“That’s all well enough; but things are much more mixed up than that. In some ways I rather wish we had Sylvia Courtney with us. She’s president of our Browning Society and tremendously good at every kind of complication. What I feel is that we’re rather like those boys in the poem who went out to catch a hare and came on a lion unaware. I haven’t got the passage quite right but you probably know it.” Frank did. He could not, since English literature is still only fitfully studied in public schools, have named the author. But he quoted the lines with fluent confidence. It was by turning them into Greek Iambics that he had won the head-master’s prize. “That’s it,” said Priscilla. “And that’s more or less what has happened to us. We went out to chase a simple, ordinary German spy and we have come on two other mysteries of the most repulsively fascinating kind. First there’s Miss Rutherford, if that’s her real name, who says she’s fishing for sponges, which is certainly a lie.” “I don’t know about it’s being a lie,” said Frank. “She explained it to me after you’d gone.” “Oh, that about zoophytes. You don’t believe that surely?” “I do,” said Frank. “There are lots of queer things in the British Museum. I was there once.” “My own belief is,” said Priscilla, “that she simply trotted out those zoophyte things and the British Museum when she found that we weren’t inclined to swallow the ordinary sponge. At the same time I can’t believe that she’s a criminal of any kind. She struck me as being an uncommonly good sort. The wind’s dropping. I told you it would. Very soon now we shall have to row. Can you row, Cousin Frank?” Frank replied with cheerful confidence that he could. He had sat at Priscilla’s feet all day and bowed to her superior knowledge of sailing. When it came to rowing he was sure that he could hold his own. He understood the phraseology of the art, had learned to take advantage of sliding seats, could keep his back straight and had been praised by a member of a University eight for his swing. “The other mystery,” said Priscilla, “is Inishbawn. The Kinsellas won’t let the spies land on the island. They won’t let Miss Rutherford. They won’t let you, They tell every kind of ridiculous story to head people off.” The thought of his prowess as an oarsman had restored Frank’s self-respect. He recollected the reason given by Jimmy Kinsella for not allowing Miss Rutherford to land on Inishbawn. “I don’t see anything ridiculous about it,” he said. “Young Kinsella simply said that it wasn’t a suitable place for ladies. There are lots of places we men go to where we wouldn’t take-------” His sentence tailed away. Priscilla’s eyes expressed an amount of amusement which made him feel singularly uncomfortable.