Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

470 conceive any idea as to what might be our condition or our fate as prisoners of war. At least, the ideas we did conceive were so unpleasant and gloomy we could not hear ourselves utter them. ) Prisoners of war we were. Neither of us gave himself the mad pleasure of dreaming of escape. It had been Rudy’s first task to put our electric equipment out of commission. Without it we could not get an explosion from one cylinder of the powerful engines, one turn of a pro- peller. Our problems were all beyond our power to figure even on solutions. As to whether this renewed mention of the power squadron was to pave the way to- ward treating us as out-and-out spies from a nation already making hidden plans for warlike action—as to whether such treatment would involve merely a continuation of a slightly closer confine- ment than we now endured, whether it would mean incarceration in dingy coops ashore while the yacht went to join the German fleet, whether it would mean just backing up to a wall and facing a dozen rifles-— we could only guess. And the guessing was nothing nice to be talking about. About three o’clock we had more visi- tors. The lieutenant himself led them aboard the vessel. The stiff formality of his morning’s note was now reflected in his rigid bearing. He curtly informed us that his men were come for the supplies. Our steward conducted him to the storage box. But supplies were not all he had come for. There had been sufficient evidence of a hasty search of our vessel having taken place while it was being towed from its outside anchorage to the pier in the harbor. But the search which now proceeded under the personal eye of the baron was thorough enough to have satis- fied a story-book detective. Not a bag or trunk or chest or draver escaped. Not a scrap of paper was left unexamined. And not a scrap was left aboard the vessel. Even our light vaca- THE ARGOSY. tion literature was removed from the walls of the saloon and borne ashore. Ali the captain’s instruments were taken; the papers of clearance from Porto Rico and elsewhere; the logs of all the voyages the Louisa II had made since her launching in the spring. Our main ccmpass was removed from the stand on the bridge, together with the binnacle lights. Our sailing lamps were confiscated. The oars of our tenders were tossed to the pier. Even the marlin-spikes were taken from our masts, and any other deck tools which might possibly become weapons in any sort of free fight. No doubt the baron was acting within his rights. Our coming held at least ground for a shadow of suspicion. Our -escape could hardly mean anything else but the destruction of his post, and that was of vast value to his government. But it is hard to see such things calmly while they are being done to you, especial- ly when the doer has made himself al- most an intimate chum. Even though there were occasional indications that our captor’s stiffness toward us was a pose, that hardly softened the acts which ac- companied the posing. The baron’s men were working to re- move the entire wireless equipment when we were bidden to go below for a search of our persons. When that had been ac- complished clear to our skins, we were al- lowed to dress again and return to the deck. A glance about revealed what might have been the deck of a comfortable house-boat on which to loaf away a sum- mer at a cheap resort. It seemed to have been swept clear of almost everything that could suggest a real sea-going vessel. Most of the men were gone, the ones who had just searched us disappeared up the gangway. The baron himself remained for a last word. “TI hope we'll be able to restore all these things to you again some day,” he said softly, in his careful English. ‘“‘ We are not really intending to confiscate them permanently.” DOOK C©