ed herself that she had
allowed herself to care for him. Shamedly she confessed to herself that
she still loved him--even now.

"Your great work accomplished," Otto continued, "remember your orders.
Forty miles due east of Sandy Hook there will be lying two great
submarines, waiting to take you off--not U-boats, but two of our
powerful, wonderful new X-boats, big enough to destroy any of their
little cruisers that are patrolling the coast, fast enough to escape any
of their torpedo boats. How important the war office judges your work
you may realize from this--it is the first mission on which these new
X-boats have been dispatched. They are out there now. We have had a
wireless from them. They are waiting to convey six heroes back to the
Fatherland, where the highest honors will be bestowed on them at the
hands of our Emperor himself. Herr Captain and Comrades--"

He stopped abruptly, and there came into his face a pained look of
surprise, of terror.

_"Was is dass?_" he cried in alarm.

One of Fleck's men in hiding out there in the shadow of the building
had been seized by an irresistible desire to sneeze.

The terrifying suspicion that there had been some uninvited spectator
outside, listening to their plotting, swept over the whole room. The
whole company, hearing the sound that had alarmed old Hoff, arose as one
man and stood tensed, stupefied with fear, gazing white-faced in the
direction from which the sound had come.

Fleck, rudely brushing Jane aside, dropped back from the window and blew
a sharp blast with a whistle. At the sound his men came running up with
their rifles ready.

Inside, the man called Hans, seizing an electric torch, dashed to the
door, and pulling it wide, rushed forth, his torch lighting the way
before him. Before he even had time to see the men gathering there and
cry an alarm, a blow from the butt of Carter's revolver stretched him
senseless on the stoop.

"In the name of the United States I command you to surrender," cried
Fleck, springing boldly into the open doorway, revolver in hand; "the
house is surrounded."

Instantly all within the room was confusion. Some of those nearest the
door, seeing behind Fleck the protruding muzzles of the guns, promptly
threw up their hands in token of surrender. Others bolted madly for the
front door, only to find their egress there blocked by the rifles in the
hands of the guard that Fleck had had the foresight to station there.

Old Otto, t