They stared at him in amazement.

“Wasn’t the deck patrolled?” asked Patsy, the first to recover.

“We don’t set a watch till ten-thirty.  It wasn’t considered necessary.  But I had no suspicion of the trick Elbl has played on me to-night,” he added with a groan.  Their voices had aroused others.  Ajo came out of his room, enveloped in a heavy bathrobe, and soon after Maud and Beth joined them.

“What’s up?” demanded the boy.

“The German has tricked us and made his escape,” quietly answered Dr. Gys.  “For my part, I’m glad of it.”

“It was a conspiracy,” growled the captain.  “That rascal, Maurie—­”

“Oh, was Maurie in it?”

“Of course.  He was the decoy; perhaps he arranged the whole thing.”

“Didn’t the general want you, then?”

Carg was so enraged that he fairly snorted.

“Want me?  Of course he didn’t want me!  That treacherous little Belgian led me into the waiting room and said the general would see me in a minute.  Then he walked away and I sat there like a bump on a log and waited.  Finally I began to wonder how Maurie, who was always shy of facing the authorities, had happened to be the general’s messenger.  It looked queer.  Officers and civilians were passing back and forth but no one paid any attention to me; so after an hour or so I asked an officer who entered from an inner room, when I could see the general.  He said the general was not there evenings but would be in his office to-morrow morning.  Then I showed him my order and he glanced at it and said it was forged; wasn’t the general’s signature and wasn’t in proper form, anyhow.  When I started to go he wouldn’t let me; said the affair was suspicious and needed investigation.  So he took me to a room full of officers and they asked me a thousand fool questions.  Said they had no record of a Belgian named Maurie and had never heard of him before.  I couldn’t figure the thing out, and they couldn’t; so finally they let me come back to the ship.”

“Strange,” mused Uncle John; “very strange!”

“I was so stupid,” continued Carg, “that I never thought of Elbl being at the bottom of the affair until I got back and found our launch missing.  Then I remembered that Elbl was to have been turned over to the prison authorities to-morrow and like a flash I saw through the whole thing.”

“I’m blamed if I do,” declared Mr. Merrick.

The others likewise shook their heads.

“He got me out of the way, stole the launch, and is half way to Ostend by this time.”

“Alone?  And wounded—­still an invalid?”

“Doubtless Maurie is with him.  The rascal can run an automobile; so I suppose he can run a launch.”

“What puzzles me,” remarked Patsy, “is how Lieutenant Elbl ever got hold of Maurie, and induced him to assist him, without our knowing anything about it.”

“I used to notice them talking together a good bit,” said Jones.