"Let me tell you something, young woman: he's at the end of his rope. Done for! No use for you to stand up for him longer. He's under guard to-night, and a woman named Josepha, his accomplice--or maybe his dupe--is already under arrest, and to-morrow, when we examine her, she'll reveal his whole rotten schemes or have to stand against a wall with him. Come, now! Throw him over. Don't risk your job, as you call it, for a German spy who's tricked you--made a fool of you. Why----" "General Crandall!" Her face was white, and her eyes glowed with anger. "I--I beg your pardon, Miss Gerson," he mumbled. "I am exasperated. A fine girl like you--to throw away all your hopes and ambitions for a spy--and a bounder! Can't you see you're wrong?" "General Crandall, some time--I hope it will be soon--you will apologize to me--and to Captain Woodhouse--for what you are saying to-night." Her hands clenched into fists, whereon the knuckles showed white; the poise of her head, held a little forward, was all combative. "Then you won't tell me what I want to know?" He could not but read the defiance in the girl's pose. "I will tell you nothing but good-by." "No, by gad--you won't! I can be stubborn, too. You shan't sail on the _Saxonia_ in the morning. Understand?" "Oh, shan't I? Who will dare stop me?" "I will, Miss Gerson. I have plenty of right--and the power, too." "I'll ask you to tell that to my consul--on the dock at five to-morrow morning. Until then, General Crandall, au revoir." The door of the guest room shut with a spiteful slam upon the master of Gibraltar, leaving him to nurse a grievance on the knees of wrath. CHAPTER XVII THREE-THIRTY A.M. Joseph Almer and Captain Woodhouse sat in the darkened and heavily blinded office-reception room of the Hotel Splendide. All the hotel had long since been put to bed, and the silence in the rambling house was audible. The hands of the Dutch clock on the wall were pointing to the hour of three-thirty. Strain was on both the men. They spoke in monosyllables, and only occasionally. Almer's hand went out from time to time to lift a squat bottle of brandy from the table between them and pour a tiny glass brimful; he quaffed with a sucking noise. Woodhouse did not drink. "It is three-thirty," the latter fretted, with an eye on the mottled clock dial. "He will come," Almer assured. A long pause. "This man Jaimihr--he is thoroughly dependable?" The man in uniform put the question with petulant bruskness. "It is his passion--what we are to do to-night--something he has lived for--his religion. Nothing except judgment day could---- Hah!" The sharp chirp of a telephone bell, a dagger of sound in the silence, broke Almer's speech. He bounded to his feet; but not so quickly as Woodhouse, who was across the room in a single stride and had the receiver to his ear.