“I will see him but for a minute,” he said; “but it will be better than nothing. I should be loath to make such a journey without result.” “Find us a boat,” said Brunow. He spoke in such a voice as a man might have used if he had ordered his own execution, and I remarked that at the time. I can see now that a hundred thousand things were happening to advise me of the truth, but I was as ignorant and as unsuspicious of it as if I had been a baby. The man at the door lounged out into the road, and with a turn of the head invited us to follow him. We obeyed this voiceless bidding, and in a very little while found ourselves on a rough quay at the river-side. We descended a set of break-neck steps, and in another minute found ourselves afloat. The man pulled with leisurely, strong strokes to where a boat lay in midstream, with its green light towards us; and nearing the vessel, raised a hoarse cry, “Ship ahoy there!” The cry was answered from aboard the boat, and a ladder was lowered to us by which we climbed on deck. Brunow went first, Ruffiano followed, and I went third. It struck me as a surprising thing that at the very minute on which my foot struck the ladder the boat shot from under me. I sang out aloud to the man to ask where he was going, but he returned no answer save in a sneering and insolent-sounding growl, which might have meant anything or nothing. My conclusion was that he was coming back in time to take us away again, and I gave the matter no further heed, but followed Ruffiano on deck, still unsuspicious. My first surprise came when a man in a dreadnaught jacket and a sou'wester asked in German, “Is that the man?” and, without waiting for an answer, sang below, “Full steam ahead!” Even then I had no idea of a plan to carry off anybody, but I was astonished to find a man talking German and giving orders in German on a craft which I had imagined to be Italian. “But why full steam ahead?” I asked Brunow; and he turned upon me in the darkness with a faltering in his voice. “I don't know,” he said. “There's something infernally strange about all this. Have we been trapped? This fellow's a German.” “Trapped!” I answered. “How should we be trapped?” “This,” cried Brunow, in a loud and quavering tone, “is not the ship I meant to board. There's some mistake here! Hi, you there!” “Halloa!” said the man in the dreadnaught, approaching and speaking in broken English. “You can hoult your chaw. There is nothing for you to cry out about. Gom dis vays.” Still in growing wonderment, and feeling on the whole that I should have been much better satisfied if I had had with me the brace of revolvers I had bought that morning, I followed the man down the companion-ladder. CHAPTER XV