“We’ll go out and look for him first thing to-morrow morning,” said Eric, cheerfully. But his grandfather was looking very grave.
“It is really a very serious matter,” he said, turning to William Mendel. “They say there’s an enemy submarine in the Irish Sea. Another liner was sunk this morning, only a few miles from here. That’s the eighth ship they’ve got near here in the last few weeks. I was speaking to the police, this morning, who say they suspect a base somewhere, at which this boat gets its supply of petrol. Otherwise it could not possibly remain so long in enemy waters. But it must be an extraordinarily clever arrangement, when one considers how well the coast is guarded. I don’t know what can have led them to suspect the spy’s presence in this neighbourhood.”
“No,” said William Mendel, “That’s what struck me. There would seem to be no hiding-place for him. And as to a base for providing a submarine with petrol about these rocky shores—well, that’s out of the question.”
“Quite,” agreed Sir David, “quite.”
But the spy had given the Cubs an object in life—they were hot on his tracks.
. . . . . . . .
Donald Ford, the Cub who had asked Eric to tell them ghost stories on Christmas Eve, had not given up hope of finding the secret room. In fact, while the others were full of the spy, he still thought most of the secret room. He was not a very strong boy, and often, when the others went out in the frosty air, dashing over the bleak, stony hill through a long afternoon, he would choose to stay in, and sit by the log fire, dreaming, or reading tales of the good old days of knights and dragons and tournaments. It was on an afternoon like this that he discovered the old library.
Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, row upon row. Old brown leather bindings they had, and gold lettering. They smelt very ancient, and were very, very dusty. But Donald loved to take them down, and sit on the floor, looking at their quaint pictures. And it was one day, sitting here in the library, that he made a very wonderful discovery which led to the strange adventure that befell him.
He had found an old book full of pictures of knights and ladies and people going hawking, dressed in curious, old-fashioned clothes. On the fly-leaf of the book was written in a big, childish hand, “Eric Stone, His Booke, 1640.”
Donald turned the old musty pages with interest. So this book had belonged to a boy just about three hundred years ago. As he turned the pages a yellowish paper fluttered from between them, and fell on to the floor. Donald picked it up and examined it. It was covered with writing in the same round hand as there was on the fly-leaf. And this is what he read: