"George Humber is the name he goes by," said Captain Jackson, referring to the man we had followed from Lembridge Square. "He says he is a Swede and has Swedish papers. Let your French friend go below and help. I'll see to it." He called up the chief engineer, Andrew Phail, a dour, hard, bitter Scotchman, who had followed the sea for forty years and cared for nothing on earth but it and his beloved engines. If ever a man loved his machines it was Phail, and if ever a man was loved and trusted by his subordinates it was he. Hard though he was, his crew, with the sure instinct of the sailor, recognised his sterling qualities, and would have followed his lead through the worst storm that ever blew. Indeed, the--was emphatically what is known among sailormen as "a happy ship," thanks to the captain and chief engineer, and I was not altogether surprised to learn that Humber was the only discordant note among the crew; for some reason the men disliked him, though he did his work well enough. An hour later, having taken our mails on board, we dropped down the Tyne bound for Norway. I learned from Captain Jackson that Humber had signed on some months before, and had made a number of trips across the North Sea. He had been in the habit of travelling to London each time the vessel reached Newcastle, and at length this fact had aroused Captain Jackson's suspicions, and he had made up his mind that this trip should be Humber's last. It was, indeed, but the end came in a manner which not even Captain Jackson's keen wits had anticipated. In the meantime I knew that Aubert, a splendid linguist, who could play many parts, from that of an idler in Paris to a worker in a munition factory, was somewhere below in the engine-room, certainly not very far from Humber, and assuredly very much on the alert. An hour after we left the Tyne mouth I was standing with some of the passengers on deck, watching some winking signals as our convoy appeared out of the misty twilight. Of what the convoy consisted I could not quite discern, but the Captain, before he ascended to his bridge, had said: "Our friends will pick us up presently, and they will see us safely across and look out for submarines." The night passed without incident, and the next day proved grey and windy. Ever and anon one of our patrolling airships paid us a visit, while three other ships, forming our convoy, stood by, with their deadly guns ever ready to talk in deadly earnest with any submarine that might venture to show her periscope. At ten o'clock that night I was on deck watching a series of strange flashes of light showing in the eastern sky, when a sailor approached, and informed me that the Captain wanted to see me in his cabin. I went at once.