Heinrich Hilliger looked down into the depths and saw the boat as he passed along the edge of the cliff and made his way through the heather to the ruin. He gave a long, low whistle and a whistle came back to him in response.
"You have managed it, then!" cried a young voice; and from beyond a corner of the grey stone wall his son Max ran out, dressed in the uniform of a German naval officer.
The father and son embraced. Then Max laughed, looking at his father in amusement.
"It's as well you gave me the signal," he said, speaking in German. "I should hardly have known you without your beard. Well, you have been to Haddisport? What news of Fritz?"
"The worst news," answered Herr Hilliger. "He was caught. He was taken to prison. More than that, when we bombarded the town, one of our shells struck the prison-house and poor Fritz was killed! It seems like fate."
"Killed! By our own guns! Father, are you sure?"
"Absolutely. It is in the newspapers, and I have had confirmation of it from Old Croucher, whom I met outside Sunnydene. He did not recognise me; but he saved me the risk of showing myself in the town."
Max clenched and unclenched his hands.
"This is what comes of the silly, useless notion of bombarding open towns!" he declared. "What good has it done, to knock a few shops and hotels to pieces, to smash the windows of a few seaside villas, and to take the lives of a lot of innocent women and children? There was no military advantage in it! You have not even frightened the English people. They are only laughing at us for using our battleships to fire their shells into unfortified places instead of going out boldly to face the enemy in a fair and open fight!"
"You forget, my son," returned Herr Hilliger, "we sank a British submarine; we sowed many hundreds of explosive mines. There was some good in that, eh?"