will be
known--all there is to know, in short--concerning the tragedy of the
North Sea.

My personal adventures can possess little interest after the
all-important transactions I have had to describe. But in case there
should be a reader here and there who is good enough to feel any
curiosity as to my fate, I will briefly tell what followed on my
arrest.

My revolver was taken from me and I was conducted under a strict
guard back to Kiel.

Off the mouth of the Canal we were boarded by a despatch-boat flying
the German naval ensign, and a police officer with three men took me
off the submarine.

The first proceeding of my new captor was to handcuff me. He then
warned me,

"If you speak a single word to me or any one else till you are in the
imperial presence, my orders are to shoot you through the head."

I nodded. I had as little wish to speak as the Emperor could have to
let me. My thoughts were busy with the memory of the woman of whose
tragic death I had been the unwitting cause, and with the measures
that remained to be taken to extenuate, so far as extenuation was
possible, the fatal action of the Baltic fleet.

As for myself, I can say truly that I had become almost indifferent
to what was in store for me. My feeling toward the unfortunate
Princess had not been such as that which makes a man desire a woman
for his wife; it had not deserved the name of love, perhaps; and it
was certainly free from any taint of a less noble passion.

Nevertheless it had been a powerful sentiment, colored and
strengthened by my knowledge of her love for me.

Sophia had loved me. She had saved my life. And I had taken hers in
return.

Must I accuse myself of weakness for feeling as if happiness for me
were over, and the best fate I could wish would be to lie there
beside my victim on the lonely Dogger sands?

When I came before Wilhelm II. he was not in the Hall of the
Hohenzollerns, indulging his vein of extravagant romance, but in his
private cabinet and in his most stern and business-like mood.

"Give the prisoner a chair, and wait outside," his majesty commanded
briefly.

I sat down, still handcuffed, and the guards withdrew.

"Now," said the Kaiser, fixing me with an eagle glance, "be good
enough to explain your proceedings."

I met his look with a steadfast one in return.

"I have carried out your majesty's orders scrupulously. I have taken
out the submarine torpedo boat, engaged a crew, proceeded to the