captain of a cruiser is often called by his brother officers, was instantly on the alert. The alarm was given, and the ship was at once thoroughly searched, especially the ammunition stores, where, in the flat close to the torpedoes on the port side, the deadly box was discovered. The guests knew nothing of this activity on the lower deck, but the two men who found the box heard a curious ticking within, and without a second’s delay brought it up and heaved it overboard.

Then again the boatswain piped, and every man, as he stood at his post, was informed that a spy who had attempted to blow up the ship was still on board. Indeed, as “Number One,” otherwise the first lieutenant, was addressing them a great column of water rose from an explosion deep below the surface, and much of it fell heavily on deck.

Another thorough search was made into every corner of the vessel, whereupon the stranger in uniform was at last discovered in one of the stokeholds. Two stokers rushed across to seize him, but with a quick movement he felled both with an iron bar. Then he ran up the ladder with the agility of a cat, and sped right into the arms of Ella and Kennedy.

“Curse you—I was too late!” he shrieked in fierce anger, on recognising them, and then seeing all retreat cut off, he suddenly sprang over the side of the vessel, intending, no doubt, to swim ashore.

At once the pinnace went after him, but in the darkness he could not be discovered, though the searchlights began to slowly sweep the dark swirling waters.

That he met a well-deserved fate, however, was proved by the fact that at dawn next day his body was picked up on the other side of the bay. Yet long before, Theodore Drost, suspecting that something was amiss by his fellow spy’s non-return, had left by train for London.

Seymour Kennedy was next day called to the Admiralty and thanked for his keen vigilance, but he only smiled and kept a profound secret the active part played by his particular friend, the popular actress—Miss Stella Steele.

Chapter Two.

The Great Tunnel Plot.

“There! Is it not a very neat little toy, my dear Ernst?” asked Theodore Drost, speaking in German, dressed in his usual funereal black of a Dutch pastor, as everyone believed him to be.

Ernst Ortmann, the man addressed, screwed up his eyes, a habit of his, and 

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