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.'"