moment with
a coil of rope which he handed to his superior, who was apparently the
officer of the guard.

"Sit down in that chair," commanded the German officer.

At that he thrust a revolver under Jack's ear and motioned with his
other arm for the American to wheel around facing the wireless with
his back to the door. Securely they bound him to the chair. His
arms and legs were pinioned so tightly that the rope cut into his
flesh. One of them now withdrew from the room and the other remained
on guard at the door. Every once in a while the German officer on
guard walked over to Jack and glared at him with a fiendish sort of
grin; kicking at the boy's bound legs and brandishing his revolver
in a menacing fashion.

"B-z-z-z-z," the wireless began to talk. But not for long, for the
German on guard, who apparently knew little about the operation of
the wireless apparatus, scurried over to the table and, after
fumbling about for a moment madly and in haste, succeeded eventually
in shutting off the key and stopping the flow of words that had
been filtering in over the wires. But not before Jack, alert to the
message in code that he had heard, was able to translate in part.
As near as Jack could make out it was the U.S. destroyer _Farragut_
speaking a United States battleship in the North Sea at something
like seventy-five miles away. But now the wireless was stopped and
the lad sat helplessly in the power of the enemy.

After about twenty minutes' wait Jack heard the sound of approaching
footsteps outside and the clink of accoutrements that denoted the
approach of an armed body of some sort. The sentry at the door came
to attention and saluted the leader of a file of some ten men who
halted and set their guns down with a thud that Jack could plainly
hear in the wireless station. There was a short exchange of words
at the door and then the commander of the detail stalked over and
took a look at the prisoner. Jack looked up to see before him a
brawny German in the uniform of a lieutenant of the Imperial German
Navy.

"Who are you?" the officer demanded.

Jack shook his head in reply.

"How did you get here?" came the command more sharply.

Still Jack kept silence.

"Search him!" ordered the officer, and after a search that revealed
nothing, he added in German:

"Take him away---we'll go into his record later. He's only a boy anyhow,
and boy spies are not worth bothering about in this man's war."

Jack