"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said, simply.
"There is nothing about me, my Captain, that you can admire," spoke the Russian woman, sadly. "I have not led the right kind of life. But I have just that grain of good in me that enables me to admire one as fine and manly as I have found you to be. You have given me my life--a worthless one, at best. So I give you your life--and may you make as splendid use of it as you have started out to do. And now, good-bye, my Captain. You cannot continue to know such as I."
Despite what he knew of this dangerous woman, Jack Benson felt himself touched.
"What is going to become of you, Mademoiselle?" he asked. "Will you be dragged down in the snares that have entrapped your confederates!"
"I do not know. How could I know?" she asked, looking quickly up at him. "Yet, if my accomplices escape, and find that I have served you, my Captain, do you know the forfeit they will exact?"
"Your life?" whispered Benson.
"Yes!"
"Then, if I can, I am going to help you to escape them," promised the submarine boy. "Yet that can happen only on your most solemn word--given, pardon me, in a moment of absolute honesty--that you will never again play the spy, for the secrets of the United States Government."
"Oh, I will promise that," replied Mlle. Nadiboff, quickly. "Yet I hardly need to. After what I have done, just now, no one in my peculiar line of work would ever trust me again. I shall be shunned, hereafter, if not destroyed, by those who have worked with me."
"I shall do my best to get you safely away from Spruce Beach," promised Jack Benson. "Have you more to say to me, Mademoiselle?"
"Nothing, but good-bye, my Captain."
She held out her hand. Once more Jack took it, bending low over it.
Tears shone in her eyes, but Jack did not see them, for he turned, going back to his friends.
Not until they were well away from the parlor did Jack Benson offer any account of the interview that had just taken place.
"Let me have that envelope, then," requested Jacob Farnum, gravely.
"What are you going to do with it, sir?" Jack asked, as he pa.s.sed it over.
"Do with it?" repeated his employer. "I"m going to take it to the nearest druggist, and find out what the stuff is."
"We"d better take this latest news to our friend Trotter," suggested David Pollard.
"By all means," nodded Farnum. "And I"ll meet the rest of you there."
The little house wherein the Secret Service, men had taken up their headquarters was not far away. When the inventor and the submarine boys rang the bell Mr. Packwood admitted them.
"Step right into the next room," advised Mr. Packwood. "You"ll find some one there you know."
A the submarine folks entered the room they saw Trotter seated at a table on which were writing materials. At the other side of the table standing very erect, and in a very respectful pose, was the j.a.panese, Kamanako.
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION
"Good evening, honorable gentlemen," said the j.a.panese, turning when he heard the new arrivals entering.
"Mr. Kamanako is going to leave us," announced Trotter, with a smile.
"He goes north to-night. Here is the slip of paper, my boy, that will take you past any meddlesome inquiry. But it is good only until midnight, so I advise you to be sure to catch to-night"s express."
"I shall, and thank you, honorable sir," replied the j.a.panese, bowing.
"Then I won"t detain you any longer, or you may miss your train."
Once more the j.a.panese bowed, then turned to Captain Jack Benson.
"Honorable Captain," he said, "I had pleasure to show you something about jiu-jitsu. You did me honor to show me most excellent thing you called American strategy. I shall not forget it."
With bows to the others Kamanako quickly took his leave.
"We had nothing very strong on which we could hold that fellow, so we had to let him go," declared Mr. Trotter, after the outer door had closed. Then he added, with a sigh: "That"s the worst of catching spies, under such laws as we have in this country. Rarely are we able to punish them as they deserve."
"He won"t come back, will he?" asked Jack.
"Not for a while, anyway. We have made the fellow nervous, and he will give us a wide berth for a considerable time."
"Why don"t you hit all these people the hardest kind of a blow?" demanded young Benson.
"I wish I knew how to," sighed Trotter.
"Then spoil them with too much publicity," proposed the submarine captain. "Let the whole country know all about them and their records, and just how they look."
"If I could! But how am I to do it?"
"Why, there"s a writer here at Spruce Beach," Jack continued; "a man named Hennessy. Let him write all the facts of this whole story, or such of the facts as you want made public. Let Hennessy have the photographs of this spy crew. He can print the yarn in his newspaper and in some magazine, and can use all the photos. Then these people will find themselves so well known that about all of them value as spies will be gone."
"By Jove, but that"s a clear-headed idea," muttered Trotter, rising from his chair. "It will do the trick, too. Where is this man, Hennessy?"
"Stopping at the Clayton, sir."
"Packwood, will you go over and get that reporter?" asked Mr. Trotter, turning to his a.s.sociate.
In the next minute Jack was telling Trotter of the fire-incident and the envelope that Mlle. Nadiboff had given him. By the time the submarine boy had finished his recital Jacob Farnum hurried in.
"That stuff," he reported, "is morphine sulphate, and the druggist says there was enough of it to take you clear out of this world and into the next."
"Hm! That Nadiboff woman!" muttered Trotter. "She has been as dangerous as any of them, and yet it is hard to be rough with her after her one act of grat.i.tude to you, Benson. I could see that she went north on the train, of course, but she"d be liable to suspicion and punishment by some of the members of the gang of that infernal Gaston. He has yet other men, I suspect, who may be watching the trains further on, and Mlle. Nadiboff, after saving you, Benson, from their latest death trap, might run right into their vengeance. She ought to be gotten away from here by some other means."
"She can be--by ship," hinted Jack, quietly.
"Let me see," mused Trotter. "Yes; that can be done, if you want to take some trouble. At about eleven to-night the Savannah freight steamer, bound for Havana, will pa.s.s by about a dozen miles out. You could pick her up by watching for her searchlight. Do you feel like sending Nadiboff to Cuba, in that fashion?"
"If it suits her, we"ll do it," Jack replied quickly enough.