Two people were behind her, and out of sight around the corner of the deckhouse. One was a man, with a voice that had a compelling bark. Whether his companion was a man or a woman Ruth could not tell. But the voice she heard so distinctly began to rasp her nerves—and its familiarity troubled her, too.
Now and then she heard a word in English. Then, of a sudden, the man ejaculated in German:
“The foolish ones! As though this boat would be torpedoed with us aboard! These Americans are crazy.”
Ruth wheeled and walked quickly down the deck to the corner of the house. She saw the speaker sitting in a deck chair beside another person who was so wrapped in deck rugs that she could not distinguish what he or she looked like.
But the silhouette of the man who had uttered those last words stood out plainly between Ruth and the fading light. He was tall, with heavy shoulders, and a fat, beefy face. That smoothly shaven countenance looked like nobody that she had ever seen before; but the barking voice sounded exactly like that of Legrand, Mrs. Rose Mantel’s associate and particular friend!
CHAPTER XII—THROUGH DANGEROUS WATERS
There were a number of people aboard ship whom Ruth Fielding had not met, of course; some whom she had not even seen. And this was not to be wondered at, for the feminine members of the supply unit were grouped together in a certain series of staterooms; and they even had their meals in a second cabin saloon away from the hospital units.
She looked, for some moments, at the huge shoulders of the man who had spoken in German, hoping he would turn to face her. She had not observed him since coming aboard the ship at Philadelphia.
It seemed scarcely possible that this could be Legrand, the man who she had come to believe was actually responsible for the fire in the Robinsburg Red Cross rooms. If he was a traitor to the organization—and to the United States as well—how dared he sail on this ship for France, and with an organization of people who were sworn to work for the Red Cross?
Was he sufficiently disguised by the shaving of his beard to risk discovery? And with that peculiar, sharp, barking voice! “A Prussian drill master surely could be no more abrupt,” thought Ruth.