a frightful, rending crash, which seemed to shake the
earth, and a foam-capped wave swept across the harbour and dashed
angrily against the quay. For one tense instant, all nature held her
breath, and then came the splash and clatter of debris falling into the
water and on the docks, the rattle of broken glass from the houses along
the quay; and finally, quivering through the air, rose the shrill,
inhuman cry of men in mortal anguish.

The smoke, drifting lazily away, disclosed a mass of twisted wreckage
where, a moment before, _La Liberte_, the pride of the French navy, had
swung at anchor.

"Ach Gott! Es ist doch wahr!" breathed one of the men, and stared rigid,
fascinated; but the other laid a trembling hand upon his arm.

"We must hasten!" he whispered. "We must not stay here!"

"True!" agreed the other, and with a last glance at the wreck, strode
away along the quay.

Already the city was awake; already frightened faces were peering from
shattered windows, half-clothed men were bursting into the streets, and
voices shrill with fear were demanding to know what had occurred. But
our travellers heeded them not. At the first corner they separated, and
one of them made his way rapidly up into the town, while the other
hastened along a dark and narrow lane parallel with the quay, and
stopped at last before a tall, decrepit house, whose plaster, black with
age, was flaking from its walls. On the door-step sat a girl of eighteen
or twenty, a dark shawl about her head, from whose shadow her face
peered, strangely white.

"Is it by this way one gains the Frejus road?" he asked in English.

"Straight on to the end of the street, then to the left," answered the
girl in the same tongue, speaking it readily and without accent.

"Thank you. This for your father," and thrusting his hand quickly into
his pocket, he drew out a fat envelope, sealed with many seals, placed
it in the girl's hand, and hurried on.

An hour later, the two travellers, reunited, Toulon well behind them,
strode along a beautiful road skirting the Mediterranean, which
stretched, a sheet of greenish-blue, away to the south. But, strangely
enough, they did not even glance at this panorama. Instead, they walked
with heads down, as though still fearing to meet each other's eyes.

* * * * *

Back in the narrow Rue du Plasson, the girl, her face still very white,
re-entered the house, closed and bolted the crazy door, and