An hour later I returned. I was all apologies for my absence. I had called at the respective offices of my visitors and I had found them out. The proprietor bustled away with the news, by which he probably ingratiated himself a little further into the confidence of other guests of different nationality. Subsequent events proved that my ruse had for the time being worked successfully against my opponents, although the local authorities, who had known me and of me for many years past, may have entertained their own surmises concerning my advent at that particular place and at that particular period of the world's history. Next day was blustering and stormy. Snowflakes fell thick in large globules in the streets, making them almost impassable to traffic; yet a silent and unobtrusive man ploughed his way to the hotel soon after daylight, carrying interesting news. The German auxiliary fast cruiser _Berlin_ had been seen entering the fjord. This was indeed important. The news must at any cost be transmitted home, and at the earliest possible moment. It appeared that the cruiser, a vessel of some 18,000 tons, armed with eight to a dozen quick-firing guns and other equipment, had, under her enormously powerful engines, and after disposing of her cargo of mines, laid a course northwards well into the region of floating ice, thus outwitting the vigilance of the English patrol boats. Taking the fullest advantage of the awful weather and frequent snowstorms, she had slipped unobserved through the tortuous entrances and difficult channels of the Norwegian coast; past the guard fortresses at ----; past the guardships; and finally dropped her anchor unchallenged and unhindered under the windows of the town of ----, which half encircles one of the most coveted harbours in all Europe. It was a marvellous feat of navigation, but then it is an open secret that members of the German Navy know the ins and outs of the Norwegian fjords even better than Norwegians do themselves. They have also much better charts; both of which facts they proved in a startling manner in their manoeuvres before the war.