"Occasionally, yes, m'sieu, the passengers from Marseilles have these regrets at parting," he gravely commented, accepting the ticket Woodhouse had rummaged from the unconscious man's wallet and a crinkled note from Woodhouse's. Up the gangplank, feet first, went the new agent of the Wilhelmstrasse. The one who called himself "captain in his majesty's signal service" returned to his hotel. At dawn, _La Vendée_ cleared the harbor for Alexandria via Malta, bearing a very sick Billy Capper to his destiny. Five hours later the Castle liner, _Castle Claire_, for the Cape via Alexandria and Suez direct, sailed out of the Old Port, among her passengers a Captain Woodhouse. CHAPTER IV 32 QUEEN'S TERRACE Many a long starlit hour alone on the deck of the _Castle Claire_ Captain Woodhouse found himself tortured by a persistent vision. Far back over the northern horizon lay Europe, trembling and breathless before the imminent disaster--a great field of grain, each stalk bearing for its head the helmeted head of a man. Out of the east came a glow, which spread from boundary to boundary, waxed stronger in the wind of hate. Finally the fire, devastating, insensate, began its sweep through the close-standing mazes of the grain. Somewhere in this fire-glow and swift leveling under the scythe of the flame was a girl, alone, appalled. Woodhouse could see her as plainly as though a cinema was unreeling swift pictures before him--the girl caught in this vast acreage of fire, in the standing grain, with destruction drawing nearer in incredible strides. He saw her wide eyes, her streaming hair--saw her running through the grain, whose heads were the helmeted heads of men. Her hands groped blindly and she was calling--calling, with none to come in aid. Jane Gerson alone in the face of Europe's burning!