"How will you manage it?" I asked.
"Trust him," said Tiel.
"But then how shall I get back?"
"I shall drive you over," smiled Tiel. "There will probably be a dying woman who desires the consolations of religion in that neighbourhood on Monday night."
I smiled too, but merely at the cunning of the man, not at the thought of parting with my motor-cycle. However, I saw perfectly well that it would be folly to ride it over, and if I left it behind at the manse--well, I was scarcely likely to call for it again!
"Now, Belke," said Tiel, "we had better get you safely back to your turret chamber. You have been away quite as long as is safe."
I bowed to Captain Ashington--I could not bring myself to touch his hand, and we left his great gross figure sipping whisky-and-soda.
"What do you think of him?" asked Tiel.
"He seems extremely competent," I answered candidly. "But what an unspeakable scoundrel!"
"We mustn"t quarrel with our instruments," said he philosophically.
"He is doing Germany a good turn. Surely that is enough."
"I should like to think that Germany did not need to stoop to use such characters!"
"Yes," he agreed, though in a colourless voice, "one would indeed like to think so."
I could see that Adolph Tiel had not many scruples left after his cosmopolitan experiences.
IV.
WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY.
That evening when we had the house to ourselves, I joined Tiel in the parlour, and we had a long talk on naval matters, British and German.
He knew less of British naval affairs than I did, but quite enough about German to make him a keen listener and a very suggestive talker.
In fact I found him excellent company. I even suspected him at last of being a man of good birth, and quite fitting company for a German officer. But of course he may have acquired his air of breeding from mixing with men like myself. As for his name, that of course gave no guide, for I scarcely supposed that he had been Tiel throughout his adventurous career. I threw out one or two "feelers" on the subject, but no oyster could be more secretive than Adolph Tiel when he chose.
That night I heard the wind wandering noisily round the old house, and I wakened in the morning to find the rain beating on the window. Tiel came in rather late with my breakfast, and I said to him at once--
"I have just remembered that this is Sunday. I wish I could come and hear your sermon, Tiel!"
"I wish you could, too," said he. "It will be a memorable event in the parish."
"But are you actually going to do it?"
"How can I avoid it?"
"You are so ingenious I should have thought you would have hit upon a plan."
He looked at me in his curious way.
"Why should I have tried to get out of it?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Personally, I shouldn"t feel anxious to make a mock of religion if I could avoid it."
"We are such a religious people," said he, "that surely we can count on G.o.d forgiving us more readily than other nations."
He spoke in his driest voice, and for a moment I looked at him suspiciously. But he was perfectly grave.
"Still," I replied, "I am glad the Navy doesn"t have to preach bogus sermons!"
"Ah," said he, "the German navy has to keep on its pedestal. But the secret service must sometimes creep about in the dust."
His eyes suddenly twinkled as he added--
"But never fear, I shall give them a beautiful sermon! The text will be the pa.s.sage about Joshua and the spies, and the first hymn will be, "Onward, Christian Sailors.""
He threw me a humorous glance and went out. I smiled back, but I confess I was not very much amused. Neither the irreverence nor the jest about the sailors (since it referred apparently to me) struck me as in the best of taste.
That morning was one of the dreariest I ever spent. The wind rose to half a gale, and the fine rain beat in torrents on the panes. I wrote diligently for some time, but after a while I grew tired of that and paced the floor in my stockinged feet (for the sake of quietness) like a caged animal. My one consolation was that to-morrow would see the end of my visit. Already I longed for the cramped quarters and perpetual risks of the submarine, and detested these islands even more bitterly than I hated any other part of Britain.
In the early afternoon I had a pleasant surprise. Tiel came in and told me that his servant had gone out for the rest of the day, and that I could safely come down to the parlour. There I had a late luncheon in comparative comfort, and moreover I could look out of the windows on to the sea. And what a dreary prospect I saw! Under a heavy sky and with grey showers rolling over it, that open treeless country looked desolation itself. As for the waters, whitecaps chased each other over the wind-whipped expanse of grey, fading into a wet blur of moving rain a few miles out. Through this loomed the nearer lines of giant ships, while the farther were blotted clean out. I thought of the long winters when one day of this weather followed another for week after week, month after month; when the northern days were brief and the nights interminable, and this armada lay in these remote isles enduring and waiting. The German navy has had its gloomy and impatient seasons, but not such a prolonged purgatory as that. We have a different arrangement. Probably everybody knows what it is--still, one must not say.
After lunch, when we had lit our cigars, Tiel said--
"By the way, you will be pleased to hear that my efforts this morning were so successful that the people want me to give them another dose next Sunday."
I stared at him.
"Really?" I exclaimed.
He nodded.
"But I thought there would be another preacher next Sunday."
"Oh, by no means. There was no one for next Sunday, and they were only too glad to have the pulpit filled."
"But will you risk it?"
He smiled confidently.
"If there is any danger, I shall get warning in plenty of time."
"To ensure your escape?"
"To vanish somehow."