He leaned heavily on his niece, and she helped him down the ladder. She watched him as he stumbled along the narrow path in the darkness. He called to her, but she did not follow him to the cottage. Instead, she went to the palings and scrambled over into the high road. She surmised that she had surprised a most important secret, one which she felt must be communicated at once to head-quarters. It was absolutely necessary that Captain Harper should know of this. By warning him in time she might prevent some great disaster. She must get to the Camp as quickly as possible. It was late, long past eleven o'clock (Mr. Hockheimer had had no compunction in keeping his niece out of bed to mind his business), and the night was moonless. Pamela shuddered as she thought of the long, lonely walk before her. Could she find the Camp in the dark? A sudden inspiration struck her. She would hurry to the Watsons instead and ask one of the boys to go on a bicycle. She ran almost all the way along the familiar road to Walden. She found the house shut up and the family gone to bed, but she made a rat-tat with the knocker that soon roused them.
"What is it?" cried David out of the window.
"It's I—Pamela! I've brought news!" she gasped.
The Watsons were downstairs directly. They listened breathlessly to the story she had to tell. David and Anthony hurried to the outhouse for their bicycles, and set off at once for the Camp to find Captain Harper. Who could say how much might depend on their speed?
Pamela watched them go with a feeling of intense relief. Her part of the business was finished; she had now set the machinery in motion that would accomplish the rest. The reaction after the intense strain was so great that she burst into tears.
"I must go home!" she sobbed. "Mother will think I am lost!"
"Daphne and I will go with you. I can't let you walk back alone at this time of night," said Mrs. Watson kindly. "If you'll take my advice, dear, you'll tell your mother everything now. She ought to know."
Pamela's friends escorted her to the door of Moss Cottage and left her there. What explanation she gave to her mother they never knew. They feared there was great unpleasantness in store for the Reynolds, for Mr. Hockheimer was sure to be arrested, and the fact that it must be through his niece's instrumentality only seemed to make matters worse. David and Anthony returned with the news that they had roused Captain Harper at the Camp, and that after reading the message he had ridden off immediately upon his motor bicycle. They went to bed wondering what would be happening while they slept.
The boys looked out for Pamela next morning on the road to the station, but she was not there. The train for once went without her. They spent an agitated day at school and hurried back from Netherton that afternoon at topmost speed. They found Captain Harper in the garden at Walden. He looked very grave.
"Do you know what that message was you brought me?" he asked. "Translated into English it meant, 'U-boat in Channel to-night. Show light on Berry Head.' I hear a certain important vessel had an extremely narrow escape last night. The wireless apparatus at Moss Cottage has been taken down already. The police went up there this morning."