"You are----?"
"Lieutnant Hoffmeier of the Swiss Lake Patrol----"
She raised her head, blankly staring at him and then as he caught her in his arms--suddenly relaxed.
CHAPTER XXVI
FINIS
The navy of land-locked Switzerland has always been a subject for jest among nations that go down to the sea in ships. But the patrol service of Lake Constance, which guards the line running midway down the length of the lake against illegality--the smuggling of arms and ammunition, the use of improper passports, and all the illicit dealings that are a part of the secret operations of nations at war, has been and continues to be a highly efficient force in the preservation of neutral relations.
Herr Lieutnant Hoffmeier, no lover, in spite of his name, of methods Teutonic, took as great a pride in his craft as though she had been a twenty thousand ton battleship, as much joy in his two small deck rifles as though they had been thirty-eight centimeters in caliber. It was his business to watch the lake for signs of suspicious craft and especially to note the movement of the German Government vessels at Lindau and Friedrichshafen. So that when the German Patrol emerged from Lindau, vomiting black smoke, he came out at once, assured that the two small fishing boats that he had been watching for some moments crossing in the storm were the objects of German attention. The round shots sent as warning aroused him to greater interest, especially as now it was clear that the sail-boats had reached Swiss waters. over which Herr Lieutnant Hoffmeier had dominion. He was somewhat jealous of his authority and found himself growing warm as the firing proceeded, quite in contravention of international agreements.
And so, just to show that he was on the job, and not lightly to be considered, he had his bow-gun cast loose and fired one shot well to windward of the pursuing boat. The sail-boats were now easily visible to the Herr Lieutnant with the naked eye and he noted with amazement the crashing of the two boats together, the reports of fire-arms and the fight that followed, in which one man had gone overboard. And so when he got within hailing distance, he shouted to the occupants of one sail-boat which had now swung clear, but got no answer. So he gave several quick orders and when his vessel lost way, jumped into his gig, which was swung overside, and pulled rapidly to the badly sailing lugger.
There was a girl at the helm, a very beautiful girl with reddish-brown hair, who looked at him blankly and refused to relinquish the helm. She was bewildered and terrified and after a brief question fainted in his arms. In the bottom of the boat at her feet a man lay, bleeding from a wound in his body, and forward, in the wash of the water the boat had shipped, another woman, dead.
The Herr Lieutnant took the helm and brought the lugger alongside the gangway of his craft, where with the help of his gig crew the unconscious girl, the wounded man and the dead woman were carried upon deck, his boatswain also bringing up from the lugger a black robe and a large valise which weighed heavily. Lieutnant Hoffmeier gave some brief orders--a restorative for the girl, first aid for the wounded man, who though desperately hurt, had a chance for life; then mounted his bridge and took down his megaphone, for the German patrol-boat had drawn up within a cable's length and was now lowering a boat to come aboard him.