He ascertained from a helpless policeman that the rumour had gone round of a vessel coming in; the sullen, apathetic multitude, waiting there for it knew not what chance of rescue, had suddenly become dangerous.
"The American Consul, who has worked hard all day, has had to give it up," added the man. "He is closing his office."
Just then a harbour official, minus his cap, and with coat badly torn during a violent passage through the mob, strode by, breathless but hurried.
Dalroy recognised him, having had much business with the port authorities during the preceding week.
"Is it true that a steamer is in sight?" he asked.
"Monsieur, what am I to say?" and the accompanying gesture was eloquent. "It is only a little cargo boat, an English coaster. If she nears the quay there will be a riot, and perhaps thousands of lives lost. The harbour-master has sent me to ask the mayor if he should not signal her to anchor outside until daylight."
Prompt decision and steadfast action were Dalroy's chief qualities. If luck favoured him he might set his own project on foot before the mayor's messenger burked it by a civic order. He thanked the man and rode off.
Happily the tram came from Blankenberge without undue delay. He had only dismounted when the engine clanked into the station square. Already his soldier's eye had noted that the Gordons and some of the Belgian soldiers had retained their rifles and bayonets.
"Get your crowd into motion at once," he said to the doctor, as soon as the latter alighted. "Nothing you have gone through during the last two months will equal the excitement of the next quarter of an hour. But, if your cripples can fix bayonets and show a bold front, we have a fighting chance--no more. And unless we leave Ostend before to-morrow morning it'll be a German prison for you and a firing party for me."
Men who have smelt war and death, not once but many times, do not hesitate and argue when a staff officer talks in that strain.
With an almost marvellous rapidity the members of the mission and the wounded able to walk were formed up, stretchers were lifted, and the march began. Dalroy and the doctor headed the procession with the Gordons, and the mere appearance of a Highlander enforces awe in any part of Europe.