The American had done secret service work behind the German lines on one occasion. There he had assumed the character of a Prussian military officer, and gradually he took on the attitude that he had used familiarly at that time. His speech and appearance bore out the claim he meant to make if these people proved to be Germans, as he more than half suspected. How the Germans ever got control of a British ship was a mystery!
Boldig met Tom Cameron at the rail when he came up the captain’s ladder. He offered a hand that the American was forced to accept.
“You have the good fortune to escape both peril by air and sea, Mein Herr?” said Boldig. “Your companions?”
“Are gone,” Tom replied in German, shaking his head. “I am of all, the lone fortunate. ‘The survival of the fit’—is it not so? We were bound for London. Because I had lived there much, I was to pilot Herr Leutnant-Commander over the city!”
“Ah!” said Boldig. “I thought you did not seem entirely German.”
“It is the heart that counts, is it not?” Tom returned.
He knew this arrogant-looking man must be a German through and through. The British flag flying over the ship did not reassure him. He had ventured his story of being the Zeppelin pilot as a bit of camouflage. If he was mistaken—if this was an honest vessel and crew—he carried papers in his money belt that would explain who he really was.
“And you, Mein Herr?” Tom asked with a gesture indicating the Admiral Pekhard’s empty decks.
“Our story you shall learn later,” said Boldig. “But rest assured. You are among friends.”
He hastened to show the flaxen-haired man and Fritz how properly to pay off the line holding the motor boat in trail. The engines started again, and the ship began to pull ahead.