Mr. Tyler, Sr., was expected almost hourly. The last steamer in
from Honolulu had brought information of the date of the expected
sailing of his yacht Toreador, which was now twenty-four hours
overdue. Mr. Tyler's assistant secretary, who had been left
at home, assured me that there was no doubt but that the Toreador
had sailed as promised, since he knew his employer well enough to
be positive that nothing short of an act of God would prevent his
doing what he had planned to do. I was also aware of the fact
that the sending apparatus of the Toreador's wireless equipment was
sealed, and that it would only be used in event of dire necessity.
There was, therefore, nothing to do but wait, and we waited.

We discussed the manuscript and hazarded guesses concerning it and
the strange events it narrated. The torpedoing of the liner upon
which Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., had taken passage for France to join
the American Ambulance was a well-known fact, and I had further
substantiated by wire to the New York office of the owners, that
a Miss La Rue had been booked for passage. Further, neither she
nor Bowen had been mentioned among the list of survivors; nor had
the body of either of them been recovered.

Their rescue by the English tug was entirely probable; the capture
of the enemy U-33 by the tug's crew was not beyond the range
of possibility; and their adventures during the perilous cruise
which the treachery and deceit of Benson extended until they found
themselves in the waters of the far South Pacific with depleted
stores and poisoned water-casks, while bordering upon the
fantastic, appeared logical enough as narrated, event by event, in
the manuscript.