“What now?” questioned the major, astonished.

“She will sink a hundred or two yards from shore, in deep water,” answered the Master, calmly.  “The sea-cock is wide open.”

“A fifteen thousand dollar launch—!”

“Is none the less, a clue.  No man of this party, reaching the shore tonight, is leaving any more trace than we are.  Come, now, all this is trivial.  Forward!”

In silence, they followed him along the dark wharf, reached a narrow, rocky path that serpented up the face of the densely wooded cliff, and began to ascend.  A lathering climb it was, laden as they were with heavy rucksacks, in the moonless obscurity.

Now and then the Master’s little searchlight—­his own wonderful invention, a heatless light like an artificial firefly, using no batteries nor any power save universal, etheric rays in an absolute vacuum—­glowed with pale virescence over some particularly rough bit of going.  For the most part, however, not even this tiny gleam was allowed to show.  Silence, darkness, precision, speed were now all-requisite.

Twenty-four minutes from leaving the wharf, they stood among a confused, gigantic chaos of boulders flung, dicelike, amid heavy timbers on the brow of the Palisades.  Off to the north, the faint, ghostly aura dimly silhouetted the trees.  Far below, the jetty river trembled here, there, with starlight.

They paused a moment to breathe, to shift straps that bound shoulders not now hardened to such burdens.  The Master glanced at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch.

“Almost to the dot,” he whispered.  “Seventeen minutes to midnight.  At midnight, sharp, we take possession.  Come!”

They trailed through a hard, rocky path among thick oak, pine, and silver-birch.  Now and then the little greenish-white light will-o’-the-wisped ahead, flickering hither, yon.  No one spoke a word.  Every footstep had to be laid down with care.  After three minutes’ progress, the Master stopped, turned, held up his hand.

“Absolute silence, now,” he breathed.  “The outer guards are now within an eighth of a mile.”

They moved forward again.  The light was no longer shown, but the Master confidently knew the way.  Bohannan felt a certain familiarity with the terrain, which he had carefully studied on the large-scale map he and the Master had used in planning the attack; but the Master’s intimate knowledge was not his.  After two and one-half minutes, the leader stopped again, and gestured at heavy fern-brakes that could just be distinguished as black blotches in the dark of the woods.

“The exact spot,” he whispered.  “Take cover, and follow your memorized orders!”

He settled down noiselessly into the brakes.  The others did likewise.  Utter silence fell, save for the far, vague roar of the city.  A vagrant little breeze was stirring the new foliage, through which a few stars curiously peeped.  The four men seemed far, very far from any others.  And yet—­