up against it now, hard up against it."

The slight smile passed from the lips of Hamel's sunburnt, good-natured
face. He himself seemed to become infected with something of his
companion's anxiety.

"There's nothing seriously wrong, is there, Reggie?" he asked.

"Dick," said Kinsley, with a sigh, "I am afraid there is. It's very
seldom I talk as plainly as this to any, one but you are just the person
one can unburden oneself to a little; and to tell you the truth, it's
rather a relief. As you say, these eighteen arrests in one week do mean
something. Half of the Englishmen who have been arrested are, to my
certain knowledge, connected with our Secret Service, and they have
been arrested, in many cases, where there are no fortifications worth
speaking of within fifty miles, on one pretext or another. The fact of
the matter is that things are going on in Germany, just at the present
moment, the knowledge of which is of vital interest to us."

"Then these arrests," Hamel remarked, "are really bona fide?"

"Without a doubt," his companion agreed. "I only wonder there have not
been more. I am telling you what is a pretty open secret when I tell
you that there is a conference due to be held this week at some place or
another on the continent--I don't know where, myself--which will have a
very important bearing upon our future. We know just as much as that and
not much more."

"A conference between whom?" Hamel asked.

Kinsley dropped his voice almost to a whisper.

"We know," he replied, "that a very great man from Russia, a greater
still from France, a minister from Austria, a statesman from Italy, and
an envoy from Japan, have been invited to meet a German minister whose
name I will not mention, even to you. The subject of their proposed
discussion has never been breathed. One can only suspect. When I tell
you that no one from this country was invited to the conference, I think
you will be able, broadly speaking, to divine its purpose. The clouds
have been gathering for a good many years, and we have only buried our
heads a little deeper in the sands. We have had our chances and wilfully
chucked them away. National Service or three more army corps four years
ago would have brought us an alliance which would have meant absolute
safety for twenty-one years. You know what happened. We have lived
through many rumours and escaped, more narrowly than most people
realise, a great many dangers, but there is every indicati