o, may have
been an accident--a boat belonging to a friend whom they had come upon
unexpectedly and upon which they had been persuaded to take a cruise.
Suspicious circumstances--yes, many of them; but no proof, no absolute
proof. And nothing, absolutely nothing, to show that the explosion had
been caused by any outside agency.

Arrived at the water-front, Crochard walked on until he was opposite the
wreck. There he sat down, with his legs overhanging the quay. Two or
three searchlights were still focussed on the ruin, but the rescue
parties had been withdrawn, and only a few sentries remained. He could
see how that formidable monster of a ship had been torn and twisted into
an inextricable and hideous mass of iron and steel. One turret remained
above the water, blown over on its side, its great guns pointing
straight at the zenith; but the rest was a mere tangle of metal.

Such destruction could have been wrought only by the explosion of the
magazines; no mine or torpedo could have done it. And as he gazed at the
mass of wreckage visible above the water, he perceived a certain
resemblance to photographs he had seen of the wreck of the _Maine_. The
_Maine's_ forward magazine had exploded; but Crochard knew, as well as
M. Delcasse himself, what had caused that explosion.

Perhaps history was repeating itself, as, proverbially, it is supposed
to have a way of doing. But Crochard shook his head. If the catastrophe
was not an accident, then it was the result of some agency far more
subtle than mine or torpedo. And, also, if it was not an accident, those
two men who had waited in the shadow of the doorway back of him for the
deed to be accomplished, must have had an accomplice. They could not
destroy the ship merely by staring at her! Somewhere, somewhere,
concealed but not far distant, that accomplice must have awaited the
first beam of the rising sun as the signal to hurl his thunderbolt, to
loose his mysterious power!

What was that power? How had the thing been done? Those, Crochard felt,
were the questions to be answered. As to who had done it, or why it had
been done--that could wait. But if there existed in the world a force
which, directed from a distance, noiseless, invisible, impalpable, could
destroy a battleship asleep at her anchorage, then indeed did it behoove
France to discover and guard against it!

At last, his head still bent, Crochard arose, crossed the quay, opened
the door of Number Ten, and entere