"Speak of the dickens," he exclaimed, "here he comes now."
The shadows of evening continued to gather, and here and there on the island lights showed like glowworms. Roque shook hands with his officer companions. He evidently contemplated leaving in the same impetuous way that he came, but evidently not by the seaplane route.
A little steam launch tugged at its holding rope, in readiness to dash away into the misty deep. Two men muffled to the throat waited the order. Roque, with never a word to the boys, directed them by gestures to get aboard, quickly following. The launch cut through the now pitchy darkness of the Helgoland waters. With the island lights no longer visible, there could only be seen the lantern in front of the little boat, and it was a dangerous speed to be making, when the helmsman had scant view of hardly a yard ahead.
But the man at the wheel was in familiar element, to him, and the scudding vessel never came to drift movement until a glimmering signal guided to the landing place, the name of which would have meant nothing to the boys if they had had the care to inquire.
This was Christmas night in the Bight of Helgoland.
CHAPTER III.
A THRILLING MOMENT.
Under oak rafters, festooned with dried herbs, and toasting their feet at the cheery blaze of an open, roaring fire, the boys regained the Christmas spirit that had been sorely subdued in the previous dismal hour in the wave-tossed launch.
The house that had thrown open a hospitable door at the bidding of Roque overlooked the bay, and its solid walls had resisted the storms of a half-century. Mine host, Spitznagle, had he been dressed for the part, would have come very near to the Santa Claus idea, and even as he was, some of the idea hung about him in a radiant circle.