In ten seconds the struggle was over. A powerful blow from Farnworth's clenched fist made George's a.s.sailant relax his grip on the lad's throat and fall like a log.

Leslie's antagonist, who was fast choking the plucky lad into a state of insensibility, broke away, and, with a yell of terror, fled for his life, hotly pursued by Jack Sefton. Realizing that he was being outstripped, the miscreant made straight for the lake and plunged in.

Vainly the sub waited for him to rise to the surface. Either the man's head had struck against some hard substance at the bottom or else he had become entangled in the weeds.

Greatly to Jack's surprise, he found that it was his young brother who had put up such a game struggle with his burly antagonist, and that d.i.c.k Crosthwaite's father and brother were of the party. Still greater was the sub's astonishment when he heard a well-known voice exclaim,

"Bear a hand, Jack. It's not at all comfortable here."

With a.s.sistance the admiral was extricated from the wreckage, little the worse for his adventure.

"Hang it all, my boy," exclaimed Admiral Sefton, "we were coming to look for you. We heard the _Calder_ was overdue."

"Didn't you get my wire, sir?" asked Jack. "I telegraphed directly we got ash.o.r.e."

"Considering I've been three days on the road," replied his father, "my postal address isn't of much use. Hulloa, Crosthwaite, what have you got?"

"Nothing much," declared the general. "A clean bullet-wound. Thought I'd been plugged through the chest. The shock knocked me out. By Jove!

That was a narrow squeak."

He held his cigar case up for inspection. The bullet had penetrated the lid, and had flattened itself against the back, a bulge proving by how little the missile had missed making a complete perforation.

"The rascal has spoilt two of my choice cigars," announced Crosthwaite Senior wrathfully. "What was the object, I wonder? By George, Sefton, I see ourselves let in for a coroner's inquest."

While Jack and the admiral were attending to George and Leslie, neither of whom showed any signs of serious injury, Farnworth examined the bodies of the three men. Two were stone dead--silent testimonies to the accuracy of the admiral's aim. The third was unconscious, the blow from Farnworth's powerful fist having stunned him. Of the others, one had been drowned, while the remaining member of the gang--the one wounded by the admiral--was at that moment limping painfully over the hills, and putting a safe distance between him and the scene of his rash and foiled exploit.

"By Jove, old man," exclaimed Farnworth, in the midst of his task of examining the contents of the dead man's pockets. "See what you make of this?"

He held up a sheet of soiled and creased paper, covered with closely-written flourishing writing, for Jack Sefton's inspection.

"German, by the powers!" he added.

"Partly in cipher and partly in ordinary writing," declared Sefton.

"These fellows are Huns, right enough, but what is their object?"

Farnworth did not reply. He was intently studying the minute penmanship. Suddenly he started to his feet.

"The swine!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed furiously. "Look here--these three words--all as plain as a pike-staff."

"Well, what does it mean?" asked the admiral, his attention drawn to the discovery by Farnworth's exclamation.

"A diplomatic mission is leaving a certain port. By this time the vessel detailed to convoy the party may have sailed. The spies knew this: this paper proves that. Either they or their accomplices have designs to interfere with the plan."

"A bold surmise on your part," remarked Admiral Sefton.

"I hope I'm mistaken, sir," replied Farnworth. "We'll have to be on the move at once."

"What's your plan, old man?" enquired Jack as the party set to work to convey the wounded general to the waiting car.

"Make for the nearest telegraph office," was the prompt reply.

"And these?" enquired the admiral, indicating with a comprehensive sweep of his hand the overturned motor and the three motionless forms of their former a.s.sailants.

"Can wait, sir," replied Farnworth. "We'll send the police and a break-down gang to clear up the business. All ready, Jack?"

Away glided the car, descending the curved road at terrific speed.

Approaching the bottom of the pa.s.s, another car was encountered going in the opposite direction. It contained the high personage who probably owed his life to the blunder the Germans had made in mistaking Crosthwaite's party for his. In complete ignorance, the occupants of the two cars pa.s.sed. The Government official was never to learn how close he had been to a foul death by a.s.sa.s.sination on the desolate Blackstone Edge.

Over the rough setts of Rochdale, Farnworth's car tore, until the young naval officer slowed up to pa.s.s through a dense crowd gathered round the windows of a firm of newspaper proprietors, and extending more than half-way across the street.

Instinctively the occupants of the car looked at the bold letters scrawled upon a large sheet of paper.

"Good heavens!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the admiral, hardly able to believe his eyes; "we are too late!"

CHAPTER XIX--The Smack "Fidelity"

"Be a sport, Jack!" exclaimed Leslie Sefton coaxingly.

"And take a sort of busman's holiday, eh?" rejoined the sub, regarding his young brother with a tolerant smile. "Well--I'll see."

"Thanks awfully," was Leslie's comment. Experience had taught him that Jack's "I'll see" invariably ended in acquiescence.

Two months had elapsed since the eventful encounter on Blackstone Edge.

August was well advanced, bringing with it a spell of gloriously fine weather; and, since the young people must needs have holidays, even in war-time, and the Admiral felt in need of a rest after the strenuous shooting-match on the bleak Pennine Hills, the Sefton family had taken a furnished house overlooking Poole Harbour.

Sub-lieutenant Sefton had been temporarily appointed to the Portsmouth Naval Barracks, pending another term of service afloat. His fairly frequent periods of week-end leave, he invariably spent with his parents, since Poole was within easy railway distance of the senior naval port.

Young Leslie was in his element. Before he had been at Poole more than three hours he had already chummed up with the owners of several pleasure craft. But a few days of sailing in a landlocked harbour soon whetted his appet.i.te for a trip beyond the bar, and for the present his wishes in that direction were thwarted. Owing to the war-time conditions, no pleasure-boat or yacht was permitted to leave the s.p.a.cious inland cruising-ground.

Time after time, Leslie watched with yearning eyes the brown-sailed fishing-fleet steal past the patrol-boats guarding the entrance, and glide seaward to the fishing-ground off the Dolphin Bank. For the most part, the boats were manned by grey-bearded stalwarts and young boys, worthy descendants of Harry Page, Thompson, and other Poole fishermen whose prowess against the French is still remembered by the inhabitants of the Dorset seaport. Already the British navy had claimed almost every able-bodied fisherman of fighting age, and n.o.bly the men had responded to the call, leaving grandfathers and grandsons to work the boats in the open waters of the English Channel.

At last Leslie found an opportunity. Getting on the right side of old "Garge" Cottenham, owner and master of the five-ton smack _Fidelity_, he prevailed upon that worthy to allow him to make an all-night trip to the fishing-grounds.

Unfortunately the admiral did not see eye to eye with his energetic son.

Even Leslie's declaration that he would be a.s.sisting in a work of national importance by helping to provide the nation's food left him unmoved. As a last resource the lad appealed to Jack, who had just arrived upon the scene for the week-end.

"Isn't the harbour good enough for him?" asked Admiral Sefton.

"You don't get the lift of the open sea, you know, Pater," replied the sub. "Leslie's got the old instinct, you see."

"S'pose so," admitted his parent. "A couple of centuries of sea life is bound to tell, eh? All the same, I don't like the idea of the boy knocking about in a smack. He'll get into a dozen sc.r.a.pes, and end up by tumbling overboard and getting mixed up in the trawl. Now if I were there to look after him----"

The admiral paused. Had old Garge Cottenham extended the invitation to him, the bluff old sea-dog could not have resisted the call of the sea--e'en were it through the medium of a five-ton smack. Between the man who in the splendour of a gold-laced uniform had directed the movements of a fleet and the other who grasped the tiller of a grubby fishing-boat existed a common tie--that mysterious and overpowering freemasonry of the sea.

On second thoughts, Admiral Sefton remembered his comfortable bed and well-ordered repast, comparing them with the discomforts of a night afloat and relatively hard fare.