"It"s one o"clock--a little too early to go home. We must go upon the marshes and fire a few shots. I have already three duck to carry home as the result of our labours. But let us have another cigar and wait for twenty minutes."

Again there was the striking of a match.

"Fritz will be all right, I suppose?" said Waechter.

"He will be perfectly all right. Not a soul suspects that there is anyone on board this Hulk, and he"s well hidden in the fo"c"sle. A faithful fellow that!"

"You would say so if you had seen him as I have! He is the cleverest engineer in the whole of our Submarine Service, cunning as one of your own wild geese, and absolutely to be depended upon--unless ..."

"Unless?"

"Well, I"m a good judge of men, and we must take people as we find them.

Chief-officer Fritz Schweitzer is a perfect spy and a first-cla.s.s officer of submarines. Awash or under the surface, he knows no fear. But a little, able-bodied seaman, six weeks ago at Kiel, gave him a thrashing in a Bierhalle till he wept. One thing we must remember to-morrow--everything must be said in German. I like to talk English, as you know. It pleases me to be taken for a sedentary city gentleman, it"s my little vanity, von Vedal, but, for safety"s sake, to-morrow night, when She comes ..."

"Quite so. Have you finished your cigar? Then let us go up on deck and see what the night is like."

There was a slight grating sound and an almost imperceptible swish as the gun-punt swung away from the side of the Hulk, swept round the miniature headland and raced for the mouth of the Miel Creek.

CHAPTER VI

HOW JOHN CAREY FOUGHT WITH THE GERMAN GIANT IN THE SALOON, AND "MR.

JONES" MET UNEXPECTED THINGS IN THE NIGHT

It was five o"clock, low tide in the marsh creeks, and snow was falling lightly.

At high tide, the Doctor"s Hulk rose considerably _above_ the bank of Thirty Main Creek. It was three yards from the solid mud of the salting, and when the bridge was dropped one went up an incline to reach the deck.

Now it was low tide. The deck of the hulk was a good five feet below the margin where I stood with my brother. It was still only three yards away--nine feet--nothing to a very moderate athlete.

By four o"clock the evening had come. By five it was dark as midnight.

Bernard turned behind us to where two people were waiting.

"You quite understand?" he said in a low voice.

I did not turn round; for certain reasons I could not.

"Ready?" Bernard asked.

"Yes, old c.o.c.k," I answered, "and I hope you can jump it!"

I was on my own ground. I had won a lot of pots in the long jump at Oxford. I thought I should rather snaffle Bernard on this job, which was wicked enough. We went back ten yards for the run. The snow was still falling softly and thickly. There was the deep ditch between the bank and the deck of the dim, desolate old Hulk. It looked very ugly, and as I held up my elbows and started the run off, I heard a stifled noise behind me. I knew what it meant, but I would not listen. This was no tune for sentiment.

I took off on the very edge of the yielding mud-bank, leapt downwards in a great curve, lighted full over the bulwark of the Hulk with a thud, slid forward on the ice-bound deck, and was brought up short against the cabin. I wheeled round as a man does after a long slant at Murren. The whole thing did not take more than a second or two.

Turning, I saw Bernard in the air. He lighted as I had done, but his foot slipped before he got his balance and he fell heavily, striking his head against the stump of the main-mast which, with a yard shipped, was used as a derrick to raise the bridge to the marsh.

He fell with a noise like a sack of potatoes. I went up to him, tried to raise him, and found that he was unconscious. Something like warm varnish was oozing out of his head. My fingers dabbled in it. What I thought does not matter. If he was dead, he was dead, though I was pretty certain a tough old bird like Bernard was only stunned. But I had my orders, and I left him where he lay.

I stood up upon that slippery deck and pulled out my magazine pistol. I looked round. There was nothing whatever to be seen but the softly falling snow. I tried a low whistle to the people on the bank, but there was no answer.

It is a good thing to be under discipline. I had my orders, I waited, listened, and heard nothing. Then I crept aft to where a big gla.s.s-roofed cabin had been built out on the deck. There was no light shining through the roof. The door was locked. I listened and there was no sound save the soft, falling noise of the snowflakes.

It was forrard, then, that I must go; and, treading with the greatest caution, I crept towards the bows of the old ship. The fo"c"sle hatchway loomed up before me. With cold, tingling fingers I felt for the door. It opened in the middle, in the usual way, and the hinges swung back as if they had been well oiled. Before me was the companion ladder--a dark well. With my pistol in my hand, I went down the stairs as noiselessly as a cat. I had only got to the bottom when a warm, stuffy smell came to my nostrils. I was in a triangular s.p.a.ce roofed by heavy bulkheads. It was not quite dark, for a long rod of yellow light came from behind the stairs, where there was a door. I went up to it and listened. Everything was perfectly silent.

Then I pushed open the door and entered. What I expected to see, I cannot say, but I was prepared for almost anything. What I did see was entirely unexpected.

I found myself in a long saloon lit by a swivel lamp hanging from the roof. Dark crimson curtains were drawn over windows and possible portholes. The floor was covered with a faded Turkey carpet. Here and there a mirror was let into the wall. I saw a case of books and an excellent photogravure of the King, over a little grate in which glowed a fire of smouldering c.o.ke. There were two or three basket armchairs padded in cretonne. There was a central table, two little smoking-tables, and a sort of buffet at the side of a further door. Upon the buffet were gla.s.ses, syphons, and various bottles. There was a box of cigars upon the central table and a silver cigarette-box upon one of the smaller ones. I had come into a little, luxuriously furnished club-room, which struck upon the senses with an irresistibly homely and pleasant note as I looked round in wild amazement. There was even a bra.s.s kettle on a trivet by the fire, which was singing melodiously to itself. I stared round the place like a child, and caught sight of my face with open eyes and dropping jaws in one of the looking-gla.s.ses.

What was I doing here? What had I tumbled into? What?...

I came back to myself just in time. There was a loud and sudden creak, the yawn of a partly open door. Then--Bang!

The gilt-framed mirror in which I had been gazing at myself smashed in the centre and starred all round, as something whizzed past my head with a ricochet.

Instinctively I crouched down upon the carpet, wheeling round as I did so.

The door at the opposite end of the saloon had been slid back. In the rather dim light from the hanging lamp, I saw a great, bearded, whiskered face, red, and framed in a fury of lint-coloured hair. It seemed just like a gorilla turned white and malevolent in a sudden ray of sunshine.

There was another deafening explosion: One! Two! Three! and the furious noise in the confined s.p.a.ce of the cabin filled me with something of its own rage. I saw red. The warm and evil silence of this comfortable place had frightened me far more than this onslaught. Unharmed, I leapt to my feet.

As I did so, I saw that the man in the dark oblong beyond was feverishly pressing a clip into his magazine pistol. He would be at me again in a second, but I caught up one of the smoking-tables, heavy as it was, and charged him.

The table was iron, covered with beaten copper. I ran at the creature like a bull, and as he advanced a yard into the room I was on him with a frightful crash and down he went.

I fell also on to the tripod of the table and bruised myself badly, but I was too angry to think of that. I tore my shoulder from it and flung it to the other side of the saloon. The man growled like a mastiff, half rose from the floor, and then I had him by the throat.

I am a strong man; I think I said that at the beginning of this narrative. What I mean is that I could out almost any Sandow pup in no time. But as I caught this hairy-faced creature by the throat and felt his arms seeking for mine, then I knew that I was in for the time of my life. My hands sank into the great, muscular system of his neck. My thumbs were pressed on each side of the Adam"s apple--j.a.panese fashion--and my fingers were feeling upwards for the final pressure on the jugular vein.

But, with all my weight upon him, he was so strong from the waist up, there was such a resilience in the ma.s.sive torso, that he rose slowly, as if pressed by some hydraulic piston. As he rose, my legs slithered backwards. I tried to get some purchase with my toes to force him back, but it was useless. He came up almost to a sitting posture. Great hairy hands felt for my ears, and for a moment I thought it was all U.P.

Then I got my right leg under his left and heaved over.

We were upon our sides, the German uppermost, my hands still choking his life out of him. Naturally, in that position, my grip was bound to loosen. I could put no weight into it. But his arms were all sprawling.

One was partly under himself and partly under me, the other beating me like a flail upon the ribs. I felt the sweat pouring from his face on to mine, and he smelt horribly of garlic. It was just touch and go.

Suddenly I whipped my numbed hands from the fellow"s throat, slithered my arms down the front of his body, and gripped him round the lower ribs with a hug like a bear.

Of course, this was my long suit. There are not many people who can stand my affectionate embrace, especially when I am fighting for my life! I heard one rib crack, and I laughed aloud. I tightened the vice, and as the second went I knew it was all over. The brute made a noise exactly like the water running out of a bath, a sort of choked, trumpeting noise. His body grew limp. I disengaged myself and rose unsteadily to my feet.

Wow, but I had had it! The beastly smoking-room waltzed round me; I staggered to the buffet like a drunken man. My hands were dark crimson.

Old Upjelly and his confederates were accustomed to do themselves well.

I realised it as my eye fell upon the row of bottles--therein was much balm in Gilead. There was a long-necked one with "Boulestin" upon the label. I pulled out the cork at a venture and drank deep. It was just what I wanted. It was cognac, and my eyes cleared and my arms stopped trembling.

I do not suppose the whole affair had lasted for more than three minutes, and as I came to myself I realised the necessity for instant action. My late adversary was lying at the other end of the saloon, his head rocking in the open door which led to his own quarters. He was not unconscious. He frothed at the mouth like I once saw an old pike I caught with a spinner in the Broads. His eyes were red and glazed, and he breathed like a suction pump gone wrong. I saw he was harmless as far as further aggression went, but I thought it as well to make sure. I took the bottle and poured as much as I thought right into the chap"s mouth. Then I s.n.a.t.c.hed the cloth from the centre table, tore it into strips, rolled it up, and tied Master Fritz Schweitzer round the ankles.