ay I ask a great favour, sir?" said Erskine.

"Anything, after what you've done," replied Sir Compton. "What is it?"

General French and Lord Beresford nodded in agreement, and Erskine
continued, addressing Lord Beresford: "That Mr Lennard, whom your
lordship met on board the _Ithuriel_, has given me the formula of a new
high explosive. Absurdly simple, but simply terrific in its effect. I
made up half a dozen shells with it and tried them. I gave the _Dupleix_
three rounds. They seem to reduce steel to dust, and, as far as we could
see every man on the decks dropped as if he had been struck by
lightning. From what we have done with them I think they will be of
enormous value. Now Mr Lennard is very anxious to get to London and the
north of England, and if General French could find him a place in his
special--"

"My dear sir," interrupted the General, "I shall be only too delighted
to know your maker of thunderbolts. Is he here now?"

"Yes, sir, he's in the smoking-room with Lieutenant Castellan. And that
reminds me, if I am to go to London, I hope you will allow me to hand
over the German spy that we caught here as soon as convenient."

"Bring them both in," said General French. "Sir Compton and General
Hamilton will court-martial your spy this morning, and, I hope, shoot
him this evening."

Within an hour, Lennard, who had something more serious now to think
about than even war, was flying away Londonwards in General French's
special, with a letter of introduction from Denis Castellan to his aunt
and sister, and an hour after the special had started, the _Ithuriel_
had cleared the narrow waters and was tearing up the Channel at fifty
miles an hour, to see what havoc she could work on the assailants of
London and Dover.

CHAPTER XVII

AWAY FROM THE WARPATH

When Lennard entered the little drawing-room in the house in Westbourne
Terrace, where Norah Castellan and her aunt were staying, he had decided
to do something which, without his knowing it, probably made a very
considerable difference in his own fortunes and those of two or three
other people.

During his brief but exciting experiences on board the _Ithuriel_, he
had formed a real friendship for both Erskine and Castellan, and he had
come to the conclusion that Denis's sister and aunt would be very much
safer in the remote seclusion of Whernside than in a city which might
within the next few days share the fate of Portsmouth and Gosport. He
wa