The situation could not well be more serious."

"You refer, I suppose, to the Moroccan situation."

"Yes. France must fight, or yield to Germany."

Again Crochard smiled.

"No, no," he protested; "it is Germany which will yield!"

Delcasse bounded in his chair, as his eye caught the glance which
Crochard bent upon him.

"I knew it," he said, his face white as marble. "I guessed it--and yet I
scarcely dared believe it. But the moment you entered, bringing M.
Vard...."

"M. Vard is a very great inventor," said Crochard. "He offered his
services to Germany, and she betrayed him; he now offers his services to
France."

Delcasse glanced at the little man who sat there so still, so fragile,
with eyes which gleamed so fiercely and lips that trembled with emotion;
and he shivered a little at the thought that here was the man who had
struck a terrible blow at France.

"I can see what you are thinking," Vard burst out. "You will pardon me,
if I speak English? I am more familiar with it than with French. I see
what you are thinking. You are thinking, 'Here is the miscreant, the
scoundrel, who destroyed our battleship!' Well, it is true. I am a
scoundrel--or I should be one if I permitted that deed to go unrevenged.
I was betrayed, sir, as this gentleman has said. I offered to Germany
the leadership among nations. But the Emperor is consumed with personal
ambition--his one desire to exalt his house, to establish it more
firmly. Instead of leading, he wished to conquer. I refused to be his
tool. Thereupon I was deceived by a trick, I was imprisoned--I and my
daughter also. We were threatened with I know not what--with starvation,
with torture--but this gentleman rescued us, and I came here with him in
order to place before France the same proposal I made to Germany."

Delcasse had listened closely; but he was plainly confused and
astonished.

"Before going further," he suggested, "I should very much like to hear
M. Crochard's story. There is much about this extraordinary affair which
I do not understand--and I desire to understand everything. Will you not
begin at the beginning, my friend?"

"It was very simple," said Crochard, and told briefly of the pursuit, of
the encounters on the _Ottilie_, and of the final struggle in New York.
"After our escape," he concluded, "we hastened to M. Vard's residence,
where, as I anticipated, his daughter and that admirable M. Webster whom
she loves, soon joined us. It was a most ha