted her chin in defiance.

"And if I refuse——"

"Why should you?" Crandall affected surprise not altogether unfelt.

"No matter—I do!" The challenge came crisp and sharp-cut as a new blade. Gibraltar's governor lost his temper instanter; his face purpled.

"And I know why!" he rasped. "He's got round you—made love to you—tricked you! I'd swear he was kissing you just the minute I came in here. The German cad! Good lord, girl; can't you see how he's using you?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

Crandall advanced toward her, shaking a menacing finger at her.

"Let me tell you something, young woman: he's at the end of his rope. Done for! No use for you to stand up for him longer. He's under guard to-night, and a woman named Josepha, his accomplice—or maybe his dupe—is already under arrest, and to-morrow, when we examine her, she'll reveal his whole rotten schemes or have to stand against a wall with him. Come, now! Throw him over. Don't risk your job, as you call it, for a German spy who's tricked you—made a fool of you. Why——"

"General Crandall!" Her face was white, and her eyes glowed with anger.

"I—I beg your pardon, Miss Gerson," he mumbled. "I am exasperated. A fine girl like you—to throw away all your hopes and ambitions for a spy—and a bounder! Can't you see you're wrong?"

"General Crandall, some time—I hope it will be soon—you will apologize to me—and to Captain Woodhouse—for what you are saying to-night." Her hands clenched into fists, whereon the knuckles showed white; the poise of her head, held a little forward, was all combative.

"Then you won't tell me what I want to know?" He could not but read the defiance in the girl's pose.

"I will tell you nothing but good-by."

"No, by gad—you won't! I can be stubborn, too. You shan't sail on the Saxonia in the morning. Understand?"

"Oh, shan't I? Who will dare stop me?"

"I will, Miss Gerson. I have plenty of right—and the power, too."

"I'll ask you to tell that to my consul—on the dock at five to-morrow morning. Until then, General Crandall, au revoir."

The door of the guest room shut with a spiteful slam upon the master of Gibraltar, leaving him to nurse a grievance on the knees of wrath.

CHAPTER XVII
THREE-THIRTY A.M.

Joseph Almer and Captain Woodhouse sat in the darkened and heavily blinded office-reception room of the Hotel Splendide. All the hotel had long since been put to bed, and the silence in the rambling house was audible. The hands of the Dutch clock on the wall were pointing to the hour of three-thirty.

Strain was on both the men. They spoke in monosyllables, and only occasionally. Almer's hand went out from time to time to lift a squat bottle of brandy from the table between them and pour a tiny glass brimful; he quaffed with a sucking noise. Woodhouse did not drink.

"It is three-thirty," the latter fretted, with an eye on the mottled clock dial.

"He will come," Almer assured. A long pause.

"This man Jaimihr—he is thoroughly dependable?" The man in uniform put the question with petulant bruskness.

"It is his passion—what we are to do to-night—something he has lived for—his religion. Nothing except judgment day could—— Hah!"

The sharp chirp of a telephone bell, a dagger of sound in the silence, broke Almer's speech. He bounded to his feet; but not so quickly as Woodhouse, who was across the room in a single stride and had the receiver to his ear.

"Well, well! Yes, this is the one you name." Woodhouse turned to Almer, and his lips framed the word Jaimihr. "Yes, yes; all is well—and waiting. Bishop? He is beyond interference—coming down the Rock—I did the work silently. What's that?" Woodhouse's face was tensed in strain; his right hand went to a breast pocket and brought out a pencil. With it he began making memoranda on the face of a calendar by his side.

"Seven turns—ah, yes—four to the left—correct." His writing hand was moving swiftly. "Press, one to the right. Good! I have it, and am off at once. Good-by!"

Woodhouse finished a line of script on the calendar face, hung up the receiver. He carefully tore the written notes from the calendar and put them into his pocket.

"Jaimihr says he has work to do at Government House and can not come down." Woodhouse turned to Almer and explained in rapid sentences. "But he's given me the combination—to Room D—over the wire, and now I'm off!"

Almer was all excitement now. He hovered lovingly about Woodhouse, patting him on the shoulder, giving him his helmet, mothering him with little cooing noises.

"Speed quickly, Nineteen Thirty-two! Up the Rock to the signal tower, Nineteen Thirty-two, to do the deed that will boom around the world. The switches—one pull, my brother, and the fatherland is saved to triumph over her enemies, victorious!"

"Right, Almer!" Woodhouse was moving toward the door. "In eight minutes history will be made. The minute you hear the blast, start for Spain. I will try to escape, but I doubt——"

A knock came at the barred front door—one knock, followed by three. Both men were transfixed. Almer, first to recover his calmness, motioned Woodhouse through the door to the dining-room. When his companion had disappeared, he stepped to the door and cautiously asked: "Who knocks?"

An answer came that caused him to shoot back the bolts and thrust out his head. A message was hurriedly whispered into his ear. The Splendide's proprietor withdrew his head and slipped the bolt home again. His face was a thundercloud as he summoned Woodhouse; his breath came in wheezy gasps.

"My Arab boy comes to the door just now to tell me of Louisa's fate; she has been arrested," he said.

"Come, Almer! I am going to the signal tower—there is still time for us to strike."

Out on to Waterport Street leaped Woodhouse, and the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

Jane Gerson, tossing on her pillows, heard the mellow bell of a clock somewhere in the dark and silent house strike three. This was the fifth time she had counted the measured strokes of that bell as she lay, wide-eyed, in the guest chamber's canopied bed. An eternity had passed since the dinner guests' departure. Her mind was racing like some engine gone wild, and sleep was impossible. Over and over again she had conned the events of the evening, always to come at the end against the impasse of General Crandall's blunt denial: "You shan't sail in the morning." In her extremity she had even considered flight by stealth—the scaling of walls perhaps, and a groping through dark streets to the wharf, there to smuggle herself somehow on a tender and so gain the Saxonia. But her precious gowns! They still reposed in their bulky hampers here in Government House; to escape and leave them behind would be worse than futile. The governor's fiat seemed absolute.

Urged by the impulse of sheer necessity to be doing something—the bed had become a rack—the girl rose, lit a taper, and began to dress herself, moving noiselessly. She even packed her traveling bag to the last inch and locked it. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, hands helplessly folded in her lap. What to do next? Was she any better off dressed than thrashing in the bed? Her yearning called up a picture of the Saxonia, which must ere this be at her anchorage, since the consul said she was due at two. In three short hours tenders would puff alongside; a happy procession of refugees climb the gangway—among them the Shermans and Willy Kimball, bound for their Kewanee; the captain on the bridge would give an order; winches would puff, the anchor heave from the mud, the big boat's prow slowly turn westward—oceanward—toward New York! And she, a prisoner caught by the mischance of war's great mystery, would have to watch that diminishing column of smoke fade against the morning's blue—disappear.

Inspiration seized her. It would be something just to see the Saxonia, now lying amid the grim monsters of the war fleet. From the balcony of the library, just outside the door of her room, she could search the darkness of the harbor for the prickly rows of lights marking the merchant ship from her darker neighbors. The general's marine glasses lay on his desk, she remembered. To steal out to the balcony, sweep the harbor with the glasses, and at last hit on the ship of deliverance—for all but her; to do this would be better than counting the hours alone. She softly opened the door of her room. Beyond lay the dim distances of the library, suddenly become vast as an amphitheater; in the thin light filtering through the curtains screening the balcony appeared the lumpy masses of furniture and vague outlines of walls and doors. She closed the door behind her, and stood trembling; this was somehow like burglary, she felt—at least it had the thrill of burglary.

The girl tiptoed around a high-backed chair, groped her way to the general's desk, and fumbled there. Her hand fell upon the double tubes of the binoculars. She picked them up, parted the curtains, and stepped through the opened glass doors to the balcony. Not a sound anywhere but the faint cluck and cackle of cargo hoists down in the harbor. Jane put the glasses to her eyes, and began to sweep the light-pointed vista below the cliff. Scores of pin-prick beams of radiance marked the fleet where it choked the roadstead—red and white beetles' eyes in the dark. She swung the glasses nearer shore. Ah, there lay the Saxonia, with her three rows of glowing portholes near the water; the binoculars even picked out the double column of smoke from her stacks. Three brief hours and that mass of shadow would be moving—moving——

A noise, very slight, came from the library behind the opened doors. The marine glasses remained poised in the girl's hands while she listened. Again the noise—a faint metallic click.

She hardly breathed. Turning ever so slowly, she put one hand between the curtains and parted them so that she could look through into the cavernous gloom behind her.

A light moved there—a clear round eye of light. Behind it was the faintest suggestion of a figure at the double doors—just a blur of white, it was; but it moved stealthily, swiftly. She heard a key turn in a lock. Then swiftly the eye of light traveled across the library to the door leading to General Crandall's room. There it paused to cut the handle of the door and keyhole beneath out of darkness. A brown hand slipped into the clear shaft of whiteness, put a key into the keyhole, and softly turned it. The same was done for the locks of Lady Crandall's door, on the opposite side of the library, and for the one Jane had just closed behind her—her own door. Than the circle of light, seeming to have an intelligence all its own, approached the desk, flew swiftly to a drawer and there paused. Once more the brown hand plunged into the bore of light; the drawer was carefully opened, and a steel-blue revolver reflected bright sparks from its barrel as it was withdrawn.

Jane, hardly daring to breathe, and with the heavy curtains gathered close so that only a space for her eyes was left open, watched the orb of light, fascinated. It groped under the desk, found a nest of slender wires. There was a "Snick—snick!" and the severed ends of the wires dropped to the floor. The burnished dial of the wall safe, set near the double doors, was the next object to come under the restless searching eye. While light poured steadily upon the circular bit of steel, delicate fingers played with it, twisting and turning this way and that. Then they were laid upon the handle of the safe door, and it swung noiselessly back. A tapering brown hand, white-sleeved, fumbled in a small drawer, withdrew a packet of papers and selected one.

Jane stepped boldly into the room.

"Sahibah!" The white club of the electric flash smote her full in the face.

"What are you doing at that safe, Jaimihr Khan?" Jane spoke as steadily as she could, though excitement had its fingers at her throat, and all her nerves were twittering. She heard some sharply whistled foreign word, which might have been a curse.

"Something that concerns you not at all, Sahibah," the Indian answered, his voice smooth as oil. He kept the light fair on her face.

"I intend that it shall concern me," the girl answered, taking a step forward.

"Veree, veree foolish, Sahibah!" Jaimihr whispered, and with catlike stride he advanced to meet her. "Veree foolish to come here at this time."

Jane, frozen with horror at the man's approach, dodged and ran swiftly to the fireplace, where hung the ancient vesper bell. The flash light followed her every move—picked out her hand as it swooped down to seize a heavy poker standing in its rack beside the bell.

"Sahibah! Do not strike that bell!" The warning came sharp and cold as frost. Her hand was poised over the bell, the heavy stub of the poker a very few inches away from the bell's flare.

"To strike that bell might involve in great trouble one who is veree dear to you, Sahibah. Let us talk this over most calmly. Surely you would not desire that a friend—a veree dear friend——"

"Who do you mean?" she asked sharply.

"Ah—that I leave to you to guess!" Jaimihr Khan's voice was silken. "But certainly you know, Sahibah. A friend the most important——"

Then she suddenly understood. The Indian was referring to Captain Woodhouse thus glibly. Anger blazed in her.

"It isn't true!"

"Sahibah, I am sorry to con-tradict." Jaimihr Khan had begun slowly to creep toward her, his body crouching slightly as a stalking cat's.

"I'll prove it isn't true!" she cried, and brought the poker down on the bell with a sharp blow. Like a tocsin came its answering alarm.

"A thousand devils!" The Indian leaped for the girl, but she evaded him and ran to put the desk between herself and him. He had snapped off the torch at the clang of the bell, and now he was a pale ghost in the gloom—fearsome. Hissing Indian curses, he started to circle the desk to seize her.

"Open this door! Open it, I say!" It was the general's voice, sounding muffled through the panels of his door; he rattled the knob viciously. Jane tried to run to the door, but the Indian seized her from behind, threw her aside, and made for the double doors. There his hand went to a panel in the wall, turned a light switch, and the library was on the instant drenched with light. Jaimihr Khan threw before the door of the safe the bundle of papers he was clutching when Jane discovered him and which he had gripped during the ensuing tense moments. Then he stepped swiftly to the general's door and unlocked it.

General Crandall, clad only in trousers and shirt, burst into the room. His eyes leaped from the Indian to where Jane was cowering behind his desk.

"What the devil is this?" he rasped. Jane opened her mouth to answer, but the Indian forestalled her:

"The sahibah, General—I found her here before your opened safe——"

"Good God!" General Crandall's eyes blazed. He leaped to the safe, knelt and peered in. "A clever job, young woman!"

Jane, completely stunned by the Indian's swift strategy, could hardly speak. She held up a hand, appealing for a hearing. General Crandall eyed her with chilling scorn, then turned to his servant.

"You have done well, Jaimihr."

"It—it isn't true!" Jane stammered. The governor took a step toward her almost as if under impulse to strike her, but he halted, and his lips curled in scorn.

"By gad, working with Woodhouse all the time, eh? And I thought you a simple young woman he had trapped—even warned you against him not six hours ago. What a fool I've been!" Jane impulsively stretched forth her arms for the mercy of a hearing, but the man went on implacably:

"I said he was making a fool of you—and all the time you were making one of me. Clever young woman. I say, that must have been a great joke for you—making a fool of the governor of Gibraltar. You make me ashamed of myself. And my servant—Jaimihr here; it is left to him to trap you while I am blind. Bah! Jaimihr, my orderly—at once!" The Indian smiled sedately and started for the double doors. Jane ran toward the general with a sharp cry:

"General—let me explain——"

"Explain!" He laughed shortly. "What can you say? You come into my house as a friend—you betray me—you break into my safe—with Woodhouse, whom I'd warned you against, directing your every move. Clever—clever! Jaimihr, do as I tell you. My orderly at once!"

Jane threw herself between the Indian and the doors.

"One moment—before he leaves the room let me tell you he lies? Your Indian lies. It was I who found him here—before that safe!"

"A poor story," the general sniffed. "I expected better of you—after this."

"The truth, General Crandall. I couldn't sleep. I came out here to the balcony to try to make out if the Saxonia was in the bay. He came into the room while I was behind these curtains, locked the doors, and opened the safe."

"It won't go," the general cut in curtly.

"It's the truth—it's got to go!" she cried.

Jaimihr, at a second nod from his master, was approaching the double doors. Jane, leaping in front of them, pushed the Indian back.

"General Crandall, for your own sake—don't let this Indian leave the room. You may regret it—all the rest of your life. He still has a paper—a little paper—he took from that safe. I saw him stick it in his sash."

"Nonsense!"

"Search him!" The girl's voice cracked in hysteria; her face was dead white, with hectic burning spots in each cheek. "I'm not pleading for myself now—for you. Search him before he leaves this room!"

Jaimihr put strong hands on her arms to force her away from the door. His black eyes were laughing down into hers.

"Let me ask him a question first, General Crandall—before he leaves this room."

The governor's face reflected momentary surprise at this change of tack. "Quickly then," he gruffly conceded. Jaimihr Khan stepped back a pace, his eyes meeting the girl's coldly.

"How did you come into the room—when you found me here?" she challenged. The Indian pointed to the double doors over her shoulder. She reached behind her, grasped the knob, and shook it. "Locked!" she announced.

"Why not?" Jaimihr asked. "I locked them after me."

"And the general's door was locked?"

"Yes—yes!" Crandall broke in impatiently. "What's this got to do with——"

"Did you lock the general's door?" she questioned the Indian.

"No, Sahibah; you did."

"And I suppose I locked the door to Lady Crandall's room and my door?"

"If they, too, are locked—yes, Sahibah."

"Then why"—Jane's voice quavered almost to a shriek—"why had I failed to lock the double doors—the doors through which you came?"

The Indian caught his breath, and darted a look at the general. The latter, eying him keenly, stepped to his desk and pressed a button.

"Very good; remain here, Jaimihr," he said. Then to Jane: "I will have him searched, as you wish. Then both of you go to the cells until I sift this thing to the bottom."

"General! You wouldn't dare!" She stood aghast.

"Wouldn't I, though? We'll see whether—" A sharp click sent his head jerking around to the right. Jaimihr Khan, at the door to the general's room, was just slipping the key into his girdle, after having turned the lock. His thin face was crinkled like old sheepskin.

"What the devil are you doing?" Crandall exploded.

"If the general sahib is waiting for that bell to be answered—he need not wait longer—it will not be answered," Jaimihr Khan purred.

"What's this—what's this!"

"The wires are cut."

"Cut! Who did that?" The general started for the yellow man. Jaimihr Khan whipped a blue-barreled revolver out of his broad sash and leveled it at his master.

"Back, General Sahib! I cut them. The sahibah's story is true. It was she who came in and found me at the safe."

"My God! You, Jaimihr—you a spy!" The general collapsed weakly into a chair by the desk.

"Some might call me that, my General." Jaimihr's weapon was slowly swinging to cover both the seated man and the girl by the doors. "No need to search that drawer, General Sahib. Your pistol is pointing at you this minute."

"You'll pay for this!" Crandall gasped.

"That may be. One thing I ask you to remember. If one of you makes a move I will kill you both. You are a gallant man, my General; is it not so? Then remember."

Crandall started from his chair, but the uselessness of his bare hands against the snub-nosed thing of blue metal covering him struck home. He sank back with a groan. Keeping them both carefully covered, Jaimihr moved to the desk telephone at the general's elbow. He took from his sash a small piece of paper—the one he had saved from the packet of papers taken from the safe—laid it on the edge of the desk, and with his left hand he picked up the telephone. An instant of tense silence, broken by the wheezing of the general's breath, then——

"Nine-two-six, if you please. Yes—yes, who is this? Ah, yes. It is I, Jaimihr Khan. Is all well with you? Good! And Bishop? Slain coming down the Rock—good also!"

Crandall groaned. The Indian continued his conversation unperturbed.

"Veree good! Listen closely. I can not come as I have promised. There is—work—for me here. But all will be well. Take down what I shall tell you." He read from the slip of paper on the desk. "Seven turns to the right, four to the left—press! Two more to the left—press! One to the right. You have that? Allah speed you. Go quickly!"

"Room D!" Crandall had leaped from his chair.

"Correct, my General—Room D." Jaimihr smiled as he stepped away from the telephone, his back against the double doors. The sweat stood white on Crandall's brow; his mouth worked in jerky spasms.

"What—what have you done?" he gasped.

"I see the general knows too well," came the Indian's silken response. "I have given the combination of the inner door of Room D in the signal tower to a—friend. He is on his way to the tower. He will be admitted—one of the few men on the Rock who could be admitted at this hour, my General. One pull of the switches in Room D—and where will England's great fleet be then?"

"You yellow devil!" Crandall started to rush the white figure by the doors, but his flesh quailed as the round cold muzzle met it. He staggered back.

"We are going to wait, my General—and you, American Sahibah, who have pushed your way into this affair. We are going to wait—and listen—listen."

The general writhed in agony. Jane, fallen into a chair by the far edge of the desk, had her head buried in her arms, and was sobbing.

"And we are going to think, my General," the Indian's voice purled on. "While we wait we shall think. Who will General Crandall be after to-night—the English sahib who ruled the Rock the night the English fleet was blown to hell from inside the fortress? How many widows will curse when they hear his name? What——"

"Jaimihr Khan, what have I ever done to you!" The governor's voice sounded hardly human. His face was blotched and purple.

"Not what you have done, my General—what the English army has done. An old score, General—thirty years old. My father—he was a prince in India—until this English army took away his throne to give it to a lying brother. The army—the English army—murdered my father when he tried to get it back—called it mutiny. Ah, yes, an old score; but by the breath of Allah, to-night shall see it paid!"

The man's eyes were glittering points of white-hot steel. All of his thin white teeth showed like a hound's.

"You dog!" The general feebly wagged his head at the Indian.

"Your dog, my General. Five years your dog, when I might have been a prince. My friend goes up the Rock—step—step—step. Closer—closer to the tower, my General. And Major Bishop—where is he? Ah, a knife is swift and makes no noise——"

"What a fool I've been!" Crandall rocked in his chair, and passed a trembling hand before his eyes. Sudden rage turned his bloodshot eyes to where the girl was stretched, sobbing, across the desk. "Your man—the man you protected—it is he who goes to the signal tower, girl!"

"No—no; it can't be," she whispered between the rackings of her throat.

"It is! Only a member of the signal service could gain admittance into the tower to-night. Besides—who was it went with Bishop down the Rock after the dinner to-night? And I—I sent Bishop with him—sent him to his death. He was tricking you all the time. I told you he was. I warned you he was playing with you—using you for his own rotten ends—using you to help kill forty thousand men!"

It needed not the sledge-hammer blows of the stricken Crandall to batter Jane Gerson's heart. She had read too clearly the full story Jaimihr Khan's sketchy comments had outlined. She knew now Captain Woodhouse, spy. The Indian was talking again, his words dropping as molten metal upon their raw souls.

"Forty thousand men! A pleasant thought, my General. Eight minutes up the Rock to the tower when one moves fast. And my friend—ah, he moves veree—veree fast. Eight minutes, and four have already passed. Watch the windows—the windows looking out to the bay, General and Sahibah. They will flame—like blood. Your hearts will stop at the great noise, and then——"

A knock sounded at the double doors behind Jaimihr. He stopped short, startled. All listened. Again came the knock. Without turning his eyes from the two he guarded, Jaimihr asked: "Who is it?"

"Woodhouse," came the answer.

Jane's heart stopped. Crandall sat frozen in his seat. Jaimihr turned the key in the lock, and the doors opened. In stepped Captain Woodhouse, helmeted, armed with sword and revolver at waist. He stood facing the trio, his swift eye taking in the situation at once. Crandall half rose from his seat, his face apoplectic.

"Spy! Secret killer of men!" he gasped.

Woodhouse paid no heed to him, but turned to Jaimihr.

"Quick! The combination," he said. "Over the phone—afraid I might not have it right—stopped here on my way to the tower—be there in less than three minutes if you can hold these people."

"Everything is all right?" Jaimihr asked suspiciously.

"You mean Bishop? Yes. Quick, the combination!"

Jaimihr picked the slip of paper containing the formula from the edge of the desk with his disengaged left hand and passed it to Woodhouse.

The latter stretched out his hand, grasped the Indian's with a lightning move, and threw it over so that the latter was off his balance. In a twinkling Woodhouse's left hand had wrenched the revolver from Jaimihr's right and pinioned it behind his back. The whole movement was accomplished in half a breath. Jaimihr Khan knelt in agony, and in peril of a broken wrist, at the white man's feet, disarmed, harmless. Woodhouse put a silver whistle to his lips and blew three short blasts.

A tramp of feet in the hallway outside, and four soldiers with guns filled the doorway.

"Take this man!" Woodhouse commanded.

The Indian, in a frenzy, writhed and shrieked:

"Traitor! English spy! Dog of an unbeliever!"

The soldiers jerked him to his feet and dragged him out; his ravings died away in the passage.

Woodhouse brought his hand up in a salute as he faced General Crandall.

"The other spy, Almer, of the Hotel Splendide, has just been arrested, sir. Major Bishop has taken charge of him and has lodged him in the cells."

A high-pitched scream sounded behind Lady Crandall's door, and a pounding on the panels. Jane Gerson, first to recover from the shock of surprise, ran to unlock the door. Lady Crandall, in a dressing gown, burst into the library and flung herself on her husband.

"George—George! What does all this mean—yells—whistling——"

General Crandall gave his wife a pat on the shoulder and put her aside with a mechanical gesture. He took a step toward Woodhouse, who still stood stiffly before the opened doors; the dazed governor walked like a somnambulist.

"Who—who the devil are you, sir?" he managed to splutter.

"I am Captain Cavendish, General." Again the hand came to stiff salute on the visor of the pith helmet. "Captain Cavendish, of the signal service, stationed at Khartum, but lately detached for special service under the intelligence office in Downing Street."

The man's eyes jumped for an instant to seek Jane Gerson's face—found a smile breaking through the lines of doubt there.

"Your papers to prove your identity!" Crandall demanded, still in a fog of bewilderment.

"I haven't any, General Crandall," the other replied, with a faint smile, "or your Indian, Jaimihr Khan, would have placed them in your hands after the search of my room yesterday. I've convinced Major Bishop of my genuineness, however—after we left your house and when the moment for action arrived. A cable to Sir Ludlow-Service, in the Downing Street office, will confirm my story. Meanwhile I am willing to go under arrest if you think best."

"But—but I don't understand, Captain—er—Cavendish. You posed as a German—as an Englishman."

"Briefly, General, a girl secretly in the pay of the Downing Street office—Louisa Schmidt,—Josepha, the cigar girl, whom you ordered locked up a few hours ago—is the English representative in the Wilhelmstrasse at Berlin. She learned of a plan to get a German spy in your signal tower a month before war was declared, reported it to London, and I was summoned from Khartum to London to play the part of the German spy. At Berlin, where she had gone from your own town of Gibraltar to meet me, she arranged to procure me a number in the Wilhelmstrasse through the agency of a dupe named Capper——"

"Capper! Good Lord!" Crandall stammered.

"With the number I hurried to Alexandria. Woodhouse—Captain Woodhouse, from Wady Halfa—a victim, poor chap, to the necessities of our plan, fell into the hands of the Wilhelmstrasse men there, and I gained possession of his papers. The Germans started him in a robber caravan of Bedouins for the desert, but I provided against his getting far before being rescued, and the German agents there were all rounded up the day I sailed as Woodhouse."

"And you came here to save Gibraltar—and the fleet from German spies?" Crandall put the question dazedly.

"There were only two, General—Almer and your servant, Jaimihr. We have them now. You may order the release of Louisa Schmidt."

"The captain has overlooked one other—the most dangerous one of all, General Crandall." Jane stepped up to where the governor stood and threw back her hands with an air of submission. "Her name is Jane Gerson, of New York, and she knew all along that this gentleman was deceiving you—she had met him, in fact, three weeks before on a railroad train in France."

The startled eyes of Gibraltar's master looked first at the set features of the man, then to the girl's flushed face. Little lines of humor crinkled about the corners of his mouth.

"Captain Cavendish—or Woodhouse, make this girl a prisoner—your prisoner, sir!"