"No one knows of it, child. And I have not done anything if they did. Beside, would you have me, the leader of the whole movement, shirk the danger now that the hour has come?"
"It may get to be known that you were at Herr Ziegler's house last night."
"I went to prevent violence, child. That is surely no crime."
"And you are placing Herr Bastable in danger by remaining here."
"Is it not his duty to run risks in the cause? Is he to be the only man to venture nothing for our country? Danger, indeed," he cried indignantly. "Have we not all suffered? What of my own sufferings?" and he was off again on his favourite topic when I interrupted him.
"Have you any commands in regard to the forthcoming attack?"
"Ah, that will be a stroke; and it is my own conception"; and as the wind will turn a straw, he went off to the fresh subject and spoke at length about it.
It appeared that a new cruiser, the Wundervoll, had just been launched; and the intention was to wreck her as she lay waiting to be taken to be fitted up. The bomb which, thank Heaven, lay at the bottom of the Spree was to do the mischief, and the exact details of the plan as to time and means were to be discussed and settled at a forthcoming meeting of some of the more reckless men of the party.
A very little ingenuity succeeded in extracting from him the place of the meeting--a house on the riverside which had been taken by them, ostensibly for some business purposes. But the time of the meeting he did not appear to know.
"I shall learn that in due course. They cannot move without me; for I trust no one but myself with the means. But it will not be yet for some days."