“And you will save yourself?”
“I don’t know,” said Trent hesitating. But he knew that Kaufmann had made such threats as these to others and had gained his desires. “What’s in those papers?”
“Dye formulae,” smiled the elder man.
Anthony Trent looked at him angrily. His nerves were on edge. Plainly Kaufmann felt it unwise to stir the smouldering passion in him.
“England,” he informed the other, “has recently reorganized the mine fields outside Sheerness at the mouth of the Thames. Commander Heathcote, who is here ostensibly to recuperate from wounds, is chosen to carry the plans to the Navy Department. There you have all I know.”
“But that’s treachery!” Trent cried.
“What’s England to you,” Kaufmann answered, “or you to England? I’m not asking you to take American plans.”
“It’s the same thing now,” Trent persisted. “We’re allies and what’s treachery to one is treachery to the other.”
“Admirable!” Kaufmann sneered, “admirable! But I invite you to come down to mother earth. You are not concerned with the affairs of nations. You are concerned only with your own safety which is the nearer task. You get those plans or you go to prison. You realize my power. I need you. You may ask why I have gone to this trouble to take you, a stranger, more or less into my confidence. Very well. I shall tell you. My own men are working like slaves in your accursed internment camps and I am alone who had so many to command.”
“Alone,” said Anthony Trent in an altered voice and looked at him oddly.