"Steve, how about the men who are working in the tunnel under the arsenal?"
"What do you mean? What do you know about the tunnel under the arsenal?"
Steve was startled and dismayed, but Dick laughed at him.
"That's all I know," he said. "Just that there is such a thing, Steve. You needn't be frightened--I haven't been spying around. But this man that came here to see Mike Hallo knew all about it. He told him the mine was going to be sprung to-night, and that they must hasten to stop it."
"That ends the last doubt! He is a traitor!" said Steve. "He surely will have to pay the price of treachery, too, when there is an opportunity."
"What else can be done? It is his life against a nation, Dick. A man like that may cause a thousand deaths by betraying a single secret. But--about the men in the tunnel. I might have known that there was some good reason for your knowing. Yes, it is true. There are men working there, and they will try to explode their mine and blow up the arsenal to-night."
"Can't you reach them? I think that two or three men might get Hallo through the town and to the boathouse. They could pretend that he was drunk, and that they were helping him along, if he was still unconscious."
"Dick, I think you've hit on the right idea again! I'll try to get them. But suppose they come to first?"
"If we tied them up?" was Dick's suggestion.
"It would be risky. The watchman may come here at any moment after he hears no more voices."
"Yes, that's so. How long would it take you to go?"
"To go and come back? Twenty minutes, perhaps."
"Then go! Don't delay any longer, and I will stay here and keep watch."
"In here? No, it is too dangerous. I am afraid now, if they learn what you have done for us, they will be able to make a real charge against you, and that even your consul could not help you to escape severe punishment."
"I would not wait here--not in here, Steve. I would watch outside. Look! Do you see these grains of corn?"
He picked up a handful of the kernels from a sample basket on the table.
"I will keep watch. If he comes out, I will follow him and every three or four feet I will let a little of this corn drop, so that it will mark a trail for you to follow. Do you see the idea?"