Kennedy, who knew something of mining, had noticed that half-way along the working a quantity of earth had been left for the purpose of tamping the gallery, in order that the force of the explosion should go upward, and not come back along the subterranean passage. Before the Kaiser’s secret agents exploded the mine they would, no doubt, fill up the gallery at that point before completing the electric circuit.
It was evident that on that night the four men had made a final inspection before exploding the mine.
Therefore, quite confident in what they had achieved, Ella and her lover crept back, and away through the wood to where they had left the car.
At six o’clock on the following morning, the Victoria Hotel in Sheffield being always open, Ella entered alone, and ascended to her room.
Next evening at half-past seven she met her lover again in the Ecclesall Road, and he drove her out in the car away through Eckington and Clowne, to the wood from which they had watched on the previous night.
The weather was muggy and overcast, with low, heavy clouds precursory of a thunderstorm.
There was plenty of time. The attempt would probably be made at half-past eleven when the munition train passed through, it being intended to explode the whole train as well as the mine in the heart of the tunnel, so as to produce a terrific upheaval by which the tunnel would be blocked for, perhaps, a mile.
Arrived at the edge of the wood, in sight of the lawn and house beyond, soon after ten o’clock, the lovers sat together upon a fallen tree conversing in whispers, and awaiting the result of the counterplot.
They were, however, in ignorance of what was transpiring within the house.
Truth to tell, Ortmann and Drost were at that moment in one of the servants’ bedrooms upstairs, which had been cleared out, and where, upon a long table, stood a complete wireless set both for receiving and transmission.