stood over the fire for minute after minute, there was no
sound of approaching steps. Very quietly I opened the door and
listened once more, and still I heard voices. And thus I lingered and
hesitated for more than an hour. By this time the attack had probably
been made, and I could stand the suspense no longer, so I went
recklessly downstairs, strode along the passage, and opened the parlour
door.

Nothing will ever efface the memory of the scene that met my eyes.
Tiel, Eileen, and Ashington sat there, the two men each with a
whisky-and-soda, and all three seemingly in the most extraordinarily
high spirits. It was Ashington's face and voice that suddenly rent the
veil from before my eyes. Instead of the morose and surly individual I
had met before, he sat there the incarnation of the jovial sailor. He
was raising his glass to his lips, and as I entered I heard the words--

"Here's to you again, Robin!"

What had happened I did not clearly grasp in that first instant, but I
_felt_ I was betrayed. My hand went straight to my revolver pocket,
but before I could seize it, Tiel, who sat nearest, leapt up, grasped
my wrist, and with the shock of his charge drove me down into a chair.
It was done so suddenly that I could not possibly have resisted. Then
with a movement like a conjurer he picked the revolver out of my
pocket, and said in his infernally cool calm way--

"Please consider yourself a prisoner of war, Mr Belke."

Even then I had not grasped the whole truth.

"A prisoner of war!" I exclaimed. "And what the devil are you, Herr
Tiel? A traitor?"

"You have got my name a little wrong," said he, with that icy smile of
his. "I am Commander Blacklock of the British Navy, so you can
surrender either to me or to Captain Phipps, whichever you choose."

"Phipps!" I gasped, for I remembered that as the name of a member of
Jellicoe's staff.

"That's me, old man," said the gross person with insufferable
familiarity. "The Honourable Thomas Bainbridge Ashington would have a
fit if he looked in the glass and saw this mug!"

"Then I understand I am betrayed?" I asked as calmly as I could.

"You're nabbed," said Captain Phipps, with brutal British slang, "and
let me tell you that's better than being dead, which you would have
been if you'd rejoined your boat."

I could not quite control my feelings.

"What has happened?" I cried.

"We've bagged the whole four--just at the very spot on the chart which
yo