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"Then what are you going to do?" asked Charlie. "Just keep watch," Blake answered. "What about Lieutenant Secor?" asked Joe. "Well, I didn't see him do anything," admitted Blake. "Though I have my suspicions of him also. He and Labenstein weren't talking so earnestly together for nothing. We'll watch that Frenchman, too."
"If all three of us catch him at his traitorous work, then we'll denounce him," suggested Blake. "Yes, and the Frenchman, too!" added Charlie, in a louder voice, so that Blake raised a cautioning hand. At that moment came a knock on their door, and a voice said: "I am Mr. Labenstein!" Almost like conspirators themselves, the boys looked at one another as the voice and knock sounded together.
"I'd better rouse Joe and let him keep track of one, in case they should separate." A touch on Joe Duncan's shoulder served to arouse him, though he was in a deep sleep. He sat up, demanding: "What is it? Are we torpedoed?" "No, but we may be," was Blake's low answer. "Keep quiet and follow me. Secor and Labenstein have both gone up on deck, I think. We'd better follow."
His chum did so, and, with an exclamation of surprise and satisfaction, turned away from the slot, motioning to the others to look for themselves. And as Joe and Charlie looked they saw, seated on the ruins of a machine gun and other things that had been in the place, Secor and Labenstein.
"I mean, our films are not likely to give away any vital secrets," he went on. "Well, I don't know," answered the lanky helper, "but I have a sort of hunch that they'll do all they can and everything they can to spoil our work for Uncle Sam on this side of the water, as they did before." "Secor spoiled the films before," urged Blake. "He didn't know Labenstein then, as far as we know."
And then Blake looked across No Man's Land that debatable ground between the two hostile forces as though to pierce what lay beyond, back of the trenches which were held by the Germans, though, at this point, the enemy was not in sight. "Could it, by any chance, have been Secor and Labenstein who got our films?" asked Joe. "Very possible," agreed Blake.
Labenstein," he added. "Have you seen them?" "Yes; they came up to get a bit of air, they said," answered the sailor. "I saw them a little while ago. You will find them up near the bow. Do not show a light, whatever you do, and light no matches. If you wish to smoke you must go below." "Thanks, we don't smoke," Joe answered, with a low laugh. "But we'll be careful about lights."
"We will," agreed Blake. "What was going on up here? We heard a racket, and Labenstein rushed up half dressed." "Lifeboat spilled no harm done," explained Charlie. "Well, I might as well take this camera below if we're not going to use it." "Come on, Blake," urged Joe. "They're going to have gun drill. Let's watch."
But he accepted Lieutenant Secor as a co-worker, on the latter's representation that he, too, was a friend of Germany, or rather, as the Frenchman made Labenstein think, was willing to become so for a sum of money. So the two seemingly worked together. "And it was thus you knew us," said the lieutenant to the boys.
"We thought we'd see if you wanted us in relation to the arrest of Secor and Labenstein," answered Blake. "Ah, yes! The two men who signaled the submarine. I have had them under surveillance ever since you made your most startling disclosures. I sent a wireless to the war authorities here to come and place them under arrest as soon as the vessel docked. I have no doubt they are in custody now.
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