ing on the top of the tide, and in another moment the men
were pulling out into the rain blur with their mysterious passenger.

No one spoke, until the nose of the boat met the dark grey hull of the
submarine waiting less than a quarter of a mile out, and as the beam of
a searchlight suddenly flashed through the mist, the top of the
periscope sank noiselessly beneath the waves, and Captain Von Dussel,
alias Van Drissel, sank with it.

"Good luck again, Kamerad?" inquired the commander as they stood in the
conning-tower.

"The best of good luck this time, Heffer," laughed the spy. "How soon
can you put me ashore on the other side?"

"As soon as I have accomplished a little scheme of my own," replied the
commander of the U50, with a strange glitter in his eyes. "The boat is
coming out of Folkestone now."

"That is not my affair," said Von Dussel.

"No, it is mine," replied the commander haughtily. "In less than an hour
I shall send her to the bottom."

"You will do no such thing," said the spy in a low piercing voice,
producing a Browning pistol and clapping it to his head. "In an hour I
must be in France. The news I carry is worth the loss of forty Channel
steamers. Hesitate another moment, and I will shoot you like a dog!"

CHAPTER III

"At Ten o'Clock Sharp!"

"Hawke!"

"Sir!" And the marksman of A Company jumped across the floor of the
trench to the door of the dug-out with surprising alacrity, as the merry
laughing face of Dennis Dashwood showed in the square hole in the wall
of the parados.

From the moment Bob Dashwood had made Dennis known to Harry Hawke as "my
brother," that worthy had attached himself to the new arrival with the
same devotion he showed to the captain, and the more he saw of Dennis
the more devoted he became.

"Hawke," said the subaltern, "I'm going over to-night, and I want three
old hands to go with me. The Divisional C.O. wishes the enemy wire
examined, and I've put in for the job. You can come if you fancy it.
What do you say?"

"I says yus!" cried Harry Hawke, with a widening of the grin that
puckered his dirty, mahogany-coloured face. "Better let me pick you out
two more, sir, what knows the game."

"Right-o!" assented Dennis. "Of course, it all depends on whether their
guns start strafing our trench at dusk. If not, and everything is fairly
quiet, we'll move out at ten sharp," and he consulted his wristlet
watch--Mrs. Dashwood's last present.

"What's this con