“The English Channel!” scoffed Von Halwig. “The impudence of you verdammt——No, it’s foolish to lose one’s temper. Well, I’ll explain. The really important part of the English Channel is about to become German. For a little time we leave you the surface, but Germany will own the rest. Your navy is about to receive a horrible surprise. We’ve caught you napping. While Britain was ruling the sea we Germans have been experimenting with it. Our visible fleet is good, but not good enough, so we allowed your naval superiority to keep you quiet until we had perfected our invisible fleet. We are ready now. We possess three submarines to your one; and can build more, and bigger, and better under-sea boats than you. Do you realise what that means? Already we have sunk four of your best cruisers, and they never saw the vessel that destroyed them. We are playing havoc with your mercantile marine. Britain is girdled with mines and torpedoes. No ship can enter or leave any of your ports without incurring the almost unavoidable risk of——”
A rat scampered across one of the speaker’s feet, and startled him.
He swore, dropped the cigarette, and lighted another, the third. Like every junior officer of the German corps d’élite, he had sedulously copied the manners and bearing of the commissioned ranks in the British army. But your true German is neurotic; the rat had scratched the veneer. Meanwhile the rope rose quickly half-way to the trap-door; it fell again when Von Halwig donned the prophet’s mantle once more.
“We can not only ruin and starve you,” he said exultantly, “but we have guns which will beat a way for our troops from Calais to Dover against all the ships you dare mass in those waters. We have you bested in every way. Each German company takes the field with more machine-guns than a British regiment. We have high explosives you never heard of. While you were playing polo and golf our chemists were busy in their laboratories.”
His voice rose as he reeled off this litany of war. His perfect command of English was not proof against the guttural clank and crash of German. He became a veritable German talking English, rather than an accomplished linguist using a foreign tongue. Oddly enough, his next tirade showed that he was half-aware of the change. “Old England is done, Captain Dalroy,” he chanted. “Young Germany is about to take her place. The world must learn to speak German, not English. Six months from now I’ll begin to forget your makeshift language. Six months from now the German Eagle will flaunt in the breeze as securely in London as it flies to-day in Berlin and Brussels, and, it may be, in Paris. If I’m lucky, and get through the war——Gott in Himm——”
With a sudden vicious swoop the noose settled on Von Halwig’s shoulders, and was jerked taut. A master-hand made that cast. No American cowboy ever placed lasso more neatly on the horns of unruly steer. At one instant the rope was swinging back and forth noiselessly; at the next, rising under the impetus of a gentle flick, it whirled over the Prussian’s head and tightened around his neck. He tore madly at it with both hands, but was already lifted off his feet, and in process of being hauled upward with an almost incredible rapidity. There was a momentary delay when his head reached the level of the trap-door; but Dalroy distinctly saw two hands grasp the struggling arms and heave the Guardsman’s long body out of sight.
An astounding feature of this tragic episode was the absence of any outcry on the victim’s part. He uttered no sound other than a stifled gurgle after that half-completed exclamation was stilled. Possibly, his dazed wits concentrated on the one frantic endeavour—to get rid of that horrible choking thing which had clutched at him from out of the surrounding obscurity.
And now a thick knotted rope plumped down until its end lay on the floor, and a rough-looking fellow, clothed like Maertz or Dalroy himself, descended with the ease and agility of a monkey. He was just the kind of shaggy goblin one might expect to emerge from any such hiding-place; but he carried a slung rifle, and the bewildered prisoner, taking a few steps forward to greet his rescuer, realised that the weapon was a Lee-Enfield of the latest British army pattern.
“’Arf a mo’, sir,” gurgled the new-comer in a husky and cheerful whisper. “I’ll ’old the rope till the next of ahr little knot ’as shinned dahn. Then I’ll cut yer loose, an’ we’ll get the wind up ahtside. Didjever ’ear such a gas-bag as that bloomin’ Jarman? Lord luv’ a duck, ’e couldn’t ’arf tork! But Shiney Black, one of ahrs, ’as just shoved a bynit through ’is gizzard, so that cock won’t crow agine!”