needed and nowhere else. They were taking aboard the Arroyo dozens
of coffin-like wooden cases, and bags and boxes, smaller and even
heavier. Silently and swiftly they toiled.

It was risky work, too, at night and in the tense haste. There was a
muttered exclamation--a heavy case had dropped! a man had gone down
with a broken leg.

It was a common thing with the gun-runners. The crew of the Arroyo
had expected it. The victim of such an accident could not be sent to
a hospital ashore. He was carried, as gently as the rough hands
could carry anything, to one side, where he lay silently waiting for
the ship's surgeon who had been engaged for just such an emergency.
Constance bent over and made the poor fellow as comfortable as she
could. There was never a whimper from him, but he looked his
gratitude.

Scarcely a fraction of a minute had been lost. The last cases were
now being loaded. The tug crawled up and made fast. Already the
empty trucks were vanishing in the misty darkness, one by one, as
muffled as they came.

Suddenly lights flashed through the fog on the river.

There was a hurried tread of feet on the land from around the corner
of a bleak, forbidding black warehouse.

They were surrounded. On one side was the police boat Patrol. On the
other was Drummond. With both was the Secret Service. The surprise
was complete.