Part 66

As there was no news of him on the following morning, Heideck felt almost certain that the affair had turned out disastrously for Penurot. However, for the moment, he could not stop to investigate the young man’s whereabouts.

He was informed by the Lieutenant-Colonel that Brandelaar, whose vessel actually lay off Ternenzen, had been arrested with his crew, examined, and liberated during the course of the night, as had been agreed between the two officers.

Heideck now set out for Ternenzen to give Brandelaar the information for Admiral Hollway that had been collected at his office, together with the private information that was of such importance to him.

At last, having paid Brandelaar a thousand francs on account, Heideck also gave him the letter to Edith, with careful instructions as to its delivery. The skipper, whose zeal for the cause of Germany was now undoubtedly honourable, repeatedly promised to carry out his orders conscientiously and to the best of his power.

On returning to Antwerp at noon, Heideck found a communication at his office from the police to the effect that Camille Penurot’s body had been found in one of the harbour basins, stabbed in several places in the breast and neck. A search for the assassins had been immediately set on foot, but up to the present no trace of them had been discovered.

XXIX

A WOMAN’S TREACHERY

According to the agreement with Heideck, Brandelaar, on his return from Dover, was to put in at Flushing, and the Major had instructed the guardships at the mouth of the West Schelde to allow the smack to pass unmolested without detention. But he waited for the skipper from day to day in vain. The weather could not have been the cause of his delay; certainly it had not been too bad for a man of Brandelaar’s daring. A moderate north wind had been blowing nearly the whole time, so that a clever sailor could have easily made the passage from Dover to Flushing in a day.

Consequently, other reasons must have kept him in England. Heideck began to fear that either his knowledge of men, so often tried, had deceived him on this occasion, or that Brandelaar had fallen a victim to some act of imprudence in England.

A whole week having passed since Brandelaar had started, Heideck at least hoped for his return to-day. The north wind had increased towards evening; there was almost a storm, and the blast rattled violently at the windows of the room in the hotel, in which Heideck sat still writing at midnight.

A gentle knock at the door made him look up from his work. Who could have come to see him at this late hour? It was certainly not an orderly from his office, which was open day and night, for soldiers’ fingers as a rule knocked harder.

“Come in!” he said. The door opened slowly, and Heideck saw, in the dimly-lighted corridor, a slender form in a long oilskin cape and a large sailor’s hat, the brim of which was pressed down over the forehead.

A wild idea flashed through Heideck’s mind. He sprang up, and at the same moment the pretended young man tore off his hat and held out his arms with a cry of joy.

“My dear--my beloved friend!”

“Edith!”

At this moment all other thoughts and feelings were forgotten by Heideck in the overpowering joy of seeing her again. He rushed to Edith and drew her to his breast. For a long time they remained silent in a long embrace, looking into each other’s eyes and laughing like merry children.

At last, slowly freeing herself from his arms, Edith said--

“You are not angry with me, then, for coming to you, although you forbade it? You will not send me away from you again?”

Her voice penetrated his ear like sweet, soothing music. What man could have resisted that seductive voice?

“I should like to be angry with you, my dear, but I cannot--Heaven knows I cannot!”

“I could not have lived any longer without you,” whispered the young woman. “I was obliged to see you again, or I should have died of longing.”

“My sweet, my only love! But what is the meaning of this disguise? And how did you manage to cross the Channel?”

“I took the way you showed me. And is my disguise so very displeasing to you?”

She had thrown off the ugly, disfiguring cape and stood before him in a dark blue sailor’s dress. Even in her dress as an Indian rajah he had not thought her more enchanting.

“The only thing that displeases me is that other eyes than mine have been allowed to see you in it. But you still owe me an explanation how you got here?”

“With your messenger of love, your postillon d’amour, who was certainly rather uncouth and awkward for so delicate a mission.”

“What! did you come with Brandelaar?” cried Heideck, in surprise.

“Yes. The moment I received your letter from his clumsy sailor’s fist, my mind was made up. I asked him whether he was returning to Flushing, and when he said yes, I declared he must take me with him, cost what it would. I would have paid him all I possessed, without hesitation, to take me across. But the good fellow did it for much less.”