"He holds his breath, gives one last push, and feels the lid opening, opening softly, like the big steel door of a safe in a bank. His crowbar is wedged under the lid, between the hinges, just as he wished. In four seconds he is shooting up, up to the surface, with his chest bursting, like a diver that has seen a shark. "For a minute he floats there in the darkness, under the stars. Then--perhaps the struggle has been greater even than he knew--he faints. It is fortunate that his life-belt is a good one, for when he recovers he has floated perhaps a long time. He is very cold. He takes a drink of rum from his flask and gets his bearings. He is two miles from the coast. Yes, but he is a clever man. There is one of those little islands, covered with pine trees, just a hundred and fifty yards away. There is also a wooden house on the island; and a landing stage with a dinghy hauled up on the shore. "The owner of the boat is careful. He has taken his oars to bed with him. But the captain is a clever man. It is a beautiful night. He has plenty of time, and he can paddle with one of the loose boards in the bottom of the dinghy." "But listen! What became of the little Bavarian?" said Mimika. "Well, I was not there to see," said Captain Vandermeer, lighting a cigar, "but when the men woke they must all have tried to get out by the same way." "And they couldn't?" asked Roy. He was watching Vandermeer with a very curious expression--almost as if he were examining an eyewitness. "The captain was an expert engineer--ah, a magnificent engineer!--as I told you, Roy, and there was a leetle crowbar wedged under what we have been calling the lid of the conning tower." "Good God, what an idea! You mean they couldn't close the upper lid again?" "They might think they had closed it." Vandermeer gave a deep guttural chuckle. "Then they would open the lower lid, heh?" "And then?" "Why, then the sea would come running into the hull, and they would be drowned." "Oh, but not the poor little Bavarian!" said Mimika. "_L'état, c'est moi_," said Vandermeer with a smile. Roy was looking at him still with the same pensive expression as of a youthful Buddha. "I suppose he had no difficulty in getting rid of the diamonds," he said. "Probably not," said Vandermeer. "Perhaps he would keep a few as a reserve--a kind of Landsturm. But he would buy Liberty Bonds, heh?" "And you mean to say that a man like that is going about in the United States now?" said Mimika. Vandermeer chuckled again. "Who knows?" he said. "Perhaps he has come to Southern California. Perhaps he has bought a nice little ranch--a fruit ranch, just like this, heh?--where he shall live a happy and healthy life to the age of a hundred. And now, Mimika, it is getting time for little girls to go to bed."