The next day, Thursday, was one of hectic excitement for Gibraltar. Focus of the concentrated attention of town and Rock was the battle fleet, clogging all the inner harbor with its great gray hulks. Superdreadnaughts, like the standing walls of a submerged Atlantis, lay close to the quays, barges lashed alongside the folded booms of their torpedo nets. Behind them, battle cruisers and scouts formed a protecting cordon. Far out across the entrance to the harbor, the darting black shapes of destroyers on constant guard were shuttles trailing their threads of smoke through the blue web of sea and sky. Between fleet and shore snorting cockleshells of launches established lanes of communication; khaki of the Rock's defenders and blue of the fleet's officers met, passed, and repassed. In wardroom and club lounge glasses were touched in pledges to the united service. The high commander of the Mediterranean fleet paid his official visit to the governor of Gibraltar, and the governor, in, turn, was received with honors upon the quarterdeck of the flagship. But under the superficial courtesies of fanfare and present arms the stern business of coaling fleet progressed at high tension. It was necessary that all of the fighting machines have their bunkers filled by noon of the following day. Every minute that the Channel up under the murky North Sea fogs lay without full strength of her fleet protection was added danger for England.

That morning, Captain Woodhouse went on duty in the signal tower. Major Bishop, his superior, had summoned him to his office immediately after breakfast and assigned him to his tasks there. Sufficient proof, Woodhouse assured himself, with elation, that he had come through the fire in General Crandall's library, tested and found genuine. Through this pretext and that, he had been kept off duty the day before, denied access to the slender stone tower high up on the Rock's crest which was the motor center of Gibraltar's ganglia of defense.

The small office in which Woodhouse was installed was situated at the very top of the tower—a room glassed on four sides like the lantern room of a lighthouse, and provided with telescope, a telephone switchboard, range finders, and all the complicated machinery of gunfire control. On one side were trestle boards supporting charts of the ranges—figured areas representing every square yard of water from the nearer harbor below out to the farthest reaching distance of the monster disappearing guns. A second graphic sheet showed the harbor and anchorages and the entrance to the straits; this map was thickly spotted with little, red, numbered dots—the mines. Sown like a turnip field with these deadly capsules of destruction were all the waters thereabouts; their delicate tendrils led under water and through conduits in the Rock up to this slender spire called the signal tower. As he climbed the winding stairway to his newly assigned post, Woodhouse had seen painted on a small wooden door just below the room he was to occupy the single white letter "D."

Room D—where the switches were, where a single sweep of the hand could loose all the hidden death out there in the crowded harbor—it lay directly below his feet.

Captain Woodhouse's duties were not arduous. He had as single companion a sergeant of the signal service, whose post was at the window overlooking the harbor. The sergeant read the semaphore message from the slender signal arm on the flagship's bridge—directions for the coal barges' movements, businesslike orders to be transmitted to the quartermaster in charge of the naval stores ashore, and such humdrum of routine. These Woodhouse recorded and forwarded to their various destinations over the telephone.

He had much time for thought—and much to think about.

Yesterday's scene in the library of Government House—his grilling by the two suspicious men, when a false answer on his part would have been the first step toward a firing squad. Yes, and what had followed between himself and the little American—the girl who had protected and aided him—ah, the pain of that trial was hardly less poignant than had been the terror of the one preceding it. She had asked him to prove to her that he was not what she thought him. Before another day was past she would be out of his life and would depart, believing—yes, convinced—that the task he had set himself to do was a dishonorable one. She could not know that the soldiers of the Hidden Army have claim to heroism no less than they who join battle under the sun. But he was to see Jane Gerson once more; Woodhouse caught at this circumstance as something precious. To-night at Government House Lady Crandall's dinner to the refugee Americans on the eve of their departure would offer a last opportunity. How could he turn it to the desire of his heart?

One more incident of a crowded yesterday gave Woodhouse a crust for rumination—the unmasking Jaimihr Khan, the Indian, had elected for himself at that critical minute when it lay in his power to betray the stranger in the garrison. The captain reviewed the incident with great satisfaction—how of a sudden the wily Indian had changed from an enemy holding a man's life in his hand to that "friend in Government House," of whose existence the cautious Almer had hinted but whose identity he had kept concealed. Almer had said that this "friend" could lay his hand on the combination to Room D in the signal tower when the proper moment arrived. Now that he knew Jaimihr Khan in his true stripe, Woodhouse made no doubt of his ability to fulfill Almer's prophecy.

And the proper moment would be this night! To-night, on the eve of the great fleet's sailing, what Woodhouse had come to Gibraltar to do must be accomplished or not at all.

The man's nerves were taut, and he rose to step to the bayward window, there to look down on the embattled splendor of England's defense. Steel forts ranged all in rows, awaiting but the opportunity to loose their lightnings of obliteration against the ships of an enemy. Cardboard ships! Shadows of dreams! In Room D, just below his feet, a hand on the switches—a downward push, and then——


Lady Crandall's dinner in Government House was in full tide of hilarity. Under the heavy groined ceiling the spread table with its napery and silver was the one spot of light in the long shadowed dining-room. Round it sat the refugees—folk who had eaten black bread and sausage and called that a meal; who had dodged and twisted under the careless scourge of a war beyond their understanding and sympathies, ridden in springless carts, been bullied and hectored by military martinets and beggared by panicky banks. Now, with the first glimpse of freedom already in sight and under the warming influence of an American hostess' real American meal, they were swept off their feet by high spirits almost childlike. Henry J. Sherman, Kewanee's vagrant son returning from painful pilgrimage, sat at the right of Lady Crandall; his pink face was glowing with humor. To Consul Reynolds, who swore he would have to pay for thus neglecting his consulate for so much as two hours, had fallen the honor of escorting Mrs. Sherman to table. Willy Kimball, polished as to shirt bosom and sleek hair, had eyes and ears for none but the blithe Kitty. Next to General Crandall sat Jane Gerson, radiant in a dinner gown of tricky gauze overlaid on silk. At her right was Captain Woodhouse, in proper uniform dinner coat faced with red and gold. Of the whole company, Woodhouse alone appeared constrained. The girl by his side had been cool in her greeting that evening; to his conversational sallies she had answered with indifference, and now at table she divided her favors between General Crandall and the perky little consul across the table. It seemed to Woodhouse that she purposely added a lash of cruelty to her joy at the approaching departure on the morrow.

"Oh, you must all listen to this!" Kitty Sherman commanded the attention of the table, with a clapping of hands. "Go ahead, Will; he had the funniest accident—tell them about it."

Young Kimball looked conscious and began to stammer.

"You're getting us all excited, Willy," Henry J. boomed from the opposite side of the table. "What happened?"

"Why—ah—really quite ridiculous, you know. Hardly a matter to—ah—talk about." Willy fumbled the rose in the lapel of his jacket and searched for words. "You see, this morning I was thinking very hard about what I would do when I got back to Kewanee—oh, quite enthusiastic I am about the little town, now—and I—well, I mean to say, I got into my bath with my wrist watch on."

Shouts of laughter added to the youth's confusion. Sherman leaned far across the table and advised him in a hoarse whisper:

"Buy a dollar Ingersoll, Willy. It floats!"

"Well, you might give him one of yours, father," Kitty put in, in quick defense. "Anybody who'd carry two watches around——"

"Two watches?" Lady Crandall was interested.

Henry J. beamed expansively, pulled away his napkin, and proudly lifted from each waistcoat pocket a ponderous watch, linked by the thick chain passing through a buttonhole.

"This one"—he raised the right-hand time-piece—"tells the time of the place I happen to be in—changed it so often I guess the works'll never be the same again. But this one is my pet. Here's Kewanee time—not touched since we pulled out of the C., B. & Q. station on the twentieth of last May." He turned the face around for the others to read. "Just three in the afternoon there now. Old Ed Porter's got the Daily Enterprise out on the street, and he's tilted back in his office chair, readin' the Chicago Tribune that's just got in on the two-five train. The boys at the bank are goin' out to the country club for golf—young Pete Andrews wearin' the knickerbockers his wife cut down from his old overcoat; sort of a horse-blanket pattern, you might say. The town's just dozin' in the afternoon sun and—and not givin' a hang whether Henry J. Sherman and family gets back or not."

"You're an old dear!" Lady Crandall bubbled. "Some day Kewanee will erect a statue to you."

The talk turned to art, and the man from Kewanee even had the stolid general wiping the tears from his eyes by his description and criticism of some of the masters his wife had trotted him around to admire.

"Willy, you'll be interested to know we got a painter in Kewanee now," Henry J. cried. "'Member young Frank Coales—old Henry Coales' son? Well, he turned out to be an artist. Too bad, too; his folks was fine people. But Frank was awfully headstrong about art. Painted a war picture about as big as that wall there. Couldn't find a buyer right away, so he turned it over to Tim Burns, who keeps the saloon on Main Street. Been busy ever since, sorta taking it out in trade, you might say."

Table talk was running at a gay rate when Mrs. Sherman, who had sent frequent searching glances at Captain Woodhouse over the nodding buds of the flower piece in the center of the board, suddenly broke out:

"Ah, Captain Woodhouse, now I remember where I've seen you before! I thought your face was familiar the minute I set my eyes on you this evening."

Jaimihr Khan, who stood behind the general's chair, arms folded and motionless, swiftly lifted one hand to his lips, but immediately mastered himself again. General Crandall looked up with a sharp crinkle of interest between his eyes. Captain Woodhouse, unperturbed, turned to the Kewanee dowager.

"You have seen me before, Mrs. Sherman?"

"I am sure of it," the lady announced, with decision. The other diners were listening now.

"Indeed! And where?" Woodhouse was smiling polite attention.

"Why, at the Winter Garden, in Berlin—a month ago!" Mrs. Sherman was hugely satisfied with her identification. She appealed to her husband for confirmation. "Remember, father, that gentleman I mistook for Albert Downs, back home, that night we saw that—er—wicked performance?"

"Can't say I do," Sherman answered tolerantly.

Woodhouse, still smiling, addressed Mrs. Sherman:

"Frightfully sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Sherman, but I was not in Berlin a month ago. I came here from Egypt, where I had been several years." Woodhouse heard Jane at his elbow catch her breath.

"See, mother, there you go on your old hobby of recognizin' folks," Sherman chided. Then, to the others: "Why, she's seen all Kewanee since she came here to Europe. Even got a glimpse of the Methodist minister at Monte Carlo."

"I have never been in Berlin in my life, Mrs. Sherman," Woodhouse was adding. "So, of course——"

"Well, I suppose I am wrong," the lady admitted. "But still I could swear."

The governor, who had kept a cold eye on his subordinate during this colloquy, now caught Woodhouse's glance. The captain smiled frankly.

"Another such unexpected identification, General, and you'll have me in the cells as a spy, I dare say," he remarked.

"Quite likely," Crandall answered shortly, and took up his fork again. A maid stepped to Lady Crandall's chair at this juncture and whispered something. The latter spoke to Woodhouse:

"You're wanted on the telephone in the library, Captain. Very important, so the importunate person at the other end of the wire informs the maid."

Woodhouse looked his confusion.

"Probably that silly ass at the quay who lost a bag of mine when I landed," he apologized, as he rose. "If you'll pardon me——"

Woodhouse passed up the stairs and into the library. He was surprised to find Jaimihr Khan standing by the telephone, his hand just in the act of setting the receiver back on the hook. The Indian stepped swiftly to the double doors and shut them behind the captain.

"A thousand pardons, Cap-tain"—he spoke hurriedly—"the cap-tain will stand near the telephone. They may come from the dining-room at any minute."

"What is all this?" Woodhouse began. "I was called on the telephone."

"A call I had inspired, Cap-tain. It was necessary to see you—at once and alone."

"Tactless! With the general suspecting me—you heard what that woman from America said at the table—she has eyes in her head!"

"I think he still trusts you, Cap-tain," the Indian replied. "And to-night we must act. The fleet sails at noon to-morrow."

"We?" Woodhouse was on his guard at once. "What do you mean by 'we'?"

Jaimihr Khan smiled at the evasion.

"Yesterday in this room, Cap-tain, I burned a roll of plans——"

"Which I had good reason to wish saved," Woodhouse caught him up.

"No matter; I burned them—at a moment when you were—in great peril, Cap-tain."

"Burned them, yes—perhaps to trap me further."

The Indian made a gesture of impatience. "Oh, excellent discretion!" he cried in suppressed exasperation. "But we waste time that is precious. To-night——"

"Before another word is spoken, let me have your card—your Wilhelmstrasse number," Woodhouse demanded.

"I carry no card. I am more discreet than—some," the other answered insinuatingly.

"No card? Your number, then?"

Jaimihr Khan brought his lips close to the white man's ear and whispered a number.

"Is that not correct?" he asked.

Woodhouse nodded curtly.

"And now that we are properly introduced," Jaimihr began, with a sardonic smile, "may I venture a criticism? Your pardon, Cap-tain; but our critics, they help us to per-fection. Since when have men who come from the Wilhelmstrasse allowed themselves to make love in drawing-rooms?"

"You mean——"

"You and the young woman from America—when I found you together here yesterday——"

"That is my affair," was Woodhouse's hot response.

"The affair on which we work—this night—that is my affair, be veree sure!" There was something of menace in the Indian's tone.

Woodhouse bowed to his demand for an explanation. "That young woman, as it happens, must be kept on our side. She saw me in France, when Captain Woodhouse was supposed to be in Egypt."

"Ah, so?" Jaimihr inclined his head with a slight gesture craving pardon. "For that reason you make a conquest. I did not un-derstand."

"No matter. The fleet sails at noon."

"And our moment is here—to-night," Jaimihr whispered in exultation. "Not until to-day did they admit you to the tower, Cap-tain. How is it there?"

"A simple matter—with the combination to the door of Roo............