The life was not altogether exciting, however, for there were many days of tedious watching and waiting in which it seemed that the Hun boats had all scurried back to their bases and the patrols scarcely raised a porpoise, much less one of the “steel sharks of the sea.”
At Brest, well along in the month following the introduction of George Belding to the Colodia, the young fellow from New York got a cablegram from his father mentioning the date of the Redbird’s sailing for Bahia with his own family and Philip Morgan’s sisters aboard.
Whether the treasure of gold coin was to be part of the ship’s burthen or not, the cablegram did not state. George had written his father about his lost letters and papers and of the probability that the knowledge of the treasure would reach those Germans who would consider the ship bound for South America, and all she carried, their legitimate prey.
If information of the treasure of gold coin had been sent by the spy from the Zeppelin to his associates in the United States, there might be already afoot a plot to get possession of Mr. Belding’s gold. The boys of the Colodia had not heard of the capture of the spy who had disappeared in George Belding’s uniform. Much as they had inquired in England, they had been able to learn absolutely nothing.
Phil Morgan had even been to see Franz Eberhardt at the port hospital where the young German was confined while his arm was being skilfully treated by the English surgeons. Later the German youth had been taken to an internment camp in one of the back shires. Before he had gone Whistler had tried to get him to talk again about “Cousin Emil.” But Franz had become wary.
He was no longer acting “the schmardie,” as Hans Hertig had called him. He had begun to see something of England and had learned something of the character of the English. To be a prisoner, and well treated as he was, was a much more serious situation than had at first appeared.
But he refused to say anything at all of Cousin Emil. Whether it really was Franz Eberhardt’s cousin with whom the Navy Boys and “Willum” Johnson had had their adventure, the fact remained that as far as the boys knew, a German spy was at large in England, And he had information in his possession that might possibly injure Mr. Belding and his affairs.
The Seacove boys were all now interested in the sailing of the Redbird. If Whistler’s two sisters alone had been sailing for Bahia the others would have felt a personal anxiety in the matter.
“Wish the old Colodia was going to convoy that Redbird,” Al Torrance said. “Eh, fellows?”
“By St. Patrick’s piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!” declared Frenchy Donahue, “’twould be the foinest of luck if she was.”