little
wooden table in the cabin of the _Toronto_ that answered as an office
of works, Blake looking straight in front of him, Quinton absorbed in
smoking and expectoration. Presently Blake took from his pocket a
large silver watch, gazed at it with deliberation, then raising his
eyes nodded to his companion. With a final expectoration, "Spotty"
rose and left the cabin, walked over to the starboard side and climbed
down into the motor-boat that lay there manned by her crew of three men.

Without a word the man with the boat-hook pushed off, the motor was
started and the boat throbbed her way to the entrance to the little
harbour. The crew of the _Destroyer_ had learned from Blake the virtue
of silence. For half an hour the motor-boat tore her way over the
waters, heading due south. From time to time Quinton gazed ahead
through a pair of binoculars.

"Starb'd," he called to the helmsman as he lowered the glass from his
eyes for the twentieth time, then by way of explanation added, "The
ruddy chaser." "Steady," he added a moment later.

A few minutes later a cloud of white spray indicated the approach of a
small craft travelling at a high rate of speed. Quinton continued to
watch the approaching boat until the humped shoulders of a
submarine-chaser were distinguishable through the spume. As the boats
neared each other he gave a quick command to the engineer, and the
speed of the motor-boat decreased. At the same moment the curtain of
spray that screened the on-coming chaser died down, her fine and
sinister lines becoming discernible.

Dexterously the helmsman brought the motor-boat alongside the larger
vessel and, without a word there stepped on board a little man wearing
motor-goggles and a red beard of rather truculent shape, and a naval
commander whom the stranger introduced to Quinton as Commander Ryles.
With a nod to the man with the boathook, and a wave of his arm to those
aboard the chaser, James Grant took his seat together with Commander
Ryles beside Quinton, the motor-boat pushed off and, with a graceful
sweep, turned her nose northwards and proceeded to run up her own track.

Grant and Quinton continued to talk in undertones, Grant asking
questions, Quinton answering with great economy of words and prodigious
salivation. The chaser, steering a south-westerly course, was soon out
of sight.

As the motor-boat entered the little harbour, Grant's eyes eagerly
fixed themselves upon the _Toronto_, s