Max had fixed his gaze into the glowing coals of the open stove. Suddenly he looked up once again into his uncle's face.
"But, suppose, sir, that there are women and children in the ship; are they, too, to be sacrificed?" he quietly asked.
Admiral von Hilliger gasped in astonishment at the suggestion.
"Women?" he cried. "Will you never understand that women can be as mischievous as men? Do you not realise that our enemies' children will grow up to be enemy men and women? Bah! Do not make such a mistake. We are engaged in war, and war has its necessities. The British people know their own danger. If they go upon the seas, it is at their own risks. We cannot discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. All, indeed, are guilty if they so much as set foot upon a British ship."
He strode to and fro restlessly in front of the stove.
"And now," he pursued, after a pause, "what else have you done? What have you learnt of the enemy's navy? You have been along their coasts; you have entered their rivers and peeped into their harbours. Where are their battleships?"
"It would be easier to tell you where they are not," returned Max. "They are not assembled in the Straits of Dover, or off the Dogger Bank, or off Haddisport. We have not been able to find them. And yet, mein Herr, I will undertake to say that if our own Great High Sea Fleet were to sally out beyond the protection of our mine-fields it would not go far before a squadron of British Dreadnoughts flashed out to give battle."
Admiral von Hilliger laughed awkwardly.
"My dear Max," he said with forced lightness, "I perceive that you are still tainted with your false ideas of Britain's strength upon the seas. You must remember that our German fleet is as yet practically intact. We are as strong as we were at the beginning of the war, and as ready to meet the British whenever they choose to come out of their hiding-places. What you tell me is satisfactory, however. You assure me once again that the enemy are in close hiding and that they are afraid to come out and meet us in a pitched battle. Your remark that they will pounce upon us, once we leave the protection of our mine-fields, is very funny. Already they have proved many times that they prefer the security of their own harbours rather than the risk of facing our guns. We have given them chances; we will give them chances again. But not in the way they would wish. Listen, my dear Max, I will tell you something."
Max went nearer to him. The admiral cautiously lowered his voice.