He saw that I was hesitating, and fortunately mistook the reason.
‘I will not only spare your life, but I will send you across the frontier under an escort, and let you go free,’ his Majesty declared.
I affected to yield reluctantly.
‘My mission is not, strictly speaking, an official one. I am the agent of an individual, who wishes to render a service to his countrymen, without his action being publicly known. Your Majesty’s recent alliance with Great Britain to blockade Venezuela has aroused the fears of thoughtful American statesmen. It is suspected that you may have other projects in which the interests of the United States are concerned, and I have been instructed——’
‘By Theodore Roosevelt!’ the Kaiser exclaimed, falling back a pace or two.
I nodded.
‘Your Majesty has guessed the truth. The project which I have discovered among your papers does not concern the United States, and I am therefore willing to undertake that it shall not be revealed to the President.’
‘Enough,’ Wilhelm II. said in subdued tones. ‘I have passed my word.’ He turned to the officer. ‘Take this man in irons to Hamburg, and place him on board a British vessel.’
If I felt some compunction at the liberty I had taken with the name of the United States President, I consoled myself with the assurance that he would pardon me in view of the fact that I was acting in the interest of the mother-country.
My escort placed me on board a steamer bound for Hull, with an intimation to the captain that my irons were not to be struck off till the ship was out of the Elbe.