Before I could be quite sure whether I was dreaming or waking, Duncan had dashed into the room on the other side of the hall, and grabbed up a bundle of papers that had been dropped as if by some one in a great hurry, all over the table. He glanced at one or two.
"But this,--this--settles it," he cried. "Come out of it quickly." And, in a few seconds, we were in the cover of the woods again.
"Schramm himself is over here, apparently. He must have come by U-boat," Duncan muttered, as we hurried down the path towards our launch. "If they catch us, we're simply dead and buried, and past praying for."
"But what does it mean? Where are they? Why the devil have they left everything open to the first-comer?"
"Beats me completely. But we'd better not wait to inquire. The next move is up to Washington."
"Look here, Duncan, we'd better be careful about our exit from the woods. If any one happens to have spotted the launch, we may run our heads into a trap."
I had an uneasy feeling that we were being watched, and that every movement we made was plainly seen by a gigantic but invisible spectator, very much the kind of feeling, I suppose, that insects must have under the microscope. I felt sure that we were not going to have it all our own way with this quiet island. Duncan hesitated for a moment, but I was insistent that we should take a look at our landing place before we left our cover. It was a characteristic of Duncan that as soon as he had discovered what he wanted, he became as forthright a sailor as you could wish to find; and I knew that if we were to escape with whole skins, or even to make use of our discovery, I should have to exercise my own wits. Fortunately, my own "impressions" began when his finished; for, after he had yielded to my persuasion, we made a slight circuit through the woods, and crept out through the long grass on the top of the little cliff, overlooking the beach where we had landed. Our clams were still there, in two neat little dumps. So was the launch, but in the stern of it there sat a tall red-bearded man, who looked like a professor, and a couple of sailors. They were all three talking German in low, excited tones, and they were all three armed with rifles.