“What place is north of us?” inquired the girl, trembling a little in spite of her efforts at control.

“I think it is Nieuport—­or perhaps Dixmude,” answered Carg.  “I visited Belgium once, when I was a young man, but I cannot remember it very well.  We’re pretty close to the Belgian border, at Dunkirk.”

“There’s another!” cried Ajo, as a second whistling shriek sounded above them.  This time the bomb fell into the sea and raised a small water-spout, some half mile distant.  They could now see plainly a second huge aircraft circling above them; but this also took flight toward the north and presently disappeared.

Uncle John came hurrying on deck with an anxious face and together the group of Americans listened for more bombs; but that was all that came their way that night.

“Well,” said Patsy, when she had recovered her equanimity, “we’re at the front at last, Uncle.  How do you like it?”

“I hadn’t thought of bombs,” he replied.  “But we’re in for it, and I suppose we’ll have to take whatever comes.”

Now came the doctor, supporting the injured man on one side while Maud Stanton held his opposite arm.  Gys was smiling broadly—­a rather ghastly expression.

“No bones broken, sir,” he reported to Mr. Merrick.  “Only a good shake-up and plenty of bruises.  He can’t be induced to stay in bed.”

“Bed, when the Germans come?” exclaimed the invalid, scornfully, speaking in fair English.  “It is absurd!  We can sleep when we have driven them back to their dirty Faderland—­we can sleep, then, and rest.  Now, it is a crime to rest.”

They looked at him curiously.  He was a small man—­almost a tiny man—­lean and sinewy and with cheeks the color of bronze and eyes the hue of the sky.  His head was quite bald at the top; his face wrinkled; he had a bushy mustache and a half-grown beard.  His clothing was soiled, torn and neglected; but perhaps his accident accounted for much of its condition.  His age might be anywhere from thirty to forty years.  He looked alert and shrewd.

“You are Belgian?” said Uncle John.

He leaned against the rail, shaking off the doctor’s support, as he replied: 

“Yes, monsieur.  Belgian born and American trained.”  There was a touch of pride in his voice.  “It was in America that I made my fortune.”

“Indeed.”

“It is true.  I was waiter in a New York restaurant for five years.  Then I retired.  I came back to Belgium.  I married my wife.  I bought land.  It is near Ghent.  I am, as you have guessed, a person of great importance.”

“Ah; an officer, perhaps.  Civil, or military?” inquired Ajo with mock deference.

“Of better rank than either.  I am a citizen.”

“Now, I like that spirit,” said Uncle John approvingly.  “What is your name, my good man?”

“Maurie, monsieur; Jakob Maurie.  Perhaps you have met me—­in New York.”