for a moment, but he lay perfectly still.

"Why not?" he asked. "A good many people are talking about it. It is one
of the strangest things I have ever heard of, that after all these years
they should be trying to salve the wreck."

"It seems worse than strange," Peter declared. "What can be the use of
trying to stir up bitter feelings between two nations who have fought
their battles and buried the hatchet? I call it an an act of insanity."

A bugle rang. Sogrange yawned and sat up.

"Would you mind touching the bell for my servant, Baron," he asked.
"Dinner will be served in half an hour. Afterwards, we will talk, you
and I."

Peter turned away, not wholly pleased.

"The sooner the better," he grumbled, "or I shall be putting my foot
into it again."

After dinner the two men walked on deck together. The night was dark,
but fine, with a strong wind blowing from the north-west. The deck
steward called their attention to a long line of lights stealing up from
the horizon on their starboard side.

"That's the _Lusitania_, sir. She'll be up to us in half an hour."

They leaned over the rail. Soon the blue fires began to play about their
masthead. Sogrange watched them thoughtfully.

"If one could only read those messages," he remarked, with a sigh, "it
might help us."

Peter knocked the ash from his cigar, and was silent for a time. He was
beginning to understand the situation.

"My friend," he said at last, "I have been doing you an injustice. I
have come to the conclusion that you are not keeping me in ignorance of
the vital facts connected with our visit to America wilfully. At the
present moment you know just a little more, but a very little more, than
I do."

"What perception!" Sogrange murmured. "My dear Baron, sometimes you
amaze me. You are absolutely right. I have some pieces, and I am
convinced that they would form a puzzle the solution of which would be
interesting to us; but how or where they fit in I frankly don't know.
You have the facts so far."

"Certainly," Peter replied.

"You have heard of Sirdeller?"

"Do you mean _the_ Sirdeller?" Peter asked.

"Naturally. I mean the man whose very movements sway the money markets
of the world; the man who could, if he chose, ruin any nation, make war
impossible; who could, if he had ten more years of life and was allowed
to live, draw to himself and his own following the entire wealth of the
universe."

"Very eloquent," Peter remarked. "We'll t