“That’s the fellow!” cried Whistler. “Do you mean to say he is your cousin Emil, and a spy?”
“Oh, no, my friend,” chuckled the “schmardie.” “Oh, no. I do not say that. I merely say that man with the little beard on his lip—a goatee, do you call it?—plays the cornet. You know, most cornet players wear the little goatee, isn’t it so?”
Eberhardt laughed again and wagged his head, refusing to say more. As for thanking Whistler for what he and Belding had done toward saving his life, such a thought never seemed to enter the German youth’s mind.
CHAPTER X—THE TERROR OF THE SEAS
Phil Morgan, on thinking over the conversation with Franz Eberhardt, was not at all sure that he should have discussed the wreck of the other Zeppelin so freely with the prisoner. Yet Eberhardt was a prisoner, and was not likely to be in a position to use any information he might have gained to benefit his nation for a long time to come. If Eberhardt’s cousin was a spy, perhaps this young chap was one too.
The hint Franz had dropped about the man who had escaped from the Zeppelin that had been brought down on land, Whistler passed on, through the proper channels, to the commander of the destroyer. He could do no more than that. Possibly the man who had tied up George Belding and escaped in the latter’s clothes, might be the “Cousin Emil” of whom Franz was so proud.
The Colodia steamed into the port at which she was stationed to find the convoy and most of the naval vessels cleared out to accompany the merchant craft. The American destroyer would be held for any emergency call and there would be no present shore leave for her crew.
Phil received a long letter, one long delayed, from his sister Alice. The whole story of how the Beldings had come to invite Whistler’s two sisters to accompany them to Bahia was here set forth, and the young fellow’s mind was much relieved when Alice assured him that even the suggestion of the voyage had so delighted Phoebe that she already showed improvement in her health.
Kind words from many neighbors and friends were included in the letter for the other Seacove boys. Of course, Alice did not know at the time of writing that George Belding was booked for a billet on the Colodia, too, or she would have sent a message to him.
No thought that the Redbird might come to grief on her voyage to the South American port seemed to trouble Alice Morgan’s mind when she wrote to her brother. At that time it was thought all German raiders and U-boats were driven from the Western Atlantic waters.