ly the men in the spy craft were trying to head their boat
about. The fugitive reached it and leaped aboard. Then he turned to
face the figures rushing toward him. At the same instant the scout
boat suddenly moved forward. From the spy boat a pistol-shot rang out.
Before another could follow, an electric torch was shining full on the
spy craft, and the agent in the scout boat was covering the fugitives
with his automatic.
"Drop that gun!" he commanded. "Hands up, or I'll fire!"
Taken by surprise, the man who had just boarded the craft let his
weapon clatter to the floor. And in the sudden illumination Henry saw
with exultation that the man was the motor-car driver, the German
agent, Sanders.
"Hands up!" repeated the secret service man imperatively, noticing that
one of the fugitives was crouching in the bottom of the boat with his
hands hidden. In reply the man straightened up. Like a flash his arm
shot out and a pistol cracked. But before a second bullet could
follow, a form leaped into the shallow water and a great fist shot into
the man's stomach, doubling him up like a jack-knife. The same hand
then grasped the nose of the spy craft and dragged it toward the shore,
while the pilot of the scout boat brought his craft close beside that
of the spies. Other torches flashed in the darkness, and one by one
the fugitives were manacled--Sanders, and the spy from the cliff, and
the German grocer, and his errand boy, and a stranger who ran the boat.
CHAPTER XXII
A TASK ACCOMPLISHED
Two hours later the party was grouped around Chief Flynn, who had
remained in his office to learn the result of the raid. Both
motor-boats had been left in charge of the New Rochelle road-house
keeper, and the entire party had returned to New York in the two
motor-cars--the secret service motor and Sanders' car, for Sanders had
left it at the road-house and slipped away into the darkness at
midnight. The clerk from Hoboken was under arrest, too. He had been
taken up by the man who was watching him. Sanders had eluded his
shadow by leaving his car late in the afternoon, at a garage,
ostensibly to have it washed, and by later leaving his house
surreptitiously in the dark. He had not been able to reach the
Balaklavan rendezvous in time to join his companions. But they had a
wireless equipment aboard their boat and he had made a later
appointment with them. And, even as Captain Hardy had suspected, he
had been nosi
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