"While I'm in a horrible perspiration," confessed Alec, mopping his brow. Then he seemed to see some fun in the matter, and grinned at his comrade.
"All the same it was a good lesson for Mr. Reitberg," he cried. "Odious toad that he is. He didn't know that the bombs were empty, now, did he? He didn't look like it. That's why he funked. That's why he went under."
Mr. Andrew rose from his chair, and took each of the lads in turn by the hand.
"We owe you many apologies," he said earnestly. "I can't forgive myself for what has happened. But there are excuses. I did not know, Joe was kept in ignorance, even the Major and the Commander knew nothing of this matter till the very beginning of dinner. Then Sergeant Evans told us. We owe our safety to him, to his watchfulness—though I know you also have watched—to his cleverness, and to the experience he had in South Africa. There! I am sorry. But it was fine to see the manner in which you two behaved."
"Magnificent!" declared the Major.
"I shall report it," cried the Commander, gripping Dick's hand. "A fine example of the spirit which all naval men should show. Alec, shake hands."
"Now, tell us the whole tale, Sergeant Evans," demanded Joe, while Dick and Alec, now completely mollified, took their places at the table. Indeed, dinner proceeded much as usual, but for the fact that the Sergeant, while attending upon the diners, told them his tale crisply and shortly.
"I knew him, this Mr. Carl Reitberg," he began in the politest tones. In fact, you would not have imagined that he had any other but the highest opinion of the individual to whom he referred. Certainly his tones showed no trace of satire, of disgust, or even of anger.
"His name was different out in the Transvaal," he proceeded. "He was a suspected person, and as such came under the notice of the police, that is, the civil police. He was supposed to be an I.D.B., otherwise an illicit diamond buyer. But he was more. We military police suspected him of dealings with the Boers. We watched him, and he escaped, and left the country. It was natural, then, that I should suspect him when I found him here under another name. I watched him, gentlemen, watched him through a peephole cut in the wall of his cabin, which is next the pantry. He had a box with him, a suspicious box, filled with valuables as he said. I investigated the contents of that box."
"But, pardon for the interruption, Sergeant. That box was sealed," remarked Mr. Andrew, with a lift of his white eyebrows.