“Well, here’s a chance for the bet.  You’ve got your big news to disturb the old man’s fishing.”

Horne Fisher was looking at the paper, and over his more languid and less expressive features a change also seemed to pass.  Even that little paragraph had two or three large headlines, and his eye encountered, “Sensational Warning to Sweden,” and, “We Shall Protest.”

“What the devil—­” he said, and his words softened first to a whisper and then a whistle.

“We must tell old Hook at once, or he’ll never forgive us,” said Harker.  “He’ll probably want to see Number One instantly, though it may be too late now.  I’m going across to him at once.  I bet I’ll make him forget his fish, anyhow.”  And, turning his back, he made his way hurriedly along the riverside to the causeway of flat stones.

March was staring at Fisher, in amazement at the effect his pink paper had produced.

“What does it all mean?” he cried.  “I always supposed we should protest in defense of the Danish ports, for their sakes and our own.  What is all this botheration about Sir Isaac and the rest of you?  Do you think it bad news?”

“Bad news!” repeated Fisher, with a sort of soft emphasis beyond expression.

“Is it as bad as all that?” asked his friend, at last.

“As bad as all that?” repeated Fisher.  “Why of course it’s as good as it can be.  It’s great news.  It’s glorious news!  That’s where the devil of it comes in, to knock us all silly.  It’s admirable.  It’s inestimable.  It is also quite incredible.”

He gazed again at the gray and green colors of the island and the river, and his rather dreary eye traveled slowly round to the hedges and the lawns.

“I felt this garden was a sort of dream,” he said, “and I suppose I must be dreaming.  But there is grass growing and water moving; and something impossible has happened.”

Even as he spoke the dark figure with a stoop like a vulture appeared in the gap of the hedge just above him.

“You have won your bet,” said Harker, in a harsh and almost croaking voice.  “The old fool cares for nothing but fishing.  He cursed me and told me he would talk no politics.”

“I thought it might be so,” said Fisher, modestly.  “What are you going to do next?”

“I shall use the old idiot’s telephone, anyhow,” replied the lawyer.  “I must find out exactly what has happened.  I’ve got to speak for the Government myself to-morrow.”  And he hurried away toward the house.

In the silence that followed, a very bewildering silence so far as March was concerned, they saw the quaint figure of the Duke of Westmoreland, with his white hat and whiskers, approaching them across the garden.  Fisher instantly stepped toward him with the pink paper in his hand, and, with a few words, pointed out the apocalyptic paragraph.  The duke, who had been walking slowly, stood quite still, and for some seconds he looked like a tailor’s dummy standing and staring outside some antiquated shop.  Then March heard his voice, and it was high and almost hysterical: