“Easy now,” said Bob to Rogers. “Cut across his bows. Von Eckhardt,”—he turned toward the German who sat with bent head in the boat’s stern—“tell your man to run inshore, will you? Or do you want us to shoot him?”
Von Eckhardt raised his head and in a dull, stifled voice called out the order. The German craft slowed and swung around, pointing downstream again, the barge slewing about in its wake. Ten minutes more and both motor-boats were back at the landing-stage below the hamlet, where Larry, Ed, Franz, Karl, Lucy and Elizabeth stood waiting.
As Major Harding stepped ashore he said, “Bob, I’ve talked this over with Eaton, but not with you. Are you on to these fellows? Do you know that von Eckhardt has been smuggling arms and munitions along the Rhine to the Bolsheviki in Germany and elsewhere? We’re not sure of the details yet, nor of how the stuff is carried, though Eaton thinks——”
“He thinks right,” said Bob, glancing toward the barge. “Karl, bring one of those fagot-bundles—one of the real ones.”
Karl sprang forward, once more the obedient servant, eager to conciliate the man who had got the best of him. He boarded the barge and in a moment returned, carrying a bundle of fagots which he laid carefully down on the landing-stage. Larry turned the motor-boat’s search-light on the bundle as Karl cut the fastenings. The wood fell apart, revealing a neat package of machine gun belts, wrapped in water-proofed cloth.
Karl looked up at Bob, almost as triumphantly as though he himself had disclosed the conspiracy. Franz stood sullenly apart. The Americans’ eyes were turned on von Eckhardt, who still sat motionless, not having once raised his head.
Hot with anger and lingering amazement, Larry addressed the German in scornful questioning, “Why, von Eckhardt, I thought you despised the Spartacan rebels and their Bolshevik friends. Why should you wish to help them? I thought you were a Prussian of the old régime!”
The German stood up in the boat, folded his arms and answered with frozen calm: “You are right, Captain. I despise the Spartacan rebels. But they would have been my tool with which to overthrow the Republican government—already tottering. I sought to bring back Imperial Germany—vain hope!”
“Yes, vain enough,” said Major Harding. He spoke almost solemnly. “Von Eckhardt, your schemes will be unknown to history, and yet I wonder if peace has not been saved by their discovery.”
Lucy listened, stirred with awe and astonishment. Knowing no more of von Eckhardt’s plots than the part in which Franz had shared, she could not yet understand Major Harding’s earnestness. Elizabeth, sunk in uncomprehending misery, was crying softly by her side. Between sobs she whispered: