Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/309

  a woman—a very clever and pretty woman, I may add, to make the story more interesting."

"And the other, whose arrest may follow, is an accomplice of hers, I take it. General!" Woodhouse put the question with easy indifference. He was stirring his coffee abstractedly.

"Not only the accomplice, but the brains for both, Captain. A deucedly clever person, I'm frank to admit."

"Oh, people! Come and see the flagship, signaling to the rest of the fleet with its funny green and red lights!" It was Jane who had suddenly risen and stood by the curtains screening the balcony windows. "They look like little flowers opening and shutting."

The girl's diversion was sufficient to take interest momentarily from General Crandall's revelation. When all had clustered around the windows, conversation skipped to the fleet, its power, and the men who were ready to do battle behind its hundreds of guns. Mrs. Sherman was disappointed that the ships did not send up rockets. She'd read somewhere that ships sent up rockets, and she didn't see why these should prove the exception. Interruption came