start immediately after
breakfast."

"You could be of very great help, Captain," Pachmann added, "if you
would go over the passenger-list and check off the passengers with whom
you are personally acquainted. No doubt you know a great many of them?"

"Yes; but the purser knows even more. Shall I ask him also to check the
list?"

"If you will. It would save much time."

"You will understand," said Hausmann, slowly, "that I feel I should know
more of this affair before I consent to take an active part in it; but I
can, at least, save the passengers whom I know, and who are friends of
mine, the annoyance of needless questioning. There is one thing more I
might do; there are also on board a few men who have crossed with me
before, but who, I am convinced, are not the gentlemen of wealth and
leisure they pretend to be. They may be only sharpers--or they may be
something else. In front of the name of each of them I will place a
cross."

"Thank you," said Pachmann.

"On one condition," added the Captain. "You said, but just now, that if
you discovered this person, you would not permit him to leave this boat
alive. That was an exaggeration, perhaps."

"Not in the least!" answered Pachmann, hoarsely. "I myself will kill
him!"

"My condition, then, is," said the Captain, "that you renounce that
project. I am willing that he should be detained and returned to
Germany. Further than that I will not go."

Pachmann's fingers tapped the pocket of his coat.

"No," added Hausmann, "not even for that paper!"

Pachmann gazed at him a moment with distorted face. Then he nodded.

"Very well," he said; "I consent. But it is you who take the
responsibility. I warn you that, if the man escapes, your career on the
sea will be at an end--you will find all Germany closed against you."

"I will take the responsibility," said Hausmann, quietly. "You agree,
then?"

"Yes, I agree," said Pachmann, and hurried away to get his breakfast.

And all that day, he sat beside the assistant purser, while the
first-cabin passengers were called up, one by one, to make it clear that
they were entitled to land in America. The questions are always
searching, for the immigration laws are very strict and there are many
spaces to be filled in on the great blanks which the immigration bureau
furnishes; but that day they were more searching than ever--so far, at
least, as the male passengers were concerned. In the women, Pachmann did
not interest hims