For the next three quarters of an hour he was hard at it, his audience listening in almost unbroken silence. Following his plunge from the deck of the Zug, he was in the water forty minutes before he was picked up by a Portuguese "mulutta"—a fishing-boat whose chief characteristic is the large number of fantastically-shaped sails she carries. It was doubtless the presence of the fishing-boat that deterred the Zug's crew from putting about and opening fire upon the swimmer; but Villiers had not observed the presence of his rescuers until the tramp was hull down.
The fishermen treated him very kindly, and eventually landed him at Figuera, a Portuguese harbour about one hundred miles north of Lisbon. A hospitable merchant rendered him every possible assistance and provided him with money sufficient to enable him to reach Algeciras, which he did after a long and circuitous railway journey which, in Villiers' opinion, embraced the greater part of Portugal and Spain. At Algeciras he was fortunate in catching the last ferry-boat for that day across to the Rock, and during the six-mile passage across the Bay of Gibraltar he saw, to his unbounded delight, the Titania putting in and dropping anchor off the Old Mole.
"I'm afraid," observed Harborough, when Villiers had finished his narrative, "that you expended a lot of unnecessary zeal over that attaché-case."
"Oh!" exclaimed Jack doubtfully. "Why?"
"Because it was a fake," explained Harborough. "I did not mention it at the time, because it was my secret. I intended doing so immediately we left England. These plans and charts are false. I knew that someone was after the real charts, and I took precautions accordingly. I expected they would be stolen, and they were. In order to make sure that they were stolen and not accidentally lost, you remember, I offered a substantial reward. But they were not returned—hence it was reasonable to assume that they were deliberately stolen by our rivals. You have proved that such was the case. I only hope your late host, Herr Strauss, acts upon them."
"I believe the fellow is identical with Kristian Borgen," said Villiers. "In fact, I chucked it in his teeth."
"And he denied it?"
"He did."
"Then he told the truth," declared Harborough. "He is acting under the fellow Borgen's orders, but Borgen was in Southampton when we left; consequently he couldn't have been on the Zug when she sailed. And we've enough evidence now to get the Zug detained and her crew put under arrest at the first port she touches."
"Don't do that," said Villiers. "It would spoil a lot of sport. Just fancy those fellows thinking they're doing us, and all the while acting on faked information. Their punishment will be found in their disappointment. Personally, I'd like to have five minutes with the gentleman who sand-bagged me, but I'm quite content to let the rival crush have a run for its money."