I therefore arranged matters down to the smallest details, impressing every point upon my only too willing assistant, and then I quickly took my departure to a place many, many miles away from the locality in question, there to await with impatient interest the report I was promised, which should tell me whether the scheme attempted had succeeded or proved a disappointing fiasco. I had not long to wait. Within three days a message was flashed to me. I visualise events as I believe they happened. On the never-to-be-forgotten day a certain sentry was pacing a rocky promontory on a lonely island overlooking lonely waters. In spite of its uninviting outward appearance this island was a place of the utmost importance, because it guarded the watergate to many a European capital. The sentry was impatient. It was growing dark. He was cold and hungry, and none too pleased at his job; besides, he imagined the relief guard was late. Perhaps it was. Whilst in this uneasy frame of mind a small sailing-boat hove into sight. She was hugging the shore, or rather the rocky cliffs of which the shore consisted. When within a few hundred yards of the sentry's position, the mast and sail were taken down and stowed, and the boatman proceeded to row. The sentry was interested. As the boat approached nearer to his position it disappeared into a small alcove, formed by overhanging cliffs, and he saw it no more. Perhaps it was a coincidence that this happened just a quarter of an hour before the sentry should be relieved. But in that fifteen minutes he had ample time to work himself into a high pitch of excitement. The gloaming had increased. He was straining his eyes into the coming night when the sergeant with the relief arrived. A quick whispered report caused double guards to be mounted, men to be sent to cover possible lines of retreat, and a messenger to be despatched for assistance on the water. These precautions were efficient and effective. The mysterious boatman was captured. It was not known whether he was too frightened, or too unintelligent, or too intoxicated to give a satisfactory account of his movements, but in a parcel concealed under odd bits of rope and sailcloth was a dead codfish addressed to Herr K. V. S. Whilst the captured one was meditating under lock and key, the boat and its contents were minutely examined. Nothing unusual had been found on the prisoner, nothing else had been found in the boat. The cod-fish was ordered to be dissected, when, lo and behold! a small metal tube was extracted from the gullet. Inside this, tightly rolled and wrapped in oil-silk, was a small piece of thin foreign correspondence paper, which, on being held up to the light, revealed hieroglyphics in the smallest of German characters imaginable.