Part 46 (1/2)

At the head of the great basin I found a lock giving access to a small inner dock, in which a number of vessels were moored.

I made my way around, searching everywhere for the vessels I had been told I should find.

At last, in the farthest and most secluded corner, I perceived a row of small craft, shaped much like a shark, with a long narrow tube or funnel rising up from the center of each.

They lay low in the water, without being submerged. Alone among the s.h.i.+pping they carried no riding-lights. They appeared dark, silent, and deserted.

Almost unconsciously I ran my eye along them, counting them as they lay. Suddenly I was aroused to keen attention.

One--two--three--four--five. The Kaiser had a.s.sured me that I should find six submarines to choose from!

I counted once more with straining eyes.

_One_--_two_--_three_--_four_--_five_.

One of the mysterious craft had been taken away!

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE KIEL Ca.n.a.l

It was impossible to resist the conclusion suggested by the absence of the sixth submarine.

I was not the only person who had been authorized, or rather instructed, to carry out the design against the Baltic Fleet. My august employer had thought it better to have two strings to his bow.

Who, then, was the person by whom I had been antic.i.p.ated?

To this question an answer suggested itself which I was tempted to reject, but which haunted me, and would not be dismissed.

The Princess Y---- had arrived in Berlin twelve hours before me. She had come, fully believing that Petrovitch was dead, and prepared to take his place.

She had interviewed Finkelstein, as I knew. Was it not possible that she, also, had been received in the crypt at Potsdam, had been shown the chart of the North Sea, with its ominous red lines, and had accepted the task of launching one of the submarines on its fatal errand?

In spite of all the stories which had been told me of Sophia's daring and resource, in spite of my own experiences of her adventures and reckless proceedings, I did not go so far as to credit her with having proceeded to sea in the missing craft.

But it struck me as altogether in keeping with her character that she should have arranged for the withdrawal of the boat, provided it with a crew, and despatched it fully instructed as to the work to be done.

But whether these suspicions were well founded or otherwise, of one thing there could be no doubt. A submarine had been taken by some one, and was now on its way to the North Sea, to lie in wait for the s.h.i.+ps of Admiral Rojestvensky.

This discovery entirely changed the position for me.

I had come down to Kiel intending to take a submarine out to sea, to watch for the approach of the Russian fleet, and to take whatever steps proved practicable to avert any collision between it and the fis.h.i.+ng-boats on the Dogger Bank.

I now saw that the chance of my preventing a catastrophe depended entirely on the movements of the boat which had left already. This boat had become my objective, to use a strategical phrase.

Somewhere in the North Sea was a submarine boat, charged with the mission of provoking a world-wide war. And that boat I had to find.

There was no time to be lost. I hastened back by the most direct way I could find, to the dockyard gates. The little postern was still unlocked, and I pa.s.sed out, the sentry again taking no notice of my pa.s.sage.