The Spy in Black Part 29

A man jumped up from behind the wall just as you saw."

"Who was he?"

"I can only suspect. I saw him for an instant by the light of my torch, and then it seemed less suspicious to put it out."

"I don't see that," I said.

"I am a cautious man," smiled Tiel, as easily as though the incident had not been of life and death importance.

"And what did he say to you?" I demanded impatiently.

"I spoke to him and asked him what he was doing there."

"What did he say to that?"

"I gave him no chance to answer--because, if the answer was what I feared, he wouldn't make it. I simply told him he would catch cold if he sat there on the gra.s.s, and gave him some details about my own misfortune in getting rheumatism through sleeping in damp sheets."

"I see," I said; "you simply tried to bluff him by behaving like an ordinary simple-minded honest clergyman?"

Tiel nodded.

"It was the only thing to do--unless I had shot him there and then.

And there might have been more men for all I knew."

"Well," I said, "I can tell you something more about that man. He is patrolling the road at the back at this very moment."

Tiel looked grave enough now.

"It looks as if the house were being watched," he said rather slowly.

"Looks? It _is_ being watched!"

He thought for a moment.

"Evidently they only suspect so far. They can know nothing, or they wouldn't be content with merely watching. Thank you for telling me.

We'll talk about it later."

Still cool as a cuc.u.mber he re-entered his room, and I returned to my own.

What can be done? Nothing! I can only sit and wait and keep myself from worrying by writing. I have made up my fire and my door is locked, so that this ma.n.u.script will be in flames before any one can enter, if it comes to the worst. Recalling the words of Tiel a few days ago, I s.h.i.+ver a little to think of what is ahead. Suspicion has _begun_!

IV.

FRIDAY.

This is written under very different circ.u.mstances--and in a different place. My last words were written with my eyes shut; these are written with them open, but I shall simply tell what happened as calmly as I can. Let the events speak; I shall make no comment in the meanwhile.

On that Friday morning our breakfast was converted into a council of war. We all three discussed the situation gravely and frankly. I felt tempted to say some very bitter words to Tiel, for it seemed to me quite obvious that it was simply his gross mismanagement which had brought us to the edge of this precipice; but I am glad now I refrained. I was at no pains, however, to be over-polite.

"There is nothing to be done in the meanwhile, I'm afraid," said he.

This coolness seemed to me all very well in its proper season, but not at present.

"Yes, there is," I said urgently. "We might get out of this house and look for some other refuge!"

He shook his head.

"Not by daylight, if it is being watched."

"Besides," said Eileen, "this is the day we have been waiting for. We don't want to be far away, do we?"

"Personally," I said, "it seems to me that as I cannot be where I ought to be" (and here I looked at Tiel somewhat bitterly), "with my brave comrades in their attack on our enemies, I should much prefer to make for a safer place than this--if one can be found."

"It can't," said Tiel briefly.

And that indeed became more and more obvious the longer we talked it over. Had our house stood in the midst of a wood, or had a kindly fog blown out of the North Sea, we might have made a move. As it was, I had to agree that it would be sheer folly, before nightfall anyhow; and there was nothing for it but waiting.

To add to the painfulness of this ordeal, I found myself obliged to remain in my room, now that I had resumed my uniform. This time it did not need Tiel to bid me take this precaution. In fact, I was amazed to hear him suggesting that I would be just as safe in the parlour. At the time I naturally failed altogether to understand this departure from his usual caution, and I asked him sarcastically if he wished to precipitate a catastrophe.

"We have still a good deal to discuss," said he.

"I thought there was nothing more to be said."

"I mean in connection with the other scheme."

"The devil may take the other scheme!" said I, "anyhow till we escape from this trap. What is the good in planning ahead, with the house watched night and day?"

"We only suspect it is watched," said he calmly.

"Suspect!" I cried. "We are not idiots, and why should we pretend to be?"

And so I went up to my room and spent the most miserable and restless day of my life. How slowly the hours pa.s.sed, no words of mine can give the faintest idea. In my present state of mind writing was impossible, and I tried to distract myself by reading novels; but they were English novels, and every word in them seemed to gall me. I implored Eileen to come and keep me company. She came up once for a little, but the devil seemed to have possessed her, for I felt no sympathy coming from her at all; and when at last I tried to be a little affectionate she first repulsed me, saying it was no time for that, and then she left me.

With baffled love added to acute anxiety, you can picture my condition!

For the first part of that horrible day I kept listening for some sign of the police, and now and then looking out from the skylight at the back, but the watcher was no longer visible, and not a fresh step or voice was to be heard in the house. My door stood locked, my fire was blazing, and my papers lay ready to be consumed, and at moments I positively longed to see them blazing and myself arrested, and get it over, yet nothing happened.

In the afternoon the direction of my thoughts began to change as the hour approached when the fleet should sail and my country reap the reward of the enterprise and fidelity which I felt conscious I had shown, and the sacrifice which I feared I should have to make. I began to make brief visits to the parlour to look out of the window and see if I could see any signs of movement in the Armada. And then for the second time I saw Tiel in a genial cheerful humour, and this time there was no doubt of the cause. He too was in a state of tension, and his mind, like mine, was running on the coming drama. In fact, as the afternoon wore on, his thoughts were so entirely wrapped up in this that he frankly talked of nothing else. Was I sure we should have at least four submarines? he asked me; and would they be brought well in and take the risk? Indeed, I never heard him ask so many questions, or appear so pleased as he did when I rea.s.sured him on all these points.

As for Eileen, she was quite as excited as either of us, and when Tiel was not asking me questions, she was; until once again prudence drove me back to my room. On one of my visits she gave us some tea, but that is the only meal I remember any of us eating between our early and hurried lunch and the evening when the crash came.

The one thing I looked for as I gazed out of that window was the rising of smoke from the battle-fleet, and at last I saw it. Stream after stream, black or grey, gradually mounted, first from one leviathan and then from another, till the air was darkened hundreds of feet above them, and if our flotilla were in such a position that they could look for this sign, they must have seen it. This time I returned to my room with a heart a little lightened.

"I have done my duty," I said to myself, "come what may of it!"

And I do not think that any impartial reader will deny that, so far as my own share of this enterprise was concerned, I had done my very utmost to make it succeed.