CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TRUTH REVEALED.
I will here resume my own narrative.
When I came to myself I was dazed and aching, but, so far as I could discover, there were no bones broken. The curious part about it was the rapidity with which I recalled my fall into the cavern. When I found I could move my limbs freely I sat up, and discovered that I was in a small cabin on board a steamer. I stood up and stretched myself. I was feeling weak and ill, but that would pass off I thought. A minute’s speculation decided me that I was on board the Fiona, in which case I was shanghaied.
I knew that if I valued my life I must act at once. I opened the door of the cabin, and was surprised to find that it was unlocked. Then I crept cautiously in the shadows of the dawn up the companion-ladder to the deck. Though I heard voices I could see no one close to me. I stole along the deck and listened. The voices were talking quite freely in German. Where could we be? And, more important still, where were we going?
I looked around me, and saw that we were steaming slowly down a narrow loch, surrounded by mountains which stretched right down to the shores. I looked across the deck and almost shouted out in my surprise. For there, moving gracefully alongside of us, was a submarine. There were two officers on the deck of the submarine chatting with Hilderman and Fuller, who were leaning over the rail of the Fiona. A submarine! A German submarine in a peaceful Scottish loch! Then this was the secret base we had discussed. I looked up at the wheel-house. In front of it was the very searchlight, with its curious condenser that I had seen in the cavern.
What could it mean? I decided to slip overboard unseen, if possible, swim to the shore, and get back over the rocks to the mouth of the loch, and give the alarm if I should be fortunate enough to attract the attention of any passing steamer.
But suddenly an idea struck me. I crept quickly up the ladder to the deckhouse, threw my arms round the man at the wheel, flung him down on to the deck, and swung the wheel round with all the strength I had in me. There was a dull, crunching sound as the yacht lurched round. A groaning shiver shook her, and, if I may be pardoned the illustration, it felt exactly as if the ship were going to be sick. There were hoarse cries from the men, and as the Fiona righted herself I looked astern. There was a frothy, many-coloured effervescence of oil and water.