ame up and crossed the deck to where Blake
and Joe were talking to two young ladies, to whom they had been
introduced by the captain.

By one of the many signs in use among moving picture camera men, which
take the place of words when they are busy at the films, Macaroni gave
the two chums to understand he wanted to speak to them privately and at
once. The two partners remained a little longer in conversation, and
then, making their excuses, followed their helper to a secluded spot.

"What's up?" demanded Joe. "Have you made some views of a torpedo?"

"Or seen a periscope?" asked Blake.

"Neither one," Charlie answered. "But if you want to see something that
will open your eyes come below."

His manner was so earnest and strange, and he seemed so moved by what he
had evidently seen, that Blake and Joe, asking no further questions,
followed him.

"What is it?" Joe demanded, as they were about to enter their cabin, one
occupied by the three of them.

"Look there!" whispered the helper, as he pointed to a mirror on their
wall.

Blake and Joe saw something which made them open their eyes. It was the
reflection of a strange conference taking place in the stateroom across
the passageway from them, a conference of which a view was possible
because of open transoms in both staterooms and mirrors so arranged that
what took place in the one across the corridor was visible to the boys,
yet they remained hidden themselves.

Blake and Joe saw two men with heads close together over a small table
in the center of the opposite stateroom. The tilted mirror transferred
the view into their own looking-glass. The men appeared to be examining
a map, or, at any rate, some paper, and their manner was secretive,
alone though they were.

But it was not so much the manner of the men as it was the identity of
one that aroused the curiosity and fear of the moving picture
boys--curiosity as to what might be the subject of the queer conference,
and fear as to the result of it.

For one of the men was Lieutenant Secor, the Frenchman, and the other
was a passenger who, though claiming to be a wealthy Hebrew with
American citizenship, was, so the boys believed, thoroughly German. He
was down on the passenger list as Levi Labenstein, and he did bear some
resemblance to a Jew, but his talk had the unmistakable German accent.

Not that there are not German Jews, but their tongue has not the knack
of the pure, guttural German of Prussia. And