to the net-shelves in readiness to receive the
personal belongings of the American seamen.

"Look!" whispered Vernon. "Isn't that chap like our old pal
Ramblethorne?"

He pointed to a tall, bronzed man clad in canvas jumper and trousers,
and wearing a grey slouched hat. He was sitting in the stern-sheets of
the second boat, with his shoulders hunched and his face half-averted.

"Like him?" echoed Ross. "By Jove, it's he, right enough!"

Trefusis was right. Von Hauptwald, alias Ramblethorne, had succeeded
in evading the hue and cry after his escape on Harley Bank, and had
continued to remain hidden in the house of a naturalized German in
Cheshire until the search for him had somewhat relaxed.

He then managed to ship as a fireman on board a vessel bound for
Montreal, knowing that his chances of getting out of Great Britain
would be greater if he made for a Dominion port rather than one in the
United States.

At Montreal he promptly deserted, made his way across the border, and
thence to New York. Here he picked up with a German-American
shipowner, who readily agreed to help him back to Germany.

A cargo-boat, the _Tehuantepec Girl_, was loading with a cargo
consisting of cotton, ready-made clothing, and leather equipment.
Nominally her destination was Leith. Her manifest and bill of lading
were made out to that effect, but secretly her skipper had instructions
to make for Stockholm. If he were overhauled and taken into Lerwick by
a British patrol-boat, well and good. The owners must be compensated
by the British Government, even if the _Tehuantepec Girl_ was miles out
of her course for Leith. On the other hand, if the boat succeeded in
reaching the Baltic, she would be conveniently "captured", by previous
arrangement, by a German cruiser or destroyer and taken into Kiel.

Unfortunately the fact of keeping secret the real destination of the
_Tehuantepec Girl_ led to her undoing. A German dock-hand, who was
really in the pay of the Teutonic Government, had placed an infernal
machine in the cargo, setting it to explode two days after leaving New
York.

In less than a quarter of an hour after the discovery of the outbreak,
the fire had taken such a firm hold that all attempts to subdue it were
hopeless.

And now von Hauptwald, in the disguise of a Yankee deck-hand, was being
rowed towards a craft which he would have given almost anything to
avoid--a British cruiser.

Still, he was not dismayed. The