"You can guess _my_ sentiments in regard to this war, can't you?" insisted Guild. "I think I can." "Then listen, Jamison. I pledge you my word that through this young girl, and through me, nothing shall ever happen that could in any manner be detrimental to your country or its allies. Don't press this matter, for God's sake!" "Guild," he said quietly, "I believe you absolutely. But--both you and this young lady must come aboard the _Wyvern_ with me. Those are my orders, old fellow. I can't go back on them; I have no discretion in this matter. You know that, don't you?" "Yes." After a silence, Guild linked his arm in the gold-laced arm of his old-time friend and walked back to where the captain stood fidgeting. "I won't go, Jamison," he said, loudly but pleasantly. "I am not obliged to go aboard your ship. Captain Vandervelde, I claim the protection of your flag for myself and for my wife." "Captain Vandervelde knows that it means only trouble for him," said Jamison, forcing a smile. "He is not likely to defy the _Wyvern_, I think." They all turned in the sudden glitter of the _Wyvern's_ searchlight and gazed across the darkness where the unseen cruiser was playing on them from stem to stern. "Will you come with me, Guild?" asked Jamison quietly. "No, Jamison, I'm hanged if I do.... And that's too close to the truth to be very funny," he added, laughingly. "The _Wyvern_ will merely send a guard for you. It's no good bluffing, Guild. You know it yourself." "International law is no bluff!" "International law is merely in process of evolution just now. It's in the making. And we are making it." "That remark is very British." "Yes, I'm afraid it is. I'm sorry." "Well, I won't go aboard the _Wyvern_, I tell you. I've _got_ to stay on this ship! I--" he leaned over and said under his breath--"it may mean death to me, Jamison, to go aboard your ship. Not because of anything I have to fear from _your_ people. On the contrary. But they'll shoot me in Germany. Can't you tell your captain I'm trustworthy?" "What is the use, Guild?" said the young man gently. "I have my orders." Guild looked at him, looked about him at the grave faces of the captain and the second officer, looked out across the black void of water where the long beam of the searchlight had shifted skyward, as though supplicating Heaven once more. Only a miracle could save Karen. He knew that as he stood there, silent, with death in his heart. And the miracle happened. For, as he stood staring at the heavenward beam of the unseen cruiser's searchlight, all at once the ship herself became grotesquely visible, tilted up oddly out of the sea in the centre of a dull reddish glow. The next instant a deadened boom sounded across the night as though from infinite depths; a shaft of fire two hundred feet high streamed skyward. "That ship has been torpedoed! Oh, my God!" said a voice.