Darby was a good shot, and he had brought down the bird, which had fluttered into the sea hardly a score of yards from the trawler's starboard side.
The skipper made no demur when asked to reverse the engines. The boat was lowered, and Darby secured his prize. But his disappointment was great when he discovered that the bird was not a tern, or a web-footed sea bird of any species, but an ordinary domestic pigeon. He was on the point of casting it back into the sea when Redisham checked him.
"Wait!" cried Mark. "Which way was it flying?"
Darby looked at him in perplexity.
"What's your idea?" he questioned. "It was flying from north-east to south-west."
"Just what I guessed," returned Mark, with a significant nod. "It was going towards Haddisport from the Dutch ketch. It's one of Max Hilliger's pigeons. Let's have a look at it."
They examined the dead bird, and sure enough they discovered a strip of thin paper bandaged round one of the legs. The writing upon it was in minute shorthand.
"It's German!" declared Mark. "We must give it up to some naval officer to translate. I'll keep it in my pocket-book, shall I—till we get home?"
"Perhaps it came off the steamer, and not the ketch," suggested Darby.
They turned to look for the steamship, and saw her steaming southward, across their own wake. Although she was many miles away, it was possible now to distinguish her name, for the sunlight was upon her. They spelled out the words Minna von Barnhelm.