“If you were to abandon your present task and fail to offer satisfactory explanations—if you were to attempt to settle down in America, your extradition, I presume, would at once be applied for. You would be given no second chance.”
“I should be shot without a moment’s hesitation,” Watson admitted grimly.
“Exactly; and there is, I believe, another contingency. If you should succeed in your present enterprise, which, I presume, is my extermination, you would obtain your freedom.”
The man on the lounge nodded. A species of despair was upon him. This man was his master in all ways. He would be his master to the end.
“That brings us,” Mr. Sabin continued, “to my proposition. I must admit that the details I have not fully thought out yet, but that is a matter of only half an hour or so. I propose that you should kill me in Boston Harbour and escape to your man-of-war. They will, of course, refuse to give you up, and on your return to Germany you will receive your freedom.”
“But—but you,” Watson exclaimed, bewildered, “you don’t want to be killed, surely?”
“I do not intend to be—actually,” Mr. Sabin explained. “Exactly how I am going to manage it I can’t tell you just now, but it will be quite easy. I shall be dead to the belief of everybody on board here except the captain, and he will be our accomplice. I shall remain hidden until your Kaiser Wilhelm has left, and when I do land in America—it shall not be as Mr. Sabin.”
Watson rose to his feet He was a transformed man. A sudden hope had brightened his face. His eyes were on fire.
“It is a wonderful scheme!” he exclaimed. “But the captain—surely he will never consent to help?”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Sabin answered, “he will do it for the asking. There is not a single difficulty which we cannot easily surmount.”