s?" said Nicky. "Somebody is below dere. Who iss?"

Mamise said she did not know, and Jake had not seen.

Nicky was in a flurry. The fire in Davidge's eyes told him that
Davidge was looking for him. There was a dull sound in the hitherto
silent ship of some one running.

Nicky grew hysterical with wrath. To be caught at the very outset of
his elaborate campaign was maddening. He opened his suit-case, took
out from the protecting wadding a small iron death-machine and held it
in readiness. A noble plan had entered his brain for rescuing his
dream.

Nuddle, glancing over the side, recognized Davidge and told Nicky who
it was that came. When Davidge reached the top deck, he found Nicky
smiling with the affability of a floorwalker.

"Meester Davitch--please, one momend. I holt in my hant a little
machine to blow us all high-sky if you are so unkind to be impolite.
You move--I srow. We all go up togedder in much pieces. Better it is
you come with me and make no trouble, and then I let you safe your
life. You agree, yes? Or must I srow?"

Davidge looked at the bomb, at Nicky, at Nuddle, then at Mamise. Life
was sweet here on this high steel crag, with the cheers of the crowds
about the stands coming faintly up on the delicious breeze. He knew
explosives. He had seen them work. He could see what that handful of
lightning in Nicky's grasp would do to this mountain he had built.

Life was sweet where the limpid river spread its indolent floods far
and wide. And Mamise was beautiful. The one thing not sweet and not
beautiful was the triumph of this sardonic Hun.

Davidge pondered but did not speak.

With all the superiority of the Kultured German for the untutored
Yankee, Nicky said, "Vell?"

Perhaps it was the V that did it. For Davidge, without a word, went
for him.

CHAPTER VI

The most tremendous explosives refuse to explode unless some detonator
like fulminate of mercury is set off first. Each of us has his own
fulminate, and the snap of a little cap of it brings on our
cataclysm.

It was a pity, seeing how many Germans were alienated from their
country by the series of its rulers' crimes, and seeing how many
German names were in the daily lists of our dead, that the word and
the accent grew so hateful to the American people. It was a pity, but
the Americans were not to blame if the very intonation of a Teutonism
made their ears tingle.

Davidge prized life and had no suicidal inclinations or tempt