eward,
placed him in charge of the room, and went on in quest of Captain
West, to whom an immediate report was now imperative.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON HIS WAY

The sun hung well above the river mists and threw long, cherry-red
beams across the choppy channel where clotted jets of steam and smoke
from tug and steamer drifted with the fog; and still the captain of
the _Volhynia_ and young Neeland sat together in low-voiced conference
in the captain's cabin; and a sailor, armed with cutlass and pistol,
stood outside the locked and bolted door.

Off the port bow, Liverpool spread as far as the eye could see through
the shredded fog; to starboard, off Birkenhead, through a haze of
pearl and lavender, the tall phantom of an old-time battleship loomed.
She was probably one of Nelson's ships, now only an apparition; but to
Neeland, as he caught sight of her dimly revealed, still dominating
the water, the old ship seemed like a menacing ghost, never to be laid
until the sceptre of sea power fell from an enervated empire and the
glory of Great Britain departed for all time. And in his Yankee heart
he hoped devoutly that such disaster to the world might never come
upon it.

Few passengers were yet astir; the tender had not yet come alongside;
the monstrous city beyond had not awakened.

But a boat manned by Liverpool police lay off the _Volhynia's_ port;
Neeland's steamer trunk was already in it; and now the captain
accompanied him to the ladder, where a sailor took his suitcase and
the olive-wood box and ran down the landing stairs like a monkey.

"Good luck," said the captain of the _Volhynia_. "And keep it in your
mind every minute that those two men and that woman probably are at
this moment aboard some German fishing craft, and headed for France.

"Remember, too, that they are merely units in a vast system; that they
are certain to communicate with other units; that between you and
Paris are people who will be notified to watch for you, follow you,
rob you."

Neeland nodded thoughtfully.

The captain said again:

"Good luck! I wish you were free to turn over that box to us. But if
you've given your word to deliver it in person, the whole matter
involves, naturally, a point of honour."

"Yes. I have no discretion in the matter, you see." He laughed.
"You're thinking, Captain West, that I haven't much discretion
anyway."

"I don't think you have very much," admitted the captain, smiling and
shaking the han