Though the lights of the city were few and very far between, so many search-lights played back and forth above the water that there seemed a hundred of them.  I judged it impossible for the smallest boat to pass unseen and I wondered whether it was difficult or easy to shoot with great guns by aid of search-lights, remembering what strange tricks light can play with a gunner’s eyes.  Mist, too, kept rising off the water to add confusion.

While I reflected in that manner, thinking that the shadow of every wave and the side of every boat might be a submarine, Ranjoor Singh came down from the bridge and stood beside me.

“I have seen what I have seen!” said he.  “Listen!  Obey!  And give me no back answers!”

“Sahib,” said I, “I am thy man!” But he answered nothing to that.

“Pick the four most dependable men,” he said, “and bid them enter that cabin and gag and bind Tugendheim.  Bid them make no noise and see to it that he makes none, but let them do him no injury, for we shall need him presently!  When that is done, come back to me here!”

So I left him at once, he standing as I had done, staring at the water, although I thought perhaps there was more purpose in his gaze than there had been in mine.

I chose four men and led them aside, they greatly wondering.

“There is work to be done,” said I, “that calls for true ones!”

“Such men be we!” said all four together.

“That is why I picked you from among the rest!” said I, and they were well pleased at that.  Then I gave them their orders.

“Who bids us do this?” they demanded.

“I!” said I.  “Bind and gag Tugendheim, and we have Ranjoor Singh committed.  He gave the order, and I bid you obey it!  How can he be false to us and true to the Germans, with a gagged German prisoner on his hands?”

They saw the point of that.  “But what if we are discovered too soon?” said they.

“What if we are sunk before dawn by a British submarine!” said I.  “We will swim when we find ourselves in water!  For the present, bind and gag Tugendheim!”

So they went and stalked Tugendheim, the German, who had been drinking from a little pocket flask.  He was drowsing in a chair in the cabin, with his hands deep down in his overcoat pockets and his helmet over his eyes.  Within three minutes I was back at Ranjoor Singh’s side.

“The four stand guard over him!” said I.

“Very good!” said he.  “That was well done!  Now do a greater thing.”

My heart burned, sahib, for I had once dared doubt him, yet all he had to say to me was, “Well done!  Now do a greater thing!” If he had cursed me a little for my earlier unbelief I might have felt less ashamed!

“Go to the men,” said he, “and bid those who wish the British well to put all the money they received this morning into a cloth.  Bid those who are no longer true to the British to keep their money.  When the money is all in the cloth, bring it here to me.”