doleful head. "There are no extra
instruments," I told them. "They too have disappeared as did the
wireless apparatus."

Both men looked at me in amazement. "We still have the compass and the
sun," said Olson. "They may be after getting the compass some night;
but they's too many of us around in the daytime fer 'em to get the sun."

It was then that one of the men stuck his head up through the hatchway
and seeing me, asked permission to come on deck and get a breath of
fresh air. I recognized him as Benson, the man who, Wilson had said,
reported having seen Lys with von Schoenvorts two nights before. I
motioned him on deck and then called him to one side, asking if he had
seen anything out of the way or unusual during his trick on watch the
night before. The fellow scratched his head a moment and said, "No,"
and then as though it was an afterthought, he told me that he had seen
the girl in the crew's room about midnight talking with the German
commander, but as there hadn't seemed to him to be any harm in that, he
hadn't said anything about it. Telling him never to fail to report to
me anything in the slightest out of the ordinary routine of the ship, I
dismissed him.

Several of the other men now asked permission to come on deck, and soon
all but those actually engaged in some necessary duty were standing
around smoking and talking, all in the best of spirits. I took
advantage of the absence of the men upon the deck to go below for my
breakfast, which the cook was already preparing upon the electric
stove. Lys, followed by Nobs, appeared as I entered the centrale. She
met me with a pleasant "Good morning!" which I am afraid I replied to
in a tone that was rather constrained and surly.

"Will you breakfast with me?" I suddenly asked the girl, determined to
commence a probe of my own along the lines which duty demanded.

She nodded a sweet acceptance of my invitation, and together we sat
down at the little table of the officers' mess.

"You slept well last night?" I asked.

"All night," she replied. "I am a splendid sleeper."

Her manner was so straightforward and honest that I could not bring
myself to believe in her duplicity; yet--Thinking to surprise her into
a betrayal of her guilt, I blurted out: "The chronometer and sextant
were both destroyed last night; there is a traitor among us." But she
never turned a hair by way of evidencing guilty knowledge of the
catastrophe.

"Who could it have