A bugle sharply sounded the "G"—officers' call. For'ard the bosn's mates' pipes were turning up the hands. The Captain, Commander, and officer of the watch were on the fore-bridge looking steadily at a dark cloud of smoke showing beyond the horizon.
It was a ship on fire. The alert officer of the watch had noticed the smoke, which was much too dense to be caused by the vessel's furnaces. On reporting the matter to the captain, the latter immediately ordered the Oxford to be steered in that direction. As senior officer, he gave orders for the other cruisers to stand on that course.
"She's quite a small packet, I should imagine," remarked one of the Subs. "At any rate she's not fitted with wireless."
In half an hour the cruiser was sufficiently near to see clearly the distressed vessel. She was a cargo-boat of about two thousand tons. Amidships, flames were mounting fiercely from her hatches. She had stopped her engines, and was preparing to lower boats. Aft, she flew the Stars and Stripes, upside down as a signal of distress.
The ship was doomed. Fanned by the light breeze, the flames were rapidly spreading. Her cargo undoubtedly consisted of highly inflammable material, since it blazed freely, while the smoke smelt strongly of burnt oil.
The Oxford stopped at four cables' length to windward of the burning ship. She could do nothing beyond rescuing the crew on board. There was no necessity to lower her boats, since the cargo-boat obviously had enough for all hands.
At length the boats of the unfortunate ship were lowered. There was no undue haste. Men deliberately threw their bundles into the arms of their waiting comrades before they swarmed down the falls. The captain was the last to leave, a bulge under his coat betraying the fact that he had taken the ship's papers with him.
"Nothing of an explosive nature in her cargo," said Ross to his chum. "Otherwise they would have sheered off a bit quicker. My word, how she does burn! Isn't it a grand sight?"
"Yes," admitted Vernon. "It's lucky there's help at hand. Knocking about in the boats in mid-Atlantic must be ten times as bad as in the English Channel."
"I beg to differ," remarked one of the Subs who was standing by. "There's not so much shipping, I'll admit, but the waves are longer and more regular in mid-ocean. It's marvellous what an open boat can do when she's put to it, except in very broken water."
The boats were now approaching the Oxford. A monkey-ladder had been lowered to enable the men to surmount the lofty side of the cruiser, while the sailors, always ready to lend a hand in cases of distress, were swarming down to the net-shelves in readiness to receive the personal belongings of the American seamen.
"Look!" whispered Vernon. "Isn't that chap like our old pal Ramblethorne?"
He pointed to a tall, bronzed man clad in canvas jumper and trousers, and wearing a grey slouched hat. He was sitting in the stern-sheets of the second boat, with his shoulders hunched and his face half-averted.
"Like him?" echoed Ross. "By Jove, it's he, right enough!"
Trefusis was right. Von Hauptwald, alias Ramblethorne, had succeeded in evading the hue and cry after his escape on Harley Bank, and had continued to remain hidden in the house of a naturalized German in Cheshire until the search for him had somewhat relaxed.
He then managed to ship as a fireman on board a vessel bound for Montreal, knowing that his chances of getting out of Great Britain would be greater if he made for a Dominion port rather than one in the United States.
At Montreal he promptly deserted, made his way across the border, and thence to New York. Here he picked up with a German-American shipowner, who readily agreed to help him back to Germany.
A cargo-boat, the Tehuantepec Girl, was loading with a cargo consisting of cotton, ready-made clothing, and leather equipment. Nominally her destination was Leith. Her manifest and bill of lading were made out to that effect, but secretly her skipper had instructions to make for Stockholm. If he were overhauled and taken into Lerwick by a British patrol-boat, well and good. The owners must be compensated by the British Government, even if the Tehuantepec Girl was miles out of her course for Leith. On the other hand, if the boat succeeded in reaching the Baltic, she would be conveniently "captured", by previous arrangement, by a German cruiser or destroyer and taken into Kiel.
Unfortunately the fact of keeping secret the real destination of the Tehuantepec Girl led to her undoing. A German dock-hand, who was really in the pay of the Teutonic Government, had placed an infernal machine in the cargo, setting it to explode two days after leaving New York.
In less than a quarter of an hour after the discovery of the outbreak, the fire had taken such a firm hold that all attempts to subdue it were hopeless.
And now von Hauptwald, in the disguise of a Yankee deck-hand, was being rowed towards a craft which he would have given almost anything to avoid—a British cruiser.
Still, he was not dismayed. The chances of detection were absurdly small. None of the Tehuantepec Girl's crew knew his true personality except the captain, and he was to be handsomely rewarded as soon as the spy was safe in German territory. On the other hand, there might be one amongst the 655 forming the complement of the Oxford who might recognize the one-time doctor who had lived at Devonport.
"Let's get out of his way," suggested Vernon. "We'll inform the Commander, and he will order him to be put under arrest."
"I'm not going to budge," declared Ross. "If he sees us, what can he do?"
"I'm not afraid of him," protested Haye.
"Very well, then; let's stop where we are. He's got to know sooner or later."
The first boat had already delivered her human cargo Upon the cruiser's quarter-deck. As each man's name was taken down by the master-at-arms he was sent forward. The first mate remained in conversation with the Commander until the arrival of the Tehuantepec Girl's skipper.
Von Hauptwald was one of the last men to come aboard. As he swung himself over the rail he gave a swift glance at the group of officers. His eye caught that of Ross Trefusis.
For a moment the spy thought that he was mistaken, but a second glimpse confirmed his suspicions.
"Steady on there!" shouted the Commander. "What the deuce are you up to?"
Von Hauptwald had broken into a run across the quarter-deck. With a bound he cleared the stanchion-rails, and plunged head foremost into the sea.
He had realized that to remain on the cruiser meant arrest and ultimate death as a dangerous spy. Better by far to be drowned without further delay than to experience all the horrors of lying under sentence of death.
He had acted spontaneously, yet there was method in his madness. By running across to the other side of the ship there was little chance of the boats being able to pick him up ere he sank for the last time. Not until he rose to the surface did he realize his difficulty. He was a strong swimmer, and the natural instinct to strike out overpowered his determination to sink.
There was a rush of officers and men to the ship's side to see what was taking place. With two exceptions, they thought that the supposed seaman had suddenly lost his reason.
Two seamen, one a brawny specimen, the other a red-haired middle-weight, dived after the would-be suicide. Others were on the point of following when the Commander restrained them.
"Away sea-boat!" was the order.
The Oxford was now forging slowly through the water. During the rescue of the Tehuantepec Girl's people, she had drifted rather too close to the burning ship to be safe, should an explosion occur. Already von Hauptwald was fifty yards astern, with the two seamen swimming towards him with powerful strokes.