No prefect in the world, no master even, not Mr.
Dupre himself, not the remote divine head-master in the calm Elysium of
his garden, could have escaped a thrill at the mention of such a sport.
Frank was conscious of a sudden relapse from the serenity of the grown
man's common sense. For an instant he became a normal schoolboy.

"Rot!" he said. "What spy?"

"It's not rot," said Priscilla. "You've read 'The Riddle of the Sands,'
I suppose. You must have. Well, that's exactly what he's at, mapping
out mud-banks and things so as to be able to run a masked flotilla of
torpedo boats in and out when the time comes. There was one of the same
lot caught the other day sketching a fortification in Lough Swilly.
Father read it to me out of a newspaper."

Frank had seen a report of that capture. German spies have of late,
been appearing with disquieting frequency. They are met with in the most
unlikely places. Frank was a little shaken in his scepticism.

"What makes you say there's a German spy?" he said

"I saw him. So did Peter Walsh. So did Joseph Antony Kinsella. You heard
Peter Walsh talking about him this morning. I saw him yesterday. I
was bathing at the time and he ran his boat on a rock off the point of
Delginish. If it hadn't been for me he'd have been there still, only
drowned, of course, for his boat floated away from him. I wish now that
I'd left him there, but, of course, I didn't know at the time that he
was a spy. That idea only came to me afterwards. I say, Cousin Frank,
wouldn't it be absolutely spiffing if it turned out that he really was?"

It was impossible for any one to deny that such a thing would be
spiffing in the very highest possible degree.

"If he is," said Priscilla, "and I don't see any reason why he
shouldn't--anyhow it's jolly good sport to pretend--and if he is, it's
our plain duty to hunt him down at any risk. Sylvia Courtney says that
Wordsworth's 'Ode to Duty' is quite the most thrillingly impressive poem
in the whole 'Golden Treasury' so you won't want to go back on it."

Frank's prize had been won for Greek Iambics, not for English
literature. He was not in a position to discuss the value of
Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" as a guide to conduct in ordinary life.

"My plan," said Priscilla, "is to begin at the south of the bay and work
across to the north, investigating every island until we light on the
one where he is. That's the reason I had to take the _Tortoise_. The
_Blue Wanderer_ w