“Where come you from?” asked the German in his best and gruffest English.

Jack declined to answer, but instead sat staring insolently at the towering figure.  His reply was a shrug of the shoulders.

From the wireless operator on the floor came a low moan as he slowly regained consciousness.  The fellow had been merely stunned.  Now he rolled over and struggled into a sitting posture.

The two Germans conversed together for a few minutes in their own language.  Jack, who had studied German at Brighton before the war, was able to gather from their conversation that the wireless operator was telling his companion of the surprise attack.  Soon the wireless man was able to get upon his feet and as he did so glowered at Jack as though he would like to leap upon him.

Again they tried to question him; but he refused to answer their questions.  This only angered them the more.  The wireless operator shuffled over to a closet in the corner and returned in a moment with a coil of rope which he handed to his superior, who was apparently the officer of the guard.

“Sit down in that chair,” commanded the German officer.

At that he thrust a revolver under Jack’s ear and motioned with his other arm for the American to wheel around facing the wireless with his back to the door.  Securely they bound him to the chair.  His arms and legs were pinioned so tightly that the rope cut into his flesh.  One of them now withdrew from the room and the other remained on guard at the door.  Every once in a while the German officer on guard walked over to Jack and glared at him with a fiendish sort of grin; kicking at the boy’s bound legs and brandishing his revolver in a menacing fashion.

“B-z-z-z-z,” the wireless began to talk.  But not for long, for the German on guard, who apparently knew little about the operation of the wireless apparatus, scurried over to the table and, after fumbling about for a moment madly and in haste, succeeded eventually in shutting off the key and stopping the flow of words that had been filtering in over the wires.  But not before Jack, alert to the message in code that he had heard, was able to translate in part.  As near as Jack could make out it was the U.S. destroyer Farragut speaking a United States battleship in the North Sea at something like seventy-five miles away.  But now the wireless was stopped and the lad sat helplessly in the power of the enemy.

After about twenty minutes’ wait Jack heard the sound of approaching footsteps outside and the clink of accoutrements that denoted the approach of an armed body of some sort.  The sentry at the door came to attention and saluted the leader of a file of some ten men who halted and set their guns down with a thud that Jack could plainly hear in the wireless station.  There was a short exchange of words at the door and then the commander of the detail stalked over and took a look at the prisoner.  Jack looked up to see before him a brawny German in the uniform of a lieutenant of the Imperial German Navy.