"Then, while I live, I ask you to say nothing whatever of my part in this affair. I wish it kept as secret as possible; some little part must leak out; there will be investigations, public trials, and so forth. But much can be kept secret, and it rests with you and Thumbwood. And as I have your promise, my mind is at rest."
"But this is madness, Danjuro! You are owed the thanks of two continents. You ..."
He interrupted me.
"I want nothing of the sort. I have had your thanks, and that is sufficient. The work itself is enough. My usefulness to Mr. Van Adams, the endeavour of my whole life, would be destroyed if anything were known."
Reluctantly I promised. "But Mr. Van Adams, I shall tell him everything!" I said.
Danjuro bowed his head. A faint flush came into his yellow face. "If you think I have done anything worth it," he replied, with a curious and touching silence.
And this was the man with the panther in his soul! For the American millionaire he had supreme love, with devotion—worship—and for no one and nothing else on earth above or below it.
A man with a single obsession, a man of one idea. Well, most of the great men in life have been that....
I steered for Plymouth at full speed, coming down to three thousand feet. In a flash the jagged coast, fringed with a thin line of white, came clear to view. We sped from the Atlantic, over the narrow peninsula of land which divides it from the Channel, and then turned east. The Bay, with St. Michael's Mount looking like a tiny white pebble, gave place to the long, menacing snout of the Lizard, and, as a few minutes later we neared Falmouth, a flight of airships rose from the water of that mighty harbour and came up to join us like a flock of gulls, the big Klaxon electric horns blaring a welcome. Dead Man's Rock and Gall Island, Looe, Mevagissey, Fowey—all slipped away astern, and the bluff outlines of Rame Head, from which the Devon watchers first signalled the Armada, came rushing into view. I had been speeding far ahead, turning back, flying all round the escorting patrol boats, which were doing all they knew, letting them see what a wonder had come into our hands, and rejoicing more and more in the powers of the ship, as I found them one by one. Now I slowed down, and signalled by horn to the leading vessel of the flotilla.
As we turned and entered Plymouth Sound, the others spread themselves out in a great wedge, of which I was leader, like a skein of wild geese upon the wing. A salute of guns boomed out as we flew high on the Breakwater, and all the bells of Plymouth were ringing as I swooped down into the sea-drome.