“Not I,” said Wahr.
“Nor me,” said Nicht.
At that moment Wahr picked up the tell-tale object of their unhappy admiral’s undoing.
“It is one of our own balls,” he said, with an odious glance toward Weiss Nicht. “Here is the name—Tonans.”
“Oh, you villain!” cried Ruhet, shaking his fist at the unhappy gunner’s mate. “You shall be hanged at the yard-arm for this. You were always mutinous, anyway.”
But at that moment, as is the custom of mankind, curiosity overcame pain in Hier Ruhet, admiral, of the Iupiter Tonans.
“How did he get it here, Wahr?”
For a moment—just a moment—Wahr was stalled.
“Sire,” he temporized, “I have been thinking—”
“Well, stop it and tell me how he got it here. That is what I want of you. Not reflections. Weren’t you looking?”