"I beg to differ," remarked one of the Subs who was standing by. "There's not so much shipping, I'll admit, but the waves are longer and more regular in mid-ocean. It's marvellous what an open boat can do when she's put to it, except in very broken water."
The boats were now approaching the Oxford. A monkey-ladder had been lowered to enable the men to surmount the lofty side of the cruiser, while the sailors, always ready to lend a hand in cases of distress, were swarming down to the net-shelves in readiness to receive the personal belongings of the American seamen.
"Look!" whispered Vernon. "Isn't that chap like our old pal Ramblethorne?"
He pointed to a tall, bronzed man clad in canvas jumper and trousers, and wearing a grey slouched hat. He was sitting in the stern-sheets of the second boat, with his shoulders hunched and his face half-averted.
"Like him?" echoed Ross. "By Jove, it's he, right enough!"
Trefusis was right. Von Hauptwald, alias Ramblethorne, had succeeded in evading the hue and cry after his escape on Harley Bank, and had continued to remain hidden in the house of a naturalized German in Cheshire until the search for him had somewhat relaxed.
He then managed to ship as a fireman on board a vessel bound for Montreal, knowing that his chances of getting out of Great Britain would be greater if he made for a Dominion port rather than one in the United States.
At Montreal he promptly deserted, made his way across the border, and thence to New York. Here he picked up with a German-American shipowner, who readily agreed to help him back to Germany.
A cargo-boat, the Tehuantepec Girl, was loading with a cargo consisting of cotton, ready-made clothing, and leather equipment. Nominally her destination was Leith. Her manifest and bill of lading were made out to that effect, but secretly her skipper had instructions to make for Stockholm. If he were overhauled and taken into Lerwick by a British patrol-boat, well and good. The owners must be compensated by the British Government, even if the Tehuantepec Girl was miles out of her course for Leith. On the other hand, if the boat succeeded in reaching the Baltic, she would be conveniently "captured", by previous arrangement, by a German cruiser or destroyer and taken into Kiel.
Unfortunately the fact of keeping secret the real destination of the Tehuantepec Girl led to her undoing. A German dock-hand, who was really in the pay of the Teutonic Government, had placed an infernal machine in the cargo, setting it to explode two days after leaving New York.