". . . clockwork arrangement that may raise your name as an inventor to the nth power. The Ken—— . . .
". . . shall hear of her destruction at the time appointed.
". . . for the German Fatherland."
"I am told that you, Morgan, have some knowledge of the dastardly work of this spy, Franz Linder. Is it so?" asked Captain Trevor suggestively.
"Oh, sir!" cried the young fellow, in excitement, "I believe I know what is referred to here by Linder's correspondent, as 'the water-wheel bomb.' That is what he blew up the Elmvale dam with!"
"Do you think, from what the woman on the island said, that there is some plot afoot against the Kennebunk?" went on the commander.
"It's referred to right here!" declared the excited Whistler. "This 'clockwork' thing. Oh, Mr. MacMasters!" he added, turning abruptly to the ensign. "You know some of the crew, before we left to carry poor Grant to the hospital, were bothering about a sound they had heard on the lower deck? Remember Seven Knott's ghost?"
"Right!" declared the ensign. "I had forgotten it, Captain Trevor," he added. "Something about a clock ticking."
"I have heard it myself," Whistler said eagerly. "And the boys say they have been hearing it, off and on, while we were gone."
"Do you two mean to intimate that there is a time bomb, or some such infernal machine, aboard this ship?" demanded Captain Trevor, in contemptuous amazement.