ur English ship.
But to-morrow I go, and before I go, to-day--I shoot the spy."

"You misapprehend the situation," said Donovan. "As a warship of a
belligerent Power entering a neutral harbour you are liable----"

Von Moll laughed aloud.

"You intern me," he said.

"Well," drawled Donovan, "I do. Say, Captain, you didn't drop in here
just for the pleasure of shooting Smith and carrying off the King.
Those weren't your main purposes. I'm not an observant man, but I did
happen to notice as I left my room that your ship was shifting her
anchorage a bit. Now I wouldn't say that it's particularly healthy,
with a wind like this blowing, for a ship to lie right under those
cliffs, slap up against the mouth of a cave. I give you credit,
Captain, for knowing your trade as a sailor, and I don't think that
you'd put your ship there unless you wanted something out of that
cave, and wanted it pretty bad. What's more, Captain, you want it in a
hurry. Now I may be wrong, but it's my opinion that what you expect to
find there is petrol. That so?"

It was plain--so plain that even King Konrad Karl saw it--that von
Moll was disturbed. His confidence was not what it had been earlier in
the interview. Donovan went on, speaking with irritating
deliberation.

"Now when I said that you were interned in the harbour of this neutral
State, Captain, I wasn't counting on your respect for international
law. I wouldn't risk a dollar on that. What I meant was this. The
petrol's not there. Your darned tanks are empty. I'm not defending the
action on economic grounds. It was waste. But that petrol is gone. We
ran it off."

"You have not dared," said von Moll. "You could not dare----No one but
a madman would touch the Emperor's war stores."

"I hope," said Gorman, "that the poor old Emperor won't have a fit
when he hears about it."

"You may be able to run that ship a mile or two," said Donovan. "But I
reckon you'll not go far. You were dependent on that petrol? Come now,
Captain, own up."

What von Moll intended to do next I do not know. Gorman is of opinion
that he might very well have shot the whole party. He was white with
passion.

Donovan rose from his chair, stuck his cigar in a corner of his mouth,
and crossed the hall towards the door.

"While you're sizing up the situation," he said to von Moll, "I'll
just see if I can't find that flag that you cut down. It would gratify
me to have it flying again. You'd better come with me, S