‘Nothing. I do not talk with spies,’ was the coarse retort. ‘But you take them on board the ship it is your duty to guard,’ I returned fiercely, carried out of myself. The lieutenant drew back, amazed. ‘I have taken a worthy priest to console a dying man--one of his own faith,’ he stammered out. ‘A German police agent, disguised as a priest, I suppose you mean. The spy Kehler?’ He began to tremble violently. ‘But the Sister! The nurse!’ ‘Sister Marie-Joseph! What do you mean?’ ‘She is on board now, nursing O’Callaghan.’ It was my turn to utter an oath of consternation. ‘Come with me. Take me on board instantly, or take me to your commander.’ ‘We will go on board,’ said the sobered lieutenant. Glancing round as I followed him out I saw that Kehler had disappeared. Quickening our steps by a common instinct, the lieutenant and I almost ran down to the water’s edge. ‘Thank God!’ burst from his lips as we came in sight of the majestic vessel lying peacefully at her anchors in the calm waters of the bay, her spars and turrets outlined against the clear, starlit sky, and only a few twinkling lights betraying the presence of the two hundred men who slept below her decks. The same instant there was a spout of fire, a cloud of wreck and dust mounted to heaven, and a thunderous boom stunned our ears, and sent the waters of the bay dashing up at our feet. The _Maine_ had broken like a bubble. I saw all in a flash--in some dark way that will never now be revealed Sister Marie-Joseph had blown up the _Maine_. Kehler had succeeded--I had failed. It has not been easy for me to write the story of what I regard as the greatest failure of my career. My mistake was the initial one of refusing to purchase Kehler’s confidences, by the expedient of pledging myself to assist his enterprise. Immediately the intelligence of the disaster reached Europe Stearine sent me a cable peremptorily enjoining silence. That injunction I consider has now lost its force through three circumstances, the lapse of time, the death in action of Lieutenant ----, and the living suicide of the arch-criminal, haunted by the horror of his own deed, in the deathlike cloisters of La Trappe. III THE MYSTERY OF CAPTAIN DREYFUS Every one must feel that the last word has not been said on that extraordinary transaction which convulsed France, and shocked Europe, during the close of the nineteenth century, under the name of the Dreyfus Case. It is true that no effort has been spared by the Government of the Republic to put an end to an agitation which threatened to develop into a civil war. A general amnesty has been proclaimed; the courts of law have been forbidden to entertain any proceedings involving the guilt or innocence of Captain Dreyfus, his accusers or his partisans, and the French press has been appealed to, in the name of patriotism, to close its columns to all further discussion of the dangerous topic.