The Smiler Bunn Brigade

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BERTRAM ATKEY

THE SMILER BUNN BRIGADE

Serialised in The Grand Magazine, May 1915-April 1916

First book edition:
Hodder & Stoughton, London, New York & Toronto, 1916

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-01-16

Produced by Gordon Hobley and Roy Glashan

All original content added by RGL is protected by copyright.

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"The Smiler Bunn Brigade," Hodder & Stoughton, 1916"

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE

This account of the exploits of Smiler Bunn and his cronies behind German lines during the First World War is an episodic novelisation of 12 short stories published in The Grand Magazine from May 1915 to April 1916.

1. The Man from Krupp's (May 1915)
2. The Academy for Traitors (Jun 1915)
3. A Circumstance of War (Jul 1915)
4. The Amazons of the Crypt (Aug 1915)
5. The Prey of the War Hawks (Sep 1915)
6. The Trial by Terror (Oct 1915)
7. The Nodding Man (Nov 1915)
8. "Howitzer No. 8" (Dec 1915)
9. The War-Hound Patrol (Jan 1916)
10. The Salamander (Feb 1916)
11. The Crucified Man (Mar 1916)
12. The Tunnel and the Well (Apr 1916)

The first eleven chapters of the novelisation bear the same titles as the stories in The Grand Magazine. The twelfth has been retitled "Germany All Over—Down and Out."

AN EXPLANATORY EXTRACT

From a letter written by Mr. J. Raymond Carey, in London, to his friend and partner Mr. Kane Kilnoun, of Messrs. Carey & Kilnoun, Ivory and Produce Factors, at Livingstone, Rhodesia.

...it's put a year or two on to my age and a lock or two of white into my curls. However, we all broke about even except perhaps the little Dutch guide who was more than ready for a long rest when we left him. The other men were a couple of brace of very queer birds. One was a sort of Mahommedan, a secretary or something of that kind to the Rajah of Jolapore. As smooth as a porpoise and about the same size, with the morals of a crocodile, but a fighter all the time. He was calling himself Mirza Khan through this business, but I don't think names worry him much, anyway. He turned out to be an old friend of the others—I fancy they had been mixed up together in some pretty complex transactions in the past. The others were a pair of highly competent cocks called Wilton Flood and Henry Black, with Flood's valet, a Chink, and the most capable Chink I ever saw—and I've seen a few.[*]

[* "Wilton Flood" and "Henry Black," it will be remembered by those who remember such things, were the names adopted for good and sufficient reasons by Messrs. Smiler Bunn and Lord Fortworth at critical moments in their respective careers.]

Flood and Black were good chaps to have next to one in a bad country, but they aren't ordinary cards. Over here they live like millionaires and what they don't know about making themselves comfortable no man on earth can teach them. I've got no right to describe them as crooks, but my impression is that they are the two men who never let anything get past them. They're human Nets—rat-traps, so to speak. From what I can gather—and they give very little away—they make a speciality of hawking for hawks. They find a "crook" at work and they let him finish—but when he has finished he finds that the plunder has somehow or other got completely past him—into the Nets. They tell some queer stories. Personally I like the blackguards—all of 'em. They make me laugh. Flood and his pal talk of visiting us some time in Rhodesia. You will get on with them. They'll amuse you. But bury the cash-box before they arrive...

Chapter I. The Man from Krupp's
Chapter II. The Academy for Traitors
Chapter III. "A Circumstance of War"
Chapter IV. The Amazons of the Crypt
Chapter V. The Prey of the War Hawks
Chapter VI. The Trial by Terror
Chapter VII. The Nodding Man
Chapter VIII. "Howitzer No. 8"
Chapter IX. The War-Hound Patrol
Chapter X. The Salamanders
Chapter XI. The Crucified Man
Chapter XII. "Germany All Over—Down and Out"

CHAPTER I. — THE MAN FROM KRUPP'S

THE head waiter, a fat Bavarian with a hard eye, a large circular figure and an extraordinarily insincere manner, rather skilfully wrung his mouth into a smile and approached the table at which sat those middle-aged and experienced chevaliers d'industrie, Mr. "Smiler" Bunn and ex-Lord Fortworth, though these were by no means the names under which they circulated among humanity now. Mr. Bunn, for reasons which no doubt were entirely satisfactory to himself, was Mr. Wilton Flood, and ever since his gigantic financial failure, involving that of the many companies he had created, Lord Fortworth, that dour and self-made man, had abandoned his title in favour of the humbler and less noticeable name of Black—Mr. Henry Black, a gentleman of private means.

The head waiter gutturally expressed the hope that the lunch had been satisfactory.

"Yes—to you," replied Mr. Bunn, shortly, finishing his liqueur. He had never liked German hotels, and German waiters he liked even less.

The head waiter bowed a stiff, jerky little bow, like a man who has tried to climb over his own stomach but has slipped back, and said, in remarkably good English, that he did not understand. It seemed to Mr. Bunn that under the smooth deference acquired during a lifetime's looking out for tips, there was the suggestion of a sneer in the man's voice. Smiler flushed slightly, and fastened a pair of grey and flinty eyes upon the waiter.

"What I mean to say is that the price of the lunch is satisfactory to you, but that the food was garbage, practically speaking. It was the sort of stuff that only a man who has been starved at Homburg would have the heart to discourage his digestion with. The fish was the best of the lot—and it was the poorest fish I've ever tasted. Carp, wasn't it?" He consulted the menu again. "Yes—carp. Well, now, if I had my way, my lad, I would have carp blotted off the face of the earth, and rendered extinct. That's what, Squire. For it's a poor fish at the best of times—the poorest of fish, in fact. Very suitable for vultures or mud-hawks, I should say, but not suitable for human consumption—the way your chef turns it out. Ain't that right, Black?"

"They feed it to pelicans at Zoological Gardens in most countries," said that individual with sulky candour.

"Carp!" continued Mr. Bunn, evidently warming to his subject, and staring very intently at the apparently hypnotised head-waiter. "What is this carp, anyway? Man alive, even old Izaak Walton, a man who's forgotten more than you or your chef ever knew about cooking fish, and who had a good word to say for very nearly every fish that swims, always seems to me to have his doubts about these carp! Listen here! I know his recipe by heart. He says in his book—I'm telling you this for your own good, Squire, understand—he says, 'Take a carp, alive if possible, scour him and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not'—understand that, scale him not—'then open him and put him with his blood and liver into a small pot, then take'—listen to this, now, it's literature,—'then take sweet marjoram, thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful, a sprig of rosemary and another of savory, bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them to your carp, with four or five whole onions, twenty pickled oysters and three anchovies.' Don't overlook the anchovies, mind, for I've always said, and shall always maintain, that anchovies are Godsends to mankind."

Several immensely interested and extremely full-fed Germans, one of them an infantry officer, who had gathered round nodded solemnly.

"'Then,'" continued Mr. Bunn, affably, and not without pride, "'then pour upon your carp as much claret as will cover him and season your claret well with salt, cloves and mace, and the rinds of oranges and lemons: that done, cover your pot and set it on a quick fire, till it be sufficiently boiled; then take out the carp and lay it with the broth into the dish and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter melted and beaten with half a dozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs, and some of the herbs shred; garnish your dish with lemons and so serve it up, and much good do you!'... Now, that's the recipe—and what I want you to notice is the last few words 'much good do you!' He means that sarcastically, Walton does. Anybody can see that if they've got their lamps trimmed. The man gives you a recipe with half a dozen expensive things thrown in and a lot of work and careful cooking and yet at the end of it he says, 'and much good do you!' Practically speaking, it's the same as saying 'and be damned to you!' To my mind, that's a pretty sure sign of what he really thinks of carp. And I'll confess, gentlemen, that I think the same—it's a poor fish and has spoiled many a lunch—"

He broke off abruptly as the German officer, who had withdrawn a little from the group to read a telegram he had just received, gave a sudden, thick exclamation:

In an instant he was surrounded and a hoarse clamour of questions burst out about him. He clutched the telegram in both hands, like a man holding a newspaper, and held it before the ring of flushed, excited faces that hemmed him in. There was only the one word upon it:

Neither Mr. Bunn nor Lord Fortworth was a German scholar, nor did either possess the least desire to be, but both understood enough of the language to know the meaning of the word on the telegram. It was the order to mobilise for war—and all the wires in Germany were humming with it.

They shot a glance at each other. And it was no longer the tranquil, sleepy glance of two men of comfortable habits and generous ideas, gourmets, indeed, who have just lunched—badly, perhaps, but still sufficiently. Their expressions now were about as sleepy as those of a couple of wise and crafty old wolves who, basking in some sunny jungle fastness suddenly have scented, on the wind, the taint of some approaching danger.

Men such as Mr. Bunn and ex-Lord Fortworth do not look upon peoples, their customs and their environment, from quite the same angle as the average traveller. For, since it was to the weaknesses and lack of suspicion and preparedness of the wealthier units of humanity, that the two old tigers looked to provide them with the means of luxurious existence, naturally they were infinitely more observant than the ordinary tourist or Homburg water drinker.

When they travelled in Germany they were, by force of habit, on the look-out for a different kind of scenery from hills, valleys, and quaint buildings. The scenery they most appreciated, and, indeed, sought for, was what they described as "the yellow, round scenery which has a milled edge and looks best in a man's bank account." Nothing but the keenest observation will disclose this kind of scenery to men who seek, and years of perpetual searching had ingrained in the Bunn-Fortworth Combine powers of observation which let nothing escape. So that scores of things seen (and mechanically noted) during the previous month suddenly rose up before their minds' eyes and helped to hint to them what sort of a place Germany was likely to be from then onwards.

"Here she comes, Fortworth—in all her glory. I can hear her coming!" His eyes gleamed with excitement.

"European War, my lad. The world has flirted with her for so long that the lady's come to see whether we're in earnest. There'll be a million men on the French frontier within forty hours—and another million a day later—if they aren't there already—"

A burst of frenzied cheering interrupted him. They turned swiftly and saw that the cheers were for the officer who had left the hotel terrace upon which lunch had been served and was clambering into a small motor car, presumably going, as fast as he could travel, to join his regiment, probably quartered close by.

The partners listened for a few seconds, watching the crazy joy and excitement on the faces of the people.

"They mean having it this time, Fortworth," said Smiler, very seriously. "Look at 'em! They're like pigs round a trough! And now, what about us? It ain't going to be any smoking concert for the Englishman who gets left in this country when England waltzes in—take it from me, Fortworth! It's the frontier for us about as fast as Sing Song can shove the car along."

"The roads to the frontier are going to be jammed bung-full of men and supplies from now onwards," he said.

"Well, the railways will already be under military control, and there won't be room for half the people that will want a ride to the frontier. How about it? It's either road or rail—we can't swim for it, nor fly."

"And what about Wesel?" he asked. "Are we going to let that man-killing goat get past us, with his wonderful explosive, while we skate away to the frontier, or what?"

"Wesel? Oh, well, Wesel goes up in the air as far as we're concerned, Flood. This country is probably under martial law already, or will be in about a minute and a half. It's no place for a crook, old man, now."

"Perhaps not. But here's this man Wesel with a formula worth, so he says, millions. More, very likely, from the way he's been quietly bragging about it to us. Surely we can get hold of it before we get away? I'll own that the frontier looks good to me, just along now, Fortworth, and I'll eat a magnum alive the moment I cross it—but we've got to get that formula out of Mr. Wesel first, some way or—"

He broke off, as the herd of Germans surged back to their table. For an instant the partners misunderstood, and it was significant how, a sudden ugly light in their eyes, the hands of the two adventurers glided simultaneously under their coats. But they were withdrawn empty a second later, as the people, gasping with excitement, demanded the privileges of shaking hands with the "dear, good Americans," and of asking their opinions as to war in general and the probable attitude of the United States in particular.

It was only then that "the dear good Americans" remembered that they had been passing as New Yorkers, mainly, be it said, with a view to more easily dealing with one Mr. Auguste Wesel, a German-American inventor whom they had met at the hotel two days before, and of whom more will be heard later.

But the partners had hardly begun to explain their views upon the probable attitude of the United States, before the crowd left them abruptly in order to cheer a regiment of heavy cavalry that was marching by, en route to the frontier.

The partners remained where they were. Not till they had finished enjoying their cigars was anything short of a bomb likely to shift them, for they were too old and too wise to ruin a good cigar by prancing all over the place in order to see German soldiers on the march. They would see enough of them before they got back to London—more than enough, probably—and were perfectly well aware of the fact.

Presently, sitting like rocks amid the raucous crowd, they finished their cigars, and, leisurely enough, rose to go to their sitting room where they could discuss matters without any possibility of an audience.

But they had hardly arrived there before the person who described himself as their courier—a small, quick-eyed, homeless-looking individual who called himself a Dutchman, but looked like a little of everything, and who appeared to know every inch of Germany by heart—arrived also, declaring in a somewhat agitated manner that Germany was a good place to get out of without delay.

"If you do not go now quickly," he asserted, "perhaps you will not go until the end of the war, and God knows when that will be," he said.

"Why, my lad?" demanded Mr. Bunn. "If the United States doesn't go to war with Germany we shall be all right."

The courier—he said his name was Sweern, Carl Sweern—shook his head, in violent disagreement.

"No, sirs—that is badly wrong. You are not understanding. Germany will fight this war differently from all the wars. She will fight—" he dropped his voice—"like mad beasts. It is arranged for that manner. There are some who know that extremely—I know it. It may be right that America will not fight, but by thinking that Germany will be a comfortable country for two Americans—without passports, sirs—then you are perfectly wrong. There will be the spy huntings—and madnesses—what do you call it?—a mania, yes. And if there is only a little suspicion of you then you will be made prisoners. Even if enquiries of friends from America came about you, the Germans would not care nothing for that. They would lie. You don't believe that—but you will see it some day soon."

"Moreover, sirs, you have not passports. Your cards have not American address. Your motor car is the English Rolls-Royce. You look to the eyes, and you talk by accent, like Englishmen, and this will be a wicked country for Englishmen when England declares war."

"What are you driving at, Carl, my lad? Are you trying to hint that we are not Americans?" asked Mr. Bunn, scowling.

"I know you are Englishmen—that is all right—though most of these German swine believe, as yet, that you are citizens of the United States," said Sweern, very softly.

"But you can perfectly trust me," continued the guide in a whisper. "I despise all Germans more bitterly as anyone of the world—and I hope this war to destroy their nickel-plate Empire. I know them and of their ways of the fighting they mean to use and I advise you, sirs, for safety, to get out before they seize your car."

Mr. Bunn looked a little flushed and his jaw was sticking out,—as was that of ex-Lord Fortworth.

"Well, you seem to have got us weighed up pretty thoroughly. I've always understood, though, that you Dutch were practical folk when it comes to standing clear of trouble—" began Smiler, but broke off as the door opened noiselessly, and a person in leathery raiment, with a face as yellow as a counterfeit guinea, and as plain as a pike's, slid in, absolutely without sound.

It was Sing Song (so christened by his master), the gentle Chinese valet, cook, chauffeur, pirate, and all-round baggage-dromedary of Mr. Bunn. His face was less expressive than the end of a brick, but there was a gleam in his beady eyes that Mr. Bunn knew of old.

"Plitty quick wal coming, mastel. You wantee cal plitty soon you telling me quick. Plentee soldiels bin lookee at cal, talkee allee same commandeeling cal, mastel. Plitty good job slippee away home!" said the saffron rascal, blandly.

"Oh, yes—military requisition, you know, sirs. The railways have already been taken over by the military—they will next seize all the cars," said Sweern, corroborating Sing Song.

"Oh, will they—blast 'em!" bawled Mr. Bunn, furiously. "Well, look here, Sweern, you hike away down to the garage, wherever it is, and warn 'em off as long as you can. Tell 'em it's American property—if that's any good. Paint the Stars and Stripes on the panels. Fix it up as well as you can, and come back here. We want a talk with you."

"Sing Song, you go and find Mr. Wesel. Give him our compliments, and ask him if he can spare us a few moments on urgent business."

"It's going to be quick work,—against time, you may say. If we pull it off at all. But I don't mind saying I want to get Mr. Thundering Wesel's formula—and his wad, if he's got one—about ten times as much as I ever wanted anything. This country has had a lot of good money out of us, Fortworth, and I want to snare some of theirs before we get out."

"Yes, you always were a hungry sort of a wolf, Flood," said Fortworth. "And it will about be the ruin of you—and all of us. We might get what we want, I know, but if you ask me for my own candid opinion I consider that we're far more likely to get a bayonet apiece in our bow-windows. You're grabbing for something that's out of your reach, Flood. But so be it. Have your own way."

"I am no wolf, Fortworth. And I can prove it, if necessary. There's nothing greedy or wolfy about getting away with Wesel's wad and his explosive formula. It ain't greediness—it's patriotic. You've got to remember that the wad we shall take or capture from an enemy we shall spend in England, and the formula, if it is any good, we shall sell to—"

"Pardon, monsieur,—to me, I trust!" chimed in a voice behind them—a musical, feminine voice.

The partners started violently, and turned towards the door like two fat acrobats.

A woman had come into the room so quietly that they had not heard or suspected her entrance—a very well-dressed and beautiful woman, who stood smiling faintly upon them.

They had never seen her before, but they were more than willing to waive that. Neither Mr. Bunn nor Lord Fortworth possessed any distaste for a pretty lady especially when, like this one, she had heard more than she ought. They rose, like one man.

"Ah, monsieur, you talk so distinctly! With such boldness!" she said to Mr. Bunn.

Clearly, she was tactful as well as beautiful. Nine people out of ten would have described Mr. Bunn's voice as too loud, and so have offended him.

"I heard your plans, even with the door closed," she said, and in spite of the fact that her own voice was so low as to be little more than a whisper, there was a faint, far echo of warning in it that made the comrades look thoughtful.

"In such times as these," she said, "not only the walls, but the ceiling and the floor, even the furniture, of a German hotel have ears—and eyes."

"Not 'mademoiselle.' I am a German. Remember that, above all things. I am not French. My name is Vogel, and my husband and I live in this town. And I have come to discuss with you the matter of the secret explosive, the formula of which Mr. Wesel has come to Germany to sell."

"There is the danger of making a terrible mistake and losing everything—if we do not discuss it," said the lady.

"Certainly not," replied Smiler, airily, "so let's discuss it. What are you proposing to do about it, my dear Mrs. Vogel?"

She shot him the glance of a woman who knows men by heart, smiled slightly, and took a chair between them.

They knew her nationality then—as she had intended them to, after warning them that ostensibly she was German—and, a second later, were aware of her profession.

She was a French spy—and probably a brilliant one. Only an extremely brilliant or extremely foolish person would have dealt so openly with two strangers—and no Secret Service has any use for foolish agents.

"From the moment when he left New York, a month ago, this man Wesel has been watched," said the lady who wished to be known as Mrs. Vogel. "Perhaps you two English gentlemen adventurers—it is better for us to understand each other, is it not?—thought, until now, that you were the only ones interested in Mr. Wesel? That is not so. France is interested in him also—watches over him, very carefully, so carefully that she has detailed one of her best agents—c'est moi, mes amis—to watch over him, and, at the right time, to procure his secret."

She smiled at them charmingly, and, despite her frankness the partners warmed to her.

"Do you mean to say, my dear, that you're pulling this off alone?" demanded Smiler.

Under the soft voice flickered, as it were, a gleam of cold steel. It did not escape the attention of the partners.

"To become exclusively possessed of his secret," she said—very gently and softly, but under it was still that faint, sinister steely ring.

But there was a significance in the gesture that startled them. Their faces hardened.

"But, my dear lady, you don't propose to murder this man after getting his secret, so that he shall not give it away to Germany?"

It was, as Mr. Bunn said afterwards, a plain question and one which demanded a plain answer, and they got it.

Her face, too, hardened suddenly, and went white. And there gleamed in her blue eyes a wild and brilliant light.

It seemed, for a moment, very silent in that room, but, as they listened, they heard a sound that bore down that artificial silence—a deep, dull, regular sound—a mighty sound—the tramping of many feet. The marching of an Army!

They were to grow familiar with that dull, and sullen sound before many days even as men during an unsettled summer may grow almost used to the growl and mutter of thunder—but now, hearing it for the first time, it troubled them.

"Kriegsmobilmachung!" said the woman, pale, but with ruthless eyes. "The Armies of the German Empire are en route! To France—by way of Belgium. There will be no more negotiations, now. That is past—done with. The diplomats of the nations can stand aside now—fold their hands—their work, good or bad, is finished. Gentlemen, it is the hour before the dawn of The Day—of Armageddon!"

She was leaning to them, speaking in a low, incisive whisper, white as marble, but vital as flame.

"There is no power on earth that could hold them back now—not even their mad Emperor! This is no such affair as Agadir. It is War! France is alert and seething—Russia is arming—already England has flung her great battle fleets, cleared for action, into the North Sea! And the German army is marching to make an altar to their own gods of Belgium. God pity the men of Liège—that will be the first rock upon which the tide will beat. Listen, I say! Those that you hear tramping are not a thousandth of the armed myriads that this insane country is hurling across her frontiers!"

A deeper rumbling was heard, and the hotel seemed to vibrate to its foundations.

"Do you feel that? It is one of their guns—their great guns—and the engines that drag them. Monsters of steel—they were built in secret, but we know—and we pin our faith to the good 'soixante-quinze'—as you British to your giant naval guns!"

She controlled herself with an effort, and the brilliance died down in her eyes.

"I am a Frenchwoman and emotional—sometimes," she whispered, with a sort of cold naïveté. "Forget that, if you please! They—" a scarcely perceptible gesture indicated the unseen marching men,—"go to their doom, I know that. You will see it if you live so long.... Yes, the man Wesel must die. War, the Germans say, is war. Good! We will make it so! Do you think then that we shall allow a German who himself has stolen a secret to remain in possession of his stolen knowledge after we have bought his formula? That cannot be, gentlemen. To-night Wesel sells his secret to one whom he believes to be a man from Essen—an expert from Krupp's! But that man will not be from Essen—he will be a French secret agent—the best of us all—ah! so brilliant!—and he will buy the formula for France—for the Allies! For your country—your England also, gentlemen! Remember that! If we buy the formula and let this man go, how long would it be before he learned that unwittingly he had sold it to a French agent instead of a man genuinely from Krupp's? A day? Two days? A little more, perhaps—but not long. And what then? Would he not sell it again—this time to Germany?... Yes. The question answers itself, my friends. You must leave Wesel to us."

She paused for a moment watching them keenly. Then she smiled slightly and continued.

"You will not give up your plan to take the secret for yourselves if you can?" she said. "It is a coup that you are resolved to make. Yes, I see that. And I can guess that you are capable and dangerous men—chevaliers d'industrie. And clever, for you are so rich and it is not easy to become rich by living upon one's wits. And I know that you are well-served."

"Oh, a little watching and enquiry—no more. We have opportunities you do not guess at. One learns to judge men," she said, airily. "You two great big Englishmen are honest—in an unconventional way. Do you think I would have told you what I have told you if I had not been quite sure of that?"

"But, after all, she's told us nothing but what she told us," said Fortworth bluntly. "We don't know that what she's told us is all she knows. Is what she has told us enough to call us off Wesel?"

"You hear what my partner says," he said. "I like you—I don't deny that you appeal to me—I don't mind saying you are just my style—but I think it's as he says. It's a good tale you've told us—and it hangs together. But if we were in the habit of allowing ourselves to be pushed off our fair game by an emotional short story every time, we should have starved a thousand years ago. That's not rudeness, though it sounds rude—it's the compressed truth, and that nearly always does sound rude."

"I understand," she said. "And I am prepared to make compensation. This matter is so delicate and so grave that we can tolerate no risk of failure. If you make an attempt upon Wesel that fails, then he may become suspicious and leave here and go to Essen or Berlin and negotiate there. It is for that reason we wish you to abandon your plan. He must not be alarmed. And, to prevent that, we are willing to pay."

"Let's get it right," said Mr. Bunn. "You are willing to pay us to leave Wesel's secret alone, not because you think we shall succeed, but because you are afraid we shall fail and frighten the man away. Is that correct?"

"Not now. That would be too ingenuous, would it not? But when Wesel has handed his formula to 'the man from Krupp's' to-night the money will be paid. You will be there. The money will be given to you. Two hundred thousand marks for leaving Mr. Wesel alone just for one afternoon. That is not so bad!"

"Well, I suppose we shall have to take it. But it's cheap at the price. I am a frank man and I say what I think."

"Thank you. As seven o'clock be at the entrance to the hotel. A grey motor driven by a man with a grey moustache and wearing a green livery, will stop outside at that hour exactly. Enter the motor and you will be brought to the house."

"It's a pleasure to do business with you. We shall come. There will only be just the three of us,—armed, of course," he said, casually, watching her eyes.

"Naturally," she said with perfect tranquility, rose, and, with a smile to each, was gone before either of them could offer to escort her.

"I'm too husky to speak," he said, "but we certainly look like driving a deep claw into a big hunk of money to-night. I haven't whispered so much or so long for years. My throat's sore with it. Pass the whiskey."

Fortworth helped himself nobly and passed it just as Sing Song showed in Mr. Auguste Wesel...

Mr Wesel was a grater, complete and perfect. Probably there was not a single person on earth upon whose nerves he failed to grate. It was not necessary to know him to experience his unique gift for grating. He could—and very frequently did—grate upon people merely by occupying the same room as they did. In common with most graters he was serenely ignorant that he was universally regarded as anything but what, in a ghastly German accent, he described himself to be, viz., "a man of de vorlt, a schmart business man, and a shport!"

He was what he fondly believed to be an Americanised Prussian. But they would not have admitted it in the United States, nor had the man troubled to take out his naturalization papers. Indeed, he was merely a thoroughly Prussianised Prussian who had acquired a number of mannerisms in America—mannerisms of a kind that real Americans, no doubt, would be only too glad to see taken entirely out of the country. Mr. Wesel, certainly, had taken his share. He was a man of medium-size physique and under-size soul. The sort of man who, sober, is a thing to dodge, and half-sober, a thing to flee from. He was noisy, rather fat, ugly, and his eyes were mean and crafty. Not a nice man.

The partners detested him but they did not adjudge themselves sufficiently wealthy to permit their likes and dislikes to interfere with their business. And then—business, as they conceived it to be, was to make profit from this unpleasant person, pending their departure for England.

He blew in with a greeting that was meant to be breezy, though the insincerity of the breeziness was nerve-rackingly obvious.

He achieved the amazing feat of making it sound nasal and guttural at the same time. It cannot be printed as he pronounced it.

"I lhige you doo guys same vhay I lhige any Amurrigan cidizen and, zeeheer, nhow, I'm vhor you, un'stane muh?"

Mr. Bunn spoke blandly. It was not a sign that he was pleased and happy when he spoke blandly, for he was not naturally a bland man.

"Thank you, Wesel, old man," he said. "The fact is, we haven't got passports, and, not knowing Germany as well as we ought to—and should like to—we wanted to ask you about it. I suppose we could get them from the Consul here, but if you think it isn't necessary we don't want to bother. What do you advise?"

Mr. Wesel did not pause to reflect. Here was a chance to exhale, so to speak, many cubic feet of "hot air." He was a Prussian and if a Prussian cannot be an official Prussian then he likes above all things to prove that he had great influence with a Prussian official.

"Nhow, sdop right dere, you Black—" he began, and held forth at painful length.

It appeared that he was meeting that night to talk over a "deal" of immense magnitude, a man whose influence in the whole German Empire was colossal. A word to this mighty person from him, Mr. Wesel, would "vix" them "vor vair," so that they need not trouble about passports or anything else. He, Wesel, liked them (patronisingly), and would do a little thing like that for them,—and so forth for a space of many minutes, nasally and gutturally. He had not the least intention of doing anything for them. He expected to be in Berlin on the following day. But he could not resist the opportunity to boast over a bottle of champagne. The partners had no illusions about the man but it was necessary to talk of something, and as Mrs. Vogel had removed the original reason why they had wished to see him, anything would do.

"That man may have the secret of a wonderful explosive—but he never invented it. He has as much modern science in his whole carcase as a Navaho," said Fortworth.

"Less, if anything," commented Mr. Bunn, seeking a cigar. "He stole it—Mrs. à la Vogel was right there. Match please!"

From outside still came that dull, deep sound of marching men, the growling rumble of gun-wheels, and the shoutings of the excited people, triumphant even before War was declared, for they dreamed that the grey-green legions they cheered were invincible.

Precisely at seven o clock, when the German population of the hotel were herding steadfastly toward the dining room, a grey car, driven by a grey-moustached man in green livery pulled up outside.

The indomitable Bunn-Fortworth Combine—who had attended to the matter of dinner an hour earlier—were ready and waiting.

They conveyed their cigars and themselves into the luxurious interior of the big limousine and were borne away.

Whither they were being driven appeared to interest them no more than did the unmistakable signs that Germany was on the brink of war which were only too numerous in the streets through which they passed.

They were in a position to know that war was regarded as inevitable, and they had taken such steps as they could to deal with all impending inconveniences. Sing Song, the Chink, driving their own Rolls-Royce, was following the grey car in which they sat, with their luggage on board, and Sweern, their courier, who had achieved the rescue of the car, for the present at any rate, next to Sing Song.

Sing Song's instructions were to wait for them outside whatsoever house they entered. If they had not reappeared within half an hour Sing Song was to reconnoitre, leaving the well-paid (with promises of more) Sweern in charge of the car.

"How much did she say, Fortworth?" said Mr. Bunn, suddenly emerging from a cigarry reverie.

"H'm—as near ten thousand pounds as makes no matter. We're letting 'em off very light, Fortworth."

"Don't you get greedy, old man. It's easy money. Try to be satisfied for once. I don't doubt it's a strain, but try to stand it."

The car stopped before the entrance to a very large and obviously "Wealthy" house on the outskirts of the town.

Behind them as they got out they saw their own great Rolls-Royce come, whispering, to a standstill. It looked homey to see Sing Song's expressionless face above the wheel.

"Now, my lad, lead on," said Smiler briskly, to the driver of the grey car—"we haven't got any time to waste."

Neither apparently had the people of the house for a minute later they were being introduced by the lady who called herself Mrs. Vogel to the man with whom she worked—"the man from Krupp's" who had come to do business with the blatant Mr. Wesel. His name—for purposes of introduction—was Bohm.

He was the sort of man they had expected to see—extremely German in appearance, tall, military, wire-haired, bien coiffé à la scrubbing brush, a grim mouth and blue eyes about as hard and penetrating as diamond drills.

He was, the partners knew, a Frenchman, but there was nothing French in his appearance or manner. He was the sort of person, Mr. Bunn remarked afterwards, of whom, passing him in the street, one would naturally say, "There goes another three-starred German!"

"Ah, yes," he said, smoothly, in English. "The two gentleman who are permitting themselves to be bought off—"

"I don't like the way you put it, Mr. Bohm," he said. "What we are doing is selling you the option on Wesel's formula. We may be sharpish business men—but we are not blackmailers. You want to get that right in your mind."

"Why, yes, of course. That is so. We are purchasing the option. You put it with all the skill of an old campaigner—as, of course, one would expect."

Mr. Bunn looked thoughtful and Lord Fortworth looked bleak. They glanced at each other.

"Thank you for the compliment," said Smiler. "It was a bit of a back-hander, wasn't it? I'll have to ask you, Mr. Bohm, to keep your compliments on the chain, if you don't mind. We'll struggle on without them."

"We ain't flappers," chimed in Fortworth. "And the only compliments we care about are the shiny, yellow ones that ring clear on wood!"

The secret agent ran a steely eye over them, reappraising them, and saw that he had under-rated them. He had expected that their nerves would be rather ragged. But they weren't.

"Good!" he said. "Mr. Wesel is in the room adjoining. I will now settle with him, and if you will wait here, I will have the money ready for you very soon-Here are the cigars—" he indicated a table—"and as for wine or coffee, here is the bell."

"If he mistook us for anything but a pair of nutcrackers, he certainly misjudged us," he replied. "These cigars look good."

"Do they? Well, pass them here, when you've finished with them. What will you have?" said Smiler, hospitably, as a man servant appeared. Then, without waiting for a reply from his partner, he continued to the servant, in a slightly sharper tone, "Never mind, never mind. You may go away, now, my lad. If we want anything later, we'll ring again."

"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said the man, deferentially,—his English, too, was admirable—and departed.

"Now, why was that? You made a fool of the man—and a fool of me—and a fool of yourself too!" complained Fortworth.

"Oh, no—listen!" said Smiler, softly. "We can hear what is going on next door—and I've got a kind of idea that Bohm wants us to!"

In a moment Mr. Bunn tip-toed over and very silently opened the door, leaving it ajar. As he expected the door facing them was ajar also.

Obviously this was deliberately intended. Silent as two great cats they moved out of their room to the door of that in which Mr. Wesel was interviewing the gentleman whom he fondly believed was "from Krupp's." Indeed, as he did not know that his correspondence, for days past, had been most skilfully "tampered with," so he had no reason to suspect that far from being an emissary from the great murder-emporium at Essen, Mr. Bohm was probably the best secret agent in Europe—and worked, body and soul, for France.

But for a moment the partners might have saved themselves the trouble of moving. For Wesel, who, from the inflection of his voice, appeared to be explaining something, was explaining exclusively in German.

The partners could not have understood less of what he was explaining if he had lowed or whistled or bugled it. Menu French was the only foreign language they really understood.

"You can search me, Flood! It sounds as though he has just swallowed an emetic. How do I know what he's saying?"

"Pardon, gentlemen!" came a smooth whisper behind them. They turned agilely. The manservant was at their elbows.

"He says that he will accept two hundred thousand marks for his formula—and a royalty per kilogram upon its manufacture!" explained the man.

"Herr Bohm asks where he got the formula... yes...." came the low rapid whisper, again. "He answers that he invented it.... Herr Bohm calls him 'liar'... yes... He charges him with having murdered Professor Gale in New York.... broken a sealed bottle of gas that was poisonous to breathe, in the laboratory while the Professor had set aside his glass safety mask... yes... and stole the formula of the explosive.... on the day it was perfected... yes."

There was a sudden silence. It was rather weird, waiting for the keen whisper of the translator. Then Wesel muttered.

"He denies it... he says what does it matter if the explosive is good and Germany gets the benefit at so small a price.... Now Herr Bohm presses him close for the truth.... he admits there was an 'accident' of that kind... and that he seized the opportunity to serve Germany... yes.... He continues to repeat himself...."

The nasal whine of the murderer suddenly stopped on a note of relief—silenced by the harsh, curt voice of the secret agent.

"Herr Bohm says that he will buy the formula for Krupp's... yes.... He says they have tested the explosive, and it is good. He has invited Wesel to count the money..."

"He says that he can trust Herr Bohm.... Ah!" The whisper grew tense as Bohm's subordinate leaned, crouching, nearer the door.

They heard a chair slide softly over a carpet—as though one of the men inside the room had risen.

"Herr Bohm asks if he knows the secret of making the explosive, now that he has parted with the written formula... yes..."

The listeners heard Wesel reply, laughing raucously, with some of the old raw boastfulness back in his voice.

"He answers that he is a smart business man—and that he knows the formula by heart.... he learned it in case he lost the papers."

The man looked round suddenly at Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth. They were startled for a moment at the marble rigidity of his face, the wild, flaring light in his eyes.

"He thinks that his smartness will earn him a compliment from Herr Bohm"... hissed the man... "but... it has earned him only his death!"

A low whistle came from the room, followed instantly by a light padding thud, and, immediately after, Wesel squealed low—like a startled rabbit.

The man who had translated to the partners darted into the room—Smiler Bunn and Fortworth on his heels.

They saw the man called Bohm with his arms round Wesel—but Wesel lay limp and loose, slipping down, sliding slowly to the floor.

It had been as swift as thought—there was no weapon in view. Bohm must have killed the man literally with his hands, by some such secret and fatal trick, as is said to be known to only a few Japanese wrestlers.

Mrs. Vogel was standing against a desk which was heaped with bank notes and gold, staring with cold, bright merciless eyes at the limp body of Wesel.

Another man—also dressed as a house servant—stole in, and between them the two carried the body out—swiftly, noiselessly, efficiently. Mrs. Vogel followed them.

It seemed to Mr. Bunn that he was witnessing a perfectly rehearsed and acted play. But it was not that. What he saw was a part of the grim, silent machine that is a Nation's Secret Service at work under War conditions—capable, ruthless, terrible.

It startled them—for they had not yet quite realized the sheer horror and terror of War. They could not realize, immediately, that, in its due proportion, the death of this one man was a little thing.

They had not liked Wesel—they had detested him, indeed—but they could not get over the shock of the thing instantly. Two minutes before, Wesel had been alive—laughing. Now he was dead and was already being—disposed of.

"My God! I'm not squeamish, but at the same time—" began Smiler, but the man called Bohm held up his hand.

"Listen," he said, low and incisive. "I have no time for explanation. Realize that there are already a million Germans streaming into Belgium to kill all who stand in their path. I lolled Wesel. I care nothing for that—nothing!" He snapped his thumb and finger contemptuously. "Remember also that he murdered that American scientist, who invented the explosive. That is why I wanted you Englishmen to overhear the conversation. But I killed him because he knew the secret of the explosive. How many French—Russian—English—lives have I saved by winning that secret exclusively for the nations that soon will be allied against Germany? I remind you of this because you are—squeamish. That is all. It is finished."

"I must remind you that I am working against time at many grave tasks. Please take your money quickly and go!" said the secret agent, impatiently.

"We like money as well as the next man," he said, slowly, leisurely. "But, Mr. Bohm, there is something about that money that makes it no good to us. Understand me, now. We don't pretend to criticise you or the way you do your duty. Perhaps we're a bit old-fashioned—or, perhaps, Dr aren't strung up to the War standard yet—I don't know which. We don't know whether that's French money, English money, or Russian money. But whatever the nationality of it is, it don't belong to us. Keep it—put it back where it came from—for if what you say, and act up to, is right, it looks to me as though every sovereign of it will help to beat back these German man-eaters somewhere or other. And good luck go with it—hey, Fortworth?"

"Well," replied Smiler. "Return it to your Government as a war subscription from us."

"So be it. It is for you to say. And now, gentlemen—I must proceed with my work. You are for the frontier?"

And so, leaving the gold gleaming where it lay, under the electric light, the Bunn-Fortworth Combine went out to their waiting car.

"You two!" snapped Smiler. Sing Song and Sweern the courier, leaned towards him.

For a time there was silence in the lavishly upholstered interior. Then Mr. Bunn roused himself from reflection.

"Nor me, worse luck.... Hard case, that chap Bohm," said Smiler. "He looked as though he thought there might be trouble ahead for us. Wonder if there is?"

But Mr. Bunn was not to wonder long. For they were travelling towards it at the rate of about thirty-five miles an hour—rather more than that, if anything.

CHAPTER II. — THE ACADEMY FOR TRAITORS

THE events of the next twenty-four hours convinced them that they were not in the least likely to get out of Germany across Belgium and into Holland as quickly or easily as they imagined. Evidently the telegram to the infantry officer in the hotel was one of the last telegrams of the kind sent out.

Germany had begun mobilising long before. So that the partners found most of the roads choked with troops and supply columns, and, their claim to be American citizens not being substantiated by passports, the danger of having their car requisitioned and finding themselves imprisoned compelled them to effect their retreat as much as possible by side roads, lanes, forest paths, and, on more than one occasion, across country. They made slow work of it, therefore—slow and by no means sure.

Sweern, their guide, proved himself a past-master of the art of dodging trouble—but he was doing it very slowly.

In conditions such as these, and to which may be added the severe avoidance of towns, hotels and all places at which passing troops are apt to halt, it is not wholly amazing that the question of victualling the quartette speedily became not so much a question as a conundrum—and one extremely difficult of solution—a fact brought poignantly home to Mr. Bunn as, some three mornings after leaving Homburg, he carefully put his head through a hole in the side of the cowshed in which he and his companions had passed the night, and stared anxiously about him.

It was not yet dawn and the world was whitish-grey with that quickly dissolving morning mist which often precedes a hot day.

For the space of a long minute Mr. Bunn's head remained still, his eyes glaring intently through the mist. Then, suddenly, his big face brightened and he gave a low laugh.

"Here he comes, Fortworth! He's a good lad, is Carlo," said Smiler, cheerily, withdrew his head, and a moment later came out through the ramshackle door, followed immediately by Fortworth.

"The thing is—has he got anything to eat," said Fortworth in a rather sullen voice.

"Well, he's been away long enough to steal a four course meal," began Mr Bunn, rather less confidently, peering through the mists at a figure which was approaching silently.

Of the two watchers it was Mr Bunn who possessed the keener eyes, and, suddenly, he gave an exclamation that seemed to contain an equal admixture of horror, despair and disgust.

"Why—why, the blackguard is carting back a snake, Fortworth!" said Mr. Bunn, turning pale. "A snake or an eel! Both the same, as far as I'm concerned. Snake for breakfast—gr-rr!" He shuddered till his teeth rattled.

"You're seeing things," snarled Fortworth, anxiously, himself touched on his tenderest spot. "The man's no fool. Besides, there ain't any snakes that size in Germany or Holland or Bulgaria or wherever we've landed ourselves. Sweern's too smart to insult hungry men with snake. You're losing your nerve, Flood!"

But, in spite of the somewhat rickety confidence he managed to instil into his voice, he seemed more than a little nervous himself. Mr. Bunn ignored him.

"What the three-stars is that dead thing you've got there, Sweern?" asked Smiler of the approaching figure.

"Ah, gentlemen—a great piece of good luck. For twenty marks only—look there!" answered the guide, and flourished about a yard of black, snaky-looking stuff at them.

"But of course, sir. It is good delicacy—it is made of hog's blood and excellent rich pieces of fat to it and few other things put in perhaps and seasonings, also!"

"Good God!" groaned Mr. Bunn, not with the least intention of profanity, but because he felt so tragic. The two partners, who were epicures, not to say gourmets, stared at the sausage with a sort of terror in their eyes.

Sweern looked bewildered. He waved the sausage in the air. There were two feet of it at least.

"But it is all right, gentlemen, yes, certainly," he said. "There is some nutriment and a flavour also very delicate. You will appreciate this sausage so much."

"Ah, you think it is wet blood in this sausage, gentlemen, is it not? Oh, no—it is nice and dried—congeal, I think you call that word—and quite prepared to be eaten now. It is ready at once—quite ready! All Germans appreciate this kind of a sausage to their dinners."

"That," said Mr. Bunn, heavily, "has completely put the lid on it! You mean well, Carlo, but what you haven't got into your head is that an English—or American, perhaps I ought to say—an Anglo-American stomach is a higher class proposition than a mere German stomach—if stomach it can be called—which it can't. No doubt most of the grey green toughs we've seen marching to the frontier would leap at that ungodly man-killing sausage (so-called) like hungry tigers—but, speaking for myself, Sweern, I ain't educated up to it, yet, and I hope I never shall be. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Carlo, old man, for I know you've done your best, but, as far as I'm concerned, go right ahead on the sausage. Go on! Start in, Squire—eat as much as you want of it. I hope you enjoy it. Only don't thrust it on us. We're hungry, true—but we ain't ravenous yet. Save about eighteen inches for Sing Song, though. That's just the kind of tit-bit that would appeal to him. He's Chinese and a delicacy that would give an English fox-hound paralysis of the diaphragm will make a Chink clap his hands with joy. So don't mind us—we'll just sit down and have a cigar and admire you two eating your breakfasts."

And, so saying, Mr. Bunn turned away, more in hysteria than in anger, and took out his cigar case—an example that was followed by ex-Lord Fortworth...

Clearly, if Sing Song, who, like Sweern, had left the camp in the cowshed before dawn, on a foraging expedition, failed to achieve any capture more attractive than Blutwurst, the unfortunate Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth were face to face with the unprecedented calamity of going without breakfast completely and entirely.

This was an event so unexpected that they felt a little dazed, as, sitting against the wall of the cow-shed, they smoked their cigars and, with slightly inflamed eyes, watched Mr. Sweern enthusiastically devour a generous share of the blood-curdling delicacy he had brought back so triumphantly.

"Yes—the man would eat anything," grunted Fortworth. "Anything—hot or cold!"

Then their faces brightened as Sing Song came gliding noiselessly round the cowshed, carrying a bundle, and smiling a smile of bland content.

It contained a cut ham, eggs, a cold fowl, two bottles of Rhine wine, a large chunk of butter, and a selection of cakes.

"Sing Song, you wolf, where did you steal this collection? Never mind—never mind now. There's no time for talk. You're a good lad—a very good lad. I shall see if we can't raise your salary when we get back to England. Meantime, start a fire, my lad, start a fire and hurry up with a ham omelette—a good one, now—one of your very best, my son. We're feeling a little, run down—"

Here Mr. Bunn abruptly discontinued his day dreams, as something fresh appeared on the scene—something made in Germany it looked and sounded like.

It splashed and spluttered guttural and excited German sounds all over the place, rolling its eyes, and waving its arms.

It was a man, of fat though hard-working appearance. Some kind of farmer or tiller of the soil. It pointed furiously at the collection of breakfast materials which Sing Song had gathered together, and proceeded to give what seemed to be a lecture upon ham, Bismarck herring and so forth.

Only Sweern understood him—and Sweern allowed him to splutter himself breathless before speaking. "He says these things have been stolen from his farmhouse—his wife saw a Japanese man creeping away with them. She was too late to catch him," explained Sweern presently to his employers. "He says also this shed for cows belongs to him and he wishes explanation from us for making use of it as sleeping apartment. He says he will make extremely serious matter of this. He hates the English and all Japanese thieves he says."

"Tell him, in whatever language he can understand, if any, that we're Americans—and that Sing Song is a Chinese Chink and a poor heathen that doesn't understand. Ask him how much he wants for the food?" said Smiler, impatiently.

Sweern made the necessary noises at the person. But he was not to be conciliated. He was a sullen-looking, shallow-browed lout, and appeared to have plenty of hate left over for Americans and Chinese also. He had been insulted, he said. They had interfered with his meals department and, as all the world knows, a person has only to interfere with any German's meals department to turn him into a howling maniac for the remainder of the month.

"He says it is no good—he is not shop-keeper—he will not be satisfied—" began Sweern, anxiously.

"Oh, all right. Break his jaw, Sing Song," snarled Fortworth, savage with hunger.

Sing Song was up like a cat. The order harmonised much too sweetly with his own inclinations to be dallied with.

"No, no—please wait—" began Sweern, anxiously. "This is a serious matter—"

But what Sweern heard the agricultural oaf heard also, and apparently appreciated, for he began to shout at the top of his naturally noisy and unpleasant voice.

There was a thudding of horses' hoofs, a jingle of accoutrements, and a half-dozen lancers—Uhlans—cantered up.

They reined in and one of them—a non-commissioned officer—grunted at the party. The farmer lumbered up to his stirrup and, raising his voice, practically drowned the gruntings of the sergeant, with his frantic demands for revenge.

Now, it is not well to over-grunt a sergeant of Uhlans unless one is his superior officer. Certainly it is not wise to do so in war-time if one is merely an agriculturist in a smallish way. The partners saw that, when, annoyed at the bawling of the farmer, the sergeant looked down and viewed the wide-open mouth at his knee. He uttered an oath, and, it seemed, endeavoured to plug the mouth with a fist the size of a football. It was as though he wanted to drive it completely down the throat of the farmer. He would have succeeded, too, had not a number of teeth got in the way. As it was the man was knocked down, and did not arise. He stayed where he was put, howling dismally and spitting out teeth.

"Japanese and English, eh! You are arrested!" he said, as offensively as he could. "Come on—quick—line up!"

Precisely what would have happened is difficult to guess. None of the Bunn trio were at all in the mood for "lining up." They were much more in the mood to commit suicide by "starting something" with the weapons they were already feeling for. But, fortunately, another two persons appeared on the scene, one of them an officer of Uhlans, the other a yellowish-complexioned, Kaiser-moustached person in civilian dress.

"What is this?" asked the officer, curtly. The Uhlans saluted like one man, and the sergeant grunted briefly but enthusiastically:

"One Japanese and two English spies, sir! Also a Dutchman!" said the sergeant (they learned afterwards from Sweern), very much as though he were saying, "One toad and two cobra di capellos! Also a rat!"

"No, High Sir," he said. "These are two American gentlemen highly placed, of New York, and this is their valet, a Chinaman. That is quite true, Loftily-Placed and Well-Born Member of the Prussian Nobility" (or servilities to that effect). "As for me, I am their courier."

The officer, evidently satisfied that Sweern at least knew how to behave himself in the presence of a superior, looked at the partners, and bowed stiffly.

"Gentlemen, I must ask you to show me your papers," he said politely in quite good English.

"I am sorry, General," he said. "But the fact is, we gave them up yesterday, passports and everything, to an officer. He was not of such high rank as yourself, I should say, and—to put it bluntly—he never returned them!"

That was the explanation, carefully pre-arranged with Sweern, which they had decided upon. But none of them, not even the intelligent Sweern, had quite anticipated the kind of reception it would receive.

The Colonel—not "General," as Mr. Bunn had tactfully put it—actually appeared to believe it.

Then the sallow person with the humorous moustache, who had been scrutinising the partners and Sing Song, spoke quietly to the Colonel, who listened, pondered, and finally nodded. Sallow-Face turned to the partners.

"Well, gentlemen, Colonel von Blichter very kindly agrees that I should offer you my hospitality—until enquiries have been made." He ran a quick eye over the food that was the root of all the evil, and smiled.

"I hope that you will breakfast with me. I should be charmed if you will do so. We may be able to arrange the matter of fresh passports, and it will be interesting to discuss—many things. My name is von Helling—and my house is close at hand. What do you say, gentlemen?"

Then Colonel von Blichter hooted curtly at the Sergeant of the Uhlans, who saluted like a Jack-in-the box, and the sergeant grunted at the men, and the men promptly rode away followed by the sergeant.' Their exit was unostentatiously emulated by the farmer, who appeared to fear the Colonel as though he were the cholera.

Then the partners with their newly-found "friends" started for von Helling's hospitable roof.

So far so good—"too good to be true," as Mr. Bunn presently found an opportunity of muttering to Fortworth.

As they cleared the coppice, under the side of which the cow-shed was built, they came upon a dismounted Uhlan holding two horses. Evidently he was waiting for the Colonel, for, after a muttered colloquy with von Helling, and a nod to the "Americans," von Blichter mounted one of the horses and went his way. The partners were not sorry to see him go. He had been civil enough to them,—they did not know yet that it was the so-called "All-Highest's" Imperial command that Americans were to be treated with all consideration—and certainly he had arrived at a most appropriate moment, but, on the whole, they found him wearing, very wearing.

And long before Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth had finished breakfast with von Helling they had made the discovery that the Colonel was not the only thing in Germany that set their nerves on edge. The Colonel (and the Uhlans) had merely left their nerves bare and raw, von Helling applied salt to them.

It was a large and comfortable country house to which he took them, and it was a really fine Anglo-American breakfast which he shared with them, but, in spite of these things, the man gave them the "willies "—to quote Fortworth subsequently.

Nevertheless, they did not under-rate him. He had not asked a dozen questions or made a dozen remarks before they realised that, whatever else he was, he was distinctly no fool.

Presently, towards the close of the meal, Mr. Bunn, selecting a cigar, came to the point around which he had hovered for the past hour.

"Say, Mr. von Helling, if you hadn't told me you were a German, I should have put you down as an American with a German moustache," he said, bluffly.

For a long moment von Helling said nothing. He looked at them with a calculating, appraising stare as though weighing them up in his mind.

"Yes?" he said. "And if I were indeed an American, what would be your opinion of me?"

But he had to do a pair as skilful as himself, a pair whose mode of dealing with competent people was to take all and give nothing—least of all to give themselves away.

Mr. Bunn looked across at Fortworth and Fortworth looked across at Mr. Bunn. They understood each other, without words.

"Say?" said Smiler, thoughtfully. "Say?" He leisurely lit his cigar. "Why, I don't know. I suppose, things being as they are, I should say that, for an American, you seem to have a surprising pull with these Germans."

"Suppose an American said to you that he has lived so long in Germany as to become accustomed to the German people, an admirer of their ways and a firm believer in their ultimate destiny. That he had become a naturalized German, and had won to a position of such importance that he had access to knowledge which definitely convinced him—as a man of wide experience and knowledge—that nothing could prevent the German Empire from becoming the dominating Power of the world?"

His voice unconsciously rose a little, and his keen eyes were glowing—a change that Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth duly noted and mentally filed for reference. Already they had a faint, far-off premonition that this man needed them—wanted to use them.

It was, Mr. Bunn decided, not a moment for blatant, noisy, unthinking patriotism. He wanted to find out to what von Helling was working his serpentine way.

"Well, I suppose every man is entitled to his opinions, isn't he? If he honestly believes the German, or, for that matter, the Red Indian or Fiji or Eskimo, nation to be on the right track, I've never heard of any law, moral or otherwise, against his taking out his naturalisation papers," said Smiler, slowly. "I've never thought about it. Have you, Black?"

"Mind you," continued Mr. Bunn, "I hold to one thing, first and last. A man, any man, whatever his nationality, is entitled to a living—and as good a living as he can get. If he's an American, and can't get a living in America, but can in Germany, then I won't go so far as to say he isn't entitled to become a naturalised German. That's how it goes!" He was watching von Helling narrowly—and he knew that he was handling the man rightly.

"Yes, that's how it goes—to my mind," he said. "A man has a right to live, first—and, secondly, he has a right to live the way he wants to, provided he keeps within the law. They're facts—you can't dodge them."

"Patriotism? Flag?" echoed Smiler. "Well, he owes his duty to the country he's a naturalised member of, and the flag he travels under, I take it."

"Well, it is pleasant to meet an Englishman—I know, of course, that you, Mr. Flood, are an Englishman, though your friend is American—so open-minded and fair as you appear to be," he said. "You see, it makes it easier for me to tell you that I am exactly such an American as we have been discussing!"

"Now, gentlemen, what about you? Are you trying to get back to England? You are anxious about your estates—businesses,—perhaps?"

"Estates? Businesses?" he echoed, and laughed. "D'ye hear that, Black? Why, my dear sir, we were practically broke before war was declared—now, except for an odd hundred or two, the furniture of our place in London, and the car, we are right up against it! Estates and businesses! Do we look like men with estates?"

"Why, you looked—you have the manner of prosperous men," he said. "The war has ruined you? You were perhaps stockbrokers—speculators—racing men—something of that kind, perhaps." He watched them closely.

"Even, perhaps, adventurers? Professional gamblers?" he asked, smiling. "Oh, don't be annoyed—I am very much a man of the world."

"Well, you can put us down as adventurers," he said, slowly. "What of it? Europe is stiff with them."

"Men in our position can't afford to be scrupulous!" said Smiler. Von Helling rose.

"Ah, no, indeed! Gentlemen, I am delighted to have met you. You are men after my own heart."

"We can be of service to each other," he said. "Of immense service. Let us be frank! You need money—and you are not in the least particular as to how you earn it—and you are not roped to the wheels of the British Juggernaut"—he poured himself a cognac with a hand that shook and thrust the decanter down the table towards them.

"Gentlemen, you have come to the right man!" he said, on a note of hoarse savagery.

The partners showed no enthusiasm. They had landed their fish, they knew that. He had made the sort of mistake that sooner or later every scoundrel makes—he had assumed that another man, two men, indeed, were the same kind of reptile as he was himself.

Adventurers—chevaliers d'industrie—men who lived on their wits, they were—but, nevertheless, England meant more to them than even they guessed. Von Helling had yet to learn that.

"I shall have a proposal to make to you a little later," said the man. "A proposal that will be worth thousands of pounds to you—yes, thousands—just because you don't happen to be pig-headed patriots."

"What do you think of that, Black?" said Mr. Bunn, with a sort of hard gaiety, which, to one who knew him, was a clear danger signal. "Mr. Von Helling's going to steer thousands our way."

"Yes,—so I heard, Flood," said Fortworth. "So I heard! Perhaps Mr. von Helling will state his proposal—and his price."

Of the two, Fortworth was ever the worst-tempered. There was a low and sullen note in his voice that would have warned anyone not a stranger to him to go cautiously.

"I must go now. It is an urgent military matter—unavoidable. I shall see you to-night at dinner. Meantime, regard this house as at your disposal—though it would be wiser not to leave the grounds. There are troops in the neighbourhood—and they are sometimes over-zealous. Don't misunderstand me. I merely advise it as a matter of commonsense—not, of course, as a threat. There are two other guests—one a Colonial, a South African, named Carey, a pleasant fellow—the other an Indian gentleman, secretary to the Rajah of Jolapore. He was on the way to Baden to arrange for the arrival of the Rajah on a visit, when the war broke out. You have no colour prejudices, I hope? His name is Mirza Khan—you will find him a quiet, scholarly kind of man, but very broad-minded. And now I must hurry away. To-night we will go into the matters at which I have hinted!"

"Better say nothing much in the house, old man," said Smiler, very softly. "Remember Mrs. Vogel's tip that German walls have eyes and ears in war time. We'll talk it all over in the garden. Queer, this blackguard should have got old Mirza Khan as well, though! Funny, too—in a way!" Mr. Bunn laughed abruptly. "What did he call him, Black? Quiet, scholarly man, but very broad-minded. Well, he's right about the broad-mindedness. Mirza's as broad-minded a crook as I ever met! Let's get into the garden."

The two partners strolled out on to a lawn, heading for a seat under a lonely tree near the middle, well out of earshot of any possible eavesdroppers...

They were pleased rather than surprised to learn that their very old friend Mirza Khan was in the hands of von Helling also. They had known, before going to Germany, that the Rajah of Jolapore, an old "patron" of Mr. Bunn's, and one from whom the partners had drawn much gold for services rendered at various times, was planning a visit to Baden, and it had been part of their programme to meet him by "accident" there.

The outbreak of war, obviously, had stopped the Rajah in time though not his vanguard, consisting of Mirza Khan, who was not his secretary as von Helling fondly dreamed, but his extremely confidential body-servant. Broadly speaking, what Sing Song the Chink was to Smiler Bunn, so Mirza Khan, in his more exalted style, was to the Rajah...

"Well, Flood, what sort of a proposal is this dog, von Helling, going to dope out to-night?" said Fortworth, sourly.

"Oh, something pretty treacherous, old man. We shall see when the time comes. You want to keep your temper when he gives himself away, understand. Forget it till then—and here's Mirza!"

A black and glossy gentleman had come out of the house, and was strolling towards them. He wore—as though he were still in London—a silk hat and frock-coat. It was evident that he recognised them, for they could see his shining, toothful smile from where they sat. He came up with outstretched hand.

"Oah, thiss iss delightful and unexpected pleasure, sars—yess, indeed. It iss remarkable coincidence. How are you, sars—how do you do yourselves!" In his excitement his grammar was a little shaky, but they thought none the less of him for that.

"Why, Mirza, old man, it looks homely to see that smile of yours again. We expected to run into you at Baden, but I suppose the Rajah just missed it, hey?"

"Oah, yess, he escaped it by skin off hiss teeth. He wass following me in three days. Pretty close shave, thatt, my dear sars!"

"He wass extremely well bored to death, when I took leave off him and set forth to thiss country off dogs and offspring off dogs," replied Mirza. "But I am off strong opinion thee war will renovate—thatt is to say rejuvenate—him in remarkable style, sars. Do you think thatt Gereat Britain will require services off her magnificent Indian teroops on occassion off thiss war, sars?"

Smiler offered his cigar case. He knew only too well that Mirza afflicted himself with no caste rules outside of India.

"You can take it from me, Mirza, that every manjack with the strength to heft a rifle, and the eyes to aim it with, will be invited to waltz right in," said Mr. Bunn.

"Thatt iss best news I have had extended to me yet. It will be gereat delight for His Highness. Yess, sars, there are quarter million fighting men in India will be extremely joyous for opportunity to participate in battle."

"This will be windfall to His Highness. By God, sars, you will highly probable see our cavalry and even possibility off witnessing His Highness' body-guard off lancers! They have prayed for excellent bloody war for years. Thatt is all they can do—they are fighting men—yess, Rajputs! I am a Rajput, sars. I wish extremely to get away from thiss place, and rejoin His Highness. They will permit me small space in thiss war, will they not? I who have ridden three years in His Highness' own body-guard."

"That's all right, old man! Don't get excited!" said Smiler, soothingly. "You'll get a bellyful of fighting before it's finished—and get some of it quick if I'm not mistaken in our host."

Mirza Khan quieted down a little. "He iss dam' dangerous treacherous snake, sars, thiss von Helling. He has been urging me to advance to India, on behalf off Germany, and spread sedition, stir up revolt among my people!"

"Yess, sars. I have dealt very carefully with him—not because I am traitorous rat of thatt kind—but because I am endeavouring to extract pass-port for purpose of accelerating myself to London. Therefore, I am feigning thatt he has almost convinced me, and I think pretty soon he will hand me money for expenses and bribes and produce passports.... It iss same process as he is adopting for Mr. Carey who iss here also. He iss gentleman off South America, and he has veree skilfully admitted that his mother was Boer lady.",

"He's got large ideas, little von Helling," said Smiler, thoughtfully. "Well, how about it? Mirza, old man, can you scare out this chap Carey. We may as well talk it over while we've got the chance."

But Mirza was saved the trouble, for at that moment Carey appeared at the French window. Mirza beckoned him, and he came across—a tall, lean man, with a thin, shrewd face. He looked as tough as telegraph wire—and as straight.

Mirza introduced him—he, too, had been caught in Germany at the outbreak of war—and then began a council of war that lasted them, with lengthy intervals for rest and refreshment, the greater part of the day...

It is to be placed to the credit of the man von Helling that he dined his guests, or, as he more probably regarded them, pupils, well. Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth had already learned from Sweern that this house was not von Helling's real residence, but had been temporarily requisitioned for his use. Clearly he was a person of some influence—and they had a very fair idea of the direction in which, as far as using them was concerned, the influence was going to be exerted...

Never in their lives had Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth sat through a meal so weird as this one proved to be. There were just the five of them, waited on by two men-servants, obviously with military training, though not in uniform, and—oddly enough, at von Helling's request—by Sing Song.

The night was intensely hot, there was a mutter of thunder low down in the east, and ever and again lightning winked and flickered with remote viciousness—growing stronger and more brilliant as the evening wore on.

There was little conversation save from von Helling, who seemed to be labouring under a fierce repressed excitement. He was excessively pale, save for a queer startling patch of red just below each temple, and his forehead glistened with perspiration.

He seemed to avoid speaking of the war, for some reason—perhaps because of the presence of the servants—and there was nothing very interesting in what he said, though he spoke with a species of shallow brilliance.

Twice he said, with a touch of wildness, that he considered himself extremely fortunate in meeting with such guests. He took wine with each one of them, and once he called them his "bold freelances "—and once they were "eagles—free, unfettered and untamable." And he included Sing Song in his quick, nervous glance round, but that particular "untamable eagle" was filling his master's glass at the moment, and looked rather more like a mechanical graven image.

And the "freelances" sat quietly—eating—waiting—listening to the fitful growling of the thunder that sounded low down in the skies like a chained bull struggling. There was something wrong with the atmosphere of that room—it was alive with aching expectancy of something that was not good. Of something deadly that was impending. Outside, not far away, as every man of them knew, the disciplined columns were still pouring down towards the frontier, following the hordes that already were at their hellish labours in Belgium and the rim of France. It needed no great effort of imagination to fancy that the sullen, tormented sound of the approaching thunder was the sound of the killers, en route to their brutish "triumphs"...

Host and guests—master (he dreamed) and pupils, were dined at last; the heavy-faced servants cleared the table and went out, and cigars were lighted. Four of that strange company, half unconsciously, pressed their pockets, just to make sure, as it were, that the weapons they carried habitually were where they should be.

Von Helling, at the head of the table, rose, took a big despatch case from a desk, and returned to his place.

"I should regard it as a favour, Mr. Flood, if you will permit your Chinaman to remain in the room and listen to what I have to say," said the renegade.

"Behind my chair, Sing Song," he said, curtly. Sing Song slid soundlessly into position.

Von Helling opened the despatch case and took from it package after package of bank notes—all English—five official looking envelopes and five rouleaux. These things he placed conspicuously before him.

"Very useful things," he said, a metallic note in his voice, that sounded rather unpleasant.

"Yes, indeed! And now.... to business," said von Helling. "I count myself fortunate to-night to see enjoying the hospitality of Germany four, no, five, good men, and friends to this country, who represent, we may say, the five peoples of America, India, South Africa, England and China! To get in touch with you gentlemen, who can do so much for Germany, so soon after the declaration of war, seems to me to be nothing less than an omen—a sign that Germany's star is in the ascendant"—he checked for an instant, as a sudden fearful blaze of lightning flamed down the strip of sky visible through the open window he was facing.

"Soon burnt out," muttered Fortworth, but the words were drowned in the crashing peal of thunder that broke on the heels of the lightning.

"Gentlemen, I think we understand each other. We have touched already upon the kind of work in hand for you. Your Chinaman—will he join you under the flag of the great country we plan to serve?"

"Good!" Von Helling pushed across to Fortworth a packet of the banknotes, a rouleau of the money, and one of the envelopes.

"You will find one thousand pounds there, a passport or permit which will pass you anywhere through the German forces, and an address in New York. You will proceed to New York as quickly as possible, and report to the address given you, asking for the man named above the address. He will provide any further instructions and from time to time, according to your requirements, money. Your duties will consist of doing all possible, without regard to the truth or statements by rivals, to develop, in the circles in which you are most influential, dislike in America to England. Do not waste money but do not spare. There is money unlimited behind you. Strive—work—fight to influence American popular opinion against England and for Germany. Nothing more, nothing less. You will discover many confrères—good fellows all—at the work. That is all. Be tireless, ruthless, and patient! I wish you success."

He turned to Sing Song, and gave him his package, envelope, and address in Pekin.

"You heard what I said to Mr. Black. You will do the same in China, among your friends and their friends and theirs. Everywhere. You are to lay stress upon the danger to China from those yellow wolves the Japanese and explain how Germany desires only to befriend the Chinese from the insatiable devils that shook the Russians and are planning to set their fangs at your country's throat. Go to the address you have been given to report, upon your arrival, and take your instructions from those at that address, thereafter. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I undelstand plenty. Allee same tly make my fiends lise up and cuttee thloat of Japan. Can do velfy easy," said Sing Song, his face impassive and expressionless as a yellow ham, sliding his packages into his clothes with true Celestial deftness.

Von Helling, his eyes glittering with excitement, turned to the lean brown South African, Carey, pushing his papers across.

"You will aid in a great work—in South Africa—and one already near accomplishment—" he said. "The Boers will rise, and, backed by German money, plentifully supplied with German arms and equipment, led partly by German officers and partly by your own splendid Boer generals, and reinforced both from the east and west by big detachments of our brave Colonial troops, will drive the English into the sea. It is planned—cut and dried. You will work at encouraging, raising the spirits of, any faint-hearts among the Boers, and aiding and strengthening the movement—the English, of course, will call it 'rebellion.' Also, you will exert your utmost influence with the Basutos and the other tribes with which, I gathered, you are familiar and among whom you have influence. Encourage them to rise and join forces with us to hound the English down. You should do well—and you, like us all, will receive a great reward when the German flag finally flies over the world!"

Carey nodded, saying nothing. He was pale under his tan, so that in the glare from the succession of lightning flashes he looked livid.

"I think the people of India have waited for this day for many years," said von Helling. "They, like the Boers, have groaned long enough under the brutal rule and savage oppression of those all-devouring locusts, the English. But now their time has come. Exhort them to rise—stir them from the stupor of misery, famine and despair into which the heel of the English has ground them. Urge them, bribe them, force them—you, too, will have many helpers. Much has been arranged—but there is much to do. Germany will be watching you and your fellow-workers—waiting for you—praying for you—to create another and greater and more successful Mutiny!"

Somebody gasped slightly. It was Mr. Bunn. He had quite recently read, for the first time in his life, a book on the Mutiny and all its horrors, and there was still a part of his sub-conscious mind raw from the anger and pity which that black page from the past had stirred in him. But he said nothing. He sat, controlled, his face hard and set like metal.

In the electric light and the glare of the lightning the eyes of Mirza Khan gleamed strangely. Perspiration broke out on his face, in little glistening beads. But he sat mute, as von Helling disinterred and brandished the shame of that fearful past crime at him as though it were a banner inscribed with great deeds—more, implored him to strive for its repetition!

Lastly the spy-tutor faced Mr. Bunn, sliding his Judas bribe down the table in its turn.

"And you, Mr. Flood, will work in England with our organization that is already prepared to agitate for peace. Go among the people and point out the advantages to be gained by England withdrawing from the war. You will be given data by the chiefs at the address supplied you. You understand the position? In England the agents of Germany must agitate ceaselessly for peace—in England's colonies the secret agents must foment rebellion to draw England away from the task she has set herself in France and Belgium. That is the policy in a nutshell.... Gentlemen, those are your instructions. I wish you success—all Germany prays for this success. Afterwards we will humble and destroy England at our leisure! Are there any questions?" No one spoke.

"Just a moment," he said. "Are there any more orders—instructions? Do you mean everything you've said, Mr. von Helling, to the limit? There is to be no drawing back, so to speak—no mercy, for instance?"

"No mercy. Do your utmost!" said von Helling. But still Mr. Bunn seemed, as it were, to hang fire.

"Then, by God, you shall have it! Put up your hands, you wolf! Quick! Quick! Up with them!"

Smiler Bunn's voice shot across the table strident, sharp, like a flying, knife-edged sheet of glass—and von Helling found himself gaping into the round, black, sinister eye-like muzzles of the pistols that the four men, literally snarling, had drawn upon him.

"You meant everything you said, von Helling. You had it all pat, you traitorous dog—cut and dried—planned. Planned!... And that's how Germany means to run this war. Very well. God help this accursed country when she needs it at the end—though He won't.... She's damned and doomed before she starts, von Helling! She's—careful with the hands!—beaten before she starts. The world will stamp her flat.... Never mind all that now. It's waste of words. We told you we were adventurers—'crooks' if you like—and you have offered us a few pounds to become worse than murderers. Not in the heat of the moment but quietly and deliberately. Worse than murderers.... We'll leave out the treachery you suggested to Mr. Black, my Chinaman and me. They may be in the rules of war—God knows what they are. I don't. If Germany has had a hand in framing them I don't doubt they are pretty foul. But what you—a white man and an American (you claim, though not many decent Americans would own you)—proposed to Carey and the Mirza Khan is a different thing. You have offered a white man money to raise the Basutos—the black, uncivilised tribes—against white people in South Africa—against unprotected white women and children on the lonely farms, while their men fight what Boers you can find mad enough to turn on the English! And you have asked Mirza Khan to help try for something in India that will eclipse the Mutiny! And you can't offer the excuse that you're mad! Von Helling, you traitor, you're out-of-date. India will give her best for England—for England. The past is dead—dead and buried. What kind of a hyaena are you to try to open those old, pitiful graves?"

He drew a breath that was like a sob. There was a dignity and solemnity about him that showed him in a new light to his friends.

"England and India have tried for many years to forget—now they will wipe it out—for that English blood India will pay in German blood a hundred times over. Is that true, Mirza Khan?"

"So," continued Mr. Bunn, "so, you see, you have accomplished—nothing! You understand that? You have failed, as far as we are concerned, and—look at me, von Helling!—it's your worst failure and your last!"

But they rushed in upon men who were prepared, and one of whom, at least, was a magnificent pistol shot—the South African. They were too close to miss, in any case, and, right or wrong, they were fighting to kill.

Carey shot two of them outright, using both hands, and Sing Song dealt with another. Fortworth took another and Mirza Khan finished the last one a fraction of a second after he had fired point blank at Carey, missing him by the fraction of an inch.

The thing was incredible. They stared at each other through the strangling smoke, like dazed men.

Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth pulled themselves together. Their plan had been made long before.

"Now we burn the place," said Smiler, hoarsely. "Quick! Get to it! Are there any of these men only wounded?"

Within half an hour the last of the Germans was dead. They were all armed—and all were obvious soldiers—doubtless detailed to serve von Helling...

And within an hour the place was in flames—set ablaze in a dozen different places.

It was the only chance the Bunn-Fortworth party had of escape. They were still well inside Germany and they knew, none better, that the lives of the whole party hung upon the chance that they could get the place in flames before anyone could enter and see their handiwork. In desperate haste they piled firewood, saturated curtains, bedding, carpets, with paraffin and petrol from the motor house, and finally simultaneously fired the place.

They took one last look at the silent figures in the big dining room—but all were dead.

And then, as the windows glowed red, they crowded, silently, into the big car, and drove into the darkness and clamour of the storm, seeking the frontier.

Behind them, as they went, a tongue of flame came licking hungrily through an open window—even as, at that same moment, a hundred names, not less deliberately started, were licking through the roofs of many Belgian homes...

Then the car dropped down a hill and the red tongues of destruction were no longer visible.

CHAPTER III. — "A CIRCUMSTANCE OF WAR—"

IT was dawn of the following morning before Mr. Bunn stepped out of the motor with a sigh of relief.

"And now—" he said, in a tone of gratitude, "And now for a little snack of something to eat. I don't mind admitting for once, that, speaking for myself, I am on the verge of starvation."

He lit one of his few remaining cigars and stood watching the three comrades, with whom he had spent the night in the interior of the big Rolls-Royce limousine, alight stiffly.

He smiled rather mirthlessly as he noted the extremely wooden action of their various limbs.

"Yes," he said, thoughtfully, "men of our age only need to spend one night sardined four in a car to find out that their joints aren't what they were."

"Joints?" groaned Fortworth, sourly. "What joints? I haven't got any. I've only got broken-toothed cogwheels where my joints used to be and rough-edged corkscrews instead of tendons to hold 'em together."

"That'll be all right, old man," said Smiler encouragingly. "Don't you take any notice of it and it will pass off. Look at Mirza—he's as frolicsome as a young lamb."

"Oah, yess, my dear sars, it iss matter off congeratulations to have got soa far without receipt off German bullet in my machinery. Yess, indeed, thee noises thatt my joints are making are songs of peraise att thiss good luck. I will now partake of cigar, Mister Flood—if there are any left."

Smiler handed him one as Carey, the South African, issued forth from the car, completing the procession. Sing Song and Sweern the guide had sat in front—Sing Song driving, Sweern presumably guiding. The place to which he had guided them now seemed to be the heart of an ancient wood, and though more than one of the party had expressed their doubts as to whether Mr. Sweern had the remotest idea where he was, they were satisfied, for, as Mr. Bunn at two-thirty that morning had woke from uneasy slumber to remark it was better to land them in the heart of a forest of trees than hi the heart of a forest of German lances. Probably they were somewhere between Malmedy and Aix-la-Chapelle.

"Now, Sing Song, my lad—out with your hamper," said Smiler. "It's a beautiful morning—sort of morning that puts an edge on your appetite—hey, Mirza?"

"No, sir—no, Squire—" he said to the company in general. "Things aren't half so black as they might have been. Come on, Sing—can't you get it out—"

He turned to the Chinaman who was groping under the front seat of the car—dragging at a heavy hamper.

There was a curious, uneasy look on the face of the Chinaman, as, with the assistance of Sweern, he lifted the weighty hamper to the ground, and Smiler noticed it.

"What's wrong, my lad? Don't you think you've got enough provisions there to go round?"

Sing Song did not answer for a moment. He flung back the lid of the hamper—stared at the contents, and then with a gasp, flung his arms out in a gesture of agony.

Mr. Bunn thrilled with dire forebodings, sprang forward like a lion robbed of his natural prey, and stared at the hamper, with a gaze what was tragic. It was filled with books!

"What's that, Flood? What's wrong?" he demanded in an agitated voice, hurrying across to his frenzied partner.

"Matter?" shouted Mr. Bunn, with bitter and hysterical irony. "Oh, nothing. Nothing. Just books for breakfast, that's all."

"Fool! Fool!" snarled Mr. Bunn, pointing to the collection. "I'm not fool enough to mistake that library for a cold breakfast, anyway."

"Books—sure it's books! What did you think it was—mushrooms on toast—kidney omelettes—game pie—soles or what?" Mr. Bunn dropped his laboured satire for a moment and in tones of frigid and menacing politeness bade Sing Song draw nigh.

"Perhaps, my lad, you wouldn't mind doing me the favour of explaining what sort of breakfast you're planning to dope out of this hamper-full of German literature?" he said, acidly.

Sing Song sidled up to him, looking at his master's boots. He was a man of nerve, but he couldn't meet Smiler's eye just then.

Sweern, the courier, broke in with voluble explanations. It was really his fault, but he saw that Sing Song was too much of a sportsman to give him away to the infuriated Mr. Bunn. In an anteroom of the house of von Helling Sweern and Sing Song had found two wicker baskets full of books, evidently packed away by the occupant of the house, who had been turned out when the place was requisitioned for the use of von Helling. One of these hampers the far-sighted Sing Song had emptied of books and filled with a comprehensive supply of delicacies (by von Helling's permission) wherewith to sustain Messrs. Bunn & Co. upon their journey to England. After the firing of the house Sing Song had raced to get the car ready for the "retreat" of the party, deputising Sweern to bring out the hamper.

In the excitement of their departure, Mr. Sweern had brought out and deposited in the car the wrong hamper. Merely that. It was quite a simple kind of mistake to make, and Sweern had made it.

It was Mirza Khan who, with astonishing good humour, (for he, too, had been stung to the quick, as it were, by the loss of his breakfast), provided the best criticism of the tragic short story.

"Well, sars, there iss no doubt thatt we shall not have thee pleasure off eating hearty bereakfast thiss morning," he said. "Itt iss gerave missfortune, due to inability off Sing Song to be in three or four places att thee same time, and off doing three or four things att once. There iss no blame off thee excellent Chink, I think. If he wass getting motor car from garage he could not be getting hamper from thee house att same time. That iss self-evident propossition. Yess, indeed. We must take up one hole off our belts thiss morning—ha-ha! Eh, sars? Haha—haha!"

"Very funny! Oh, damned funny! No breakfast—hee—hee! Why don't you laugh, Fortworth? It's the thunderingest joke I've come across for years!"

Sing Song rather wildly volunteered to go back and get the hamper—but that was too heroic even for Mr. Bunn.

"Talk sense," he snapped. "Don't irritate people, you lemon. It's thirty miles back and burnt to a cinder anyway. And it's as likely as not that there are forty thousand or forty million of these German lard-pails in between us and what there is left of the hamper. No, my lad, you and Sweern had better scout round and see what you can get your hooks on. It's no good holding inquests on food thirty miles off and—"

He stopped abruptly, listening. His attitude took on something of the alertness of a hunted thing, like a fox that, lying close in his covert, hears the whimper of an approaching hound.

"Well, we've all got the passports or permits or whatever the things are that von Helling gave us," said Mr. Bunn, briefly. "And the thing to do is to get 'em ready. Nobody but born fools are motoring round about here for pleasure just now, and if they don't turn out to be military cars you can call me no judge!"

Mr. Bunn was right. The approaching cars were very much military motors—armoured cars, indeed, hunched, hooded, shapeless, sinister-looking things, painted an elusive grey—four of them, running with surprising silence, evidently new and en route to the front.

What they were doing along the rough, unfrequented track through the woods, the "Bunn Brigade" (as Fortworth termed the little company) could not guess. They did not know yet of the extraordinary blocking of the roads and railways, which had resulted from the stubborn defence of Liège.

Mr. Bunn and his friends saw the muzzle of a machine gun that projected from under a steel canopy on the leading car, swing round upon them, with a curious air of enquiry—as though it were a snake with a monstrously swollen neck, that was peering at them. It struck Mr. Bunn as almost incredible that, if the person behind the gun desired it, the small, black muzzle could pour something like five or six hundred bullets out upon them within a minute. But, however, incredible it seemed, it was true, and Smiler knew it.

A German officer got out of the car followed by several men with rifles, and hailed the Bunn Brigade curtly, in German.

"Not understand," said Mr. Bunn, "Not speak it, no!" in that weird broken English which one, for some curious reason, is prone to use to people who cannot understand good English—to say nothing of bad. "Where's Sweern?"

He turned to order up their courier—the only German-speaking member of the Brigade—but it appeared that Sweern was not necessary, for an officer from another of the cars, instructed by the first who had spoken, addressed them.

"If you say so, certainly," said Smiler, politely, the tail of his eye still on that machine gun. "But—don't this count for anything?"

He pulled out the "permit" which von Helling, under the impression that he was enlisting them as recruits for the German Spy Army, had given him and his companions.

"It looks to me to be in order," said Mr. Bunn. He turned to his party. "Produce passports!" he ordered, in a vaguely military style.

The officers took them, and examined them one by one, carefully, as though hunting for flaws.

The adventurers heard one or two ejaculations of admiration—"Kolossal!"—evidently at the thoroughness with which, they believed, von Helling had done his work.

Presently the English-speaking officer handed back the passports, looking curiously at them all. There was no trace of the stiffness and contemptuous dislike which the officers of the German Army in 1870 displayed towards their spies. Times—and temperaments—clearly were changed. A good German nowadays loves a good spy. It did not seem to occur to these officers that if Messrs Bunn, Fortworth, Carey, Mirza Khan and Sing Song were what their von Hellinged papers described them as, then they were five of the blackest, most poisonous traitors on the Continent. Not at all. These men were (the officers believed) on their respective ways to London, New York, South Africa, India, and China, there to devote themselves whole-heartedly to the art of stirring up against England sedition, disloyalty, mutiny and the various other peculiarly German aids to successful warfare.

The officers admired what they believed to be von Helling's skill in selecting his men—the Bunn Brigade, taking them all in all, were a hardish-looking crowd—and doubtless they would make (dreamed the Germans) a very useful addition to the spy and traitor gangs already at work in the countries to which they were bound.

They returned the passports and papers, expressing briefly a hope that good results would accrue from their labours and with a final remark to the effect that Germany was "over all" they climbed back into their cars and departed.

"Let 'em go, Flood, let 'em go. They'll get it where the chicken got the axe—all in good time!" muttered Fortworth, sourly.

"They have peretty good opinion off themselves, thoase bloated Perussian crocodiles," he said. "Itt would be interesting spectacle to watch a regiment off Pathans engaged att making night attack upon them—"

"It will be so—many night attacks—attacks of all kinds," said Carey, the silent South African. "This is going to be the biggest war the world has ever known. The Boer war will be a skirmish to it."

"That's what I keep telling him," said Smiler, moving towards the car. "They are good men—real good men, the Indian army—but they, and all Europe, too, are going to get a fill of fighting, before we get the head of this German adder under our boot-heels. You mark that, Mirza, old man. Don't think I want to discourage you, but at the same time you want to get it out of your head that this is going to be a job which a few regiments, no matter how good they are, will polish off. No, Mirza—this is a job for Armies, not regiments. Your spirit's as right as rain, old man—but your multiplication ain't quite up to the mark." But Mirza Khan smiled.

"Oah, all raight," he said, confidently. "I know itt iss big thing. But, att the same time, this German adder will require plentiful supply off poison, to defend himself from the fighting men of Hind! Adder! Ahaa! Say you so?" His eyes blazed. "If these fat swine be adders—then, by God! there will come—swiftly from India, certain cobras to deal with them!"

Then Mr. Bunn, who had been holding speech with Sing Song near the car, came back to the group, red and fuming.

"Well, it was bound to happen, anyway,—as we don't use everlasting petrol," said Fortworth, resignedly. "We had enough to get us out of Germany. We had better shout 'Hooray' for that and pad the hoof on to Brussels or Antwerp, or Ostend or just wherever we're aiming for."

"Pad the hoof!" echoed Mr. Bunn, aghast. "Pad the hoof with passports like ours in our pockets. Forget it, old man. It's a pity we didn't know this when that armoured car push were here. We could have borrowed some from them."

"Borrowed a bullet in our bread-baskets!" said Fortworth, coarsely. "Those crop-headed murderers aren't out to lend anything. If we wait here till we are able to borrow petrol from the German Army we are as good as glued here for life. It's up to us to walk, and the sooner we start the sooner we shall get next to breakfast—if any!"

"Well, let's get on with it," he growled, went across to the now useless car, helped himself to his overcoat and flask, turned his back on the car, and like a disgusted elephant, in gloomy silence and dignity, strode away down the forest road, following the direction taken by the armoured cars.

The others grinned, in spite of the cheerlessness of the situation. Then Fortworth spoke.

"The old wolf's right," he said. "What's the good of hanging about here? Every yard we make is a yard farther from Germany. It seems a pity to leave a fourteen-hundred pound car to rust in the woods but, if you've got no petrol, why, what are you going to do about it? Come on!"

They had covered some two or three hunger-haunted miles before Mr. Bunn, sullenly ploughing his way along a little in advance, stopped short at a bend in the track.

"And who's this gent?" he said, staring at a man who had silently emerged from the trees a little way ahead, and was now approaching. He stopped face to face with them,—a huge, black-bearded man, who carried a rifle. He wore no hat, this silently-moving new-comer, but his head was bound up in fold upon fold of dirty and bloodstained bandages. Round one wrist also was a bandage. He was clothed in what had once been a good blue suit but now was ragged and dusty beyond description, and he was wearing a pair of rather high boots that, in spite of the tar with which they appeared to be deliberately smeared, still disclosed, in places, that their original colour had been yellowish-brown. They were a pair of the boots which had been issued to German regiments at mobilisation. In a belt he carried a big Service pistol.

The face of this man, against the jet black beard, and the stained bandage seemed so pale and hollow-checked; his black eyes, surrounded by enormous, empurpled circles, appeared so unnaturally huge; and his teeth, exposed in a strange and anguished grin, were so big and strong and plainly visible, that the comrades, for an instant, stared mutely, each conscious of a fearful illusion that he was staring at a bearded death's-head set upon the body of a living man.

The man, who had scrutinized them closely, with a glance of almost uncanny intelligence, spoke hoarsely in German.

Mr. Bunn answered him, for Sweern, the interpreter of the party, seemed stricken dumb. "Say it in English, if you can.... Good God, man!" he continued, horrified. "You look like death. Who are you? What's the matter?"

The man pulled at his beard, and his eyes glittered with the steely light of madness as he answered in hoarse English.

"I am the first-fruits of German frightfulness!" he said, strangely. "And I seek the fife of the Beast among Kings and King of Carrion Beasts that ordered it. They say—it is a rumour—that he is lairing at Aix-la-Chapelle. I am going there—the first of legions who will set upon the same crusade...."

"They have tormented me!" he said with a terrible simplicity, and jerked his rifle barrel in the direction from which he had come. "Back there! They are raving round Liège! I have seen such things.... I have known and witnessed such anguish... sorrowful things. They came to my village—a beautiful and peaceful place, where I lived with my wife and my little girl—lived and painted, for I am a painter of pictures. It was on a golden evening. We were sitting in the garden at tea, talking and wondering as to the war when they came. At first they were controlled—human—but rough and stiff and arrogant. But they were human. Then the twilight came and bad news from Liège and the wine they had stolen began to breed its devils in their brain. The village grew noisier—noisier—noisier! Voices of women that had been only shrill changed—there were shrieks. And then one heard shots—here and there—straggling—and men's voices seemed to roar, to bellow, where, before, they had been but ordinary deep voices of men.... It grew—that clamour. Men went running in heavy, stamping boots, shouting. I went out to see if there was any need of me—there had been an order that the village should keep calm—but soon, looking in at a window, I saw that which caused me to turn back swiftly to my own home. At the gate I heard a woman wailing—a woman wailing. If it had not been my house I would never have known the voice that wailed to have been my wife's.... Then a man whose mouth was wrung up into an awful squareness, open-lipped and with huge teeth, it seemed, and eyes that were not human, rushed from the door of the house and fired at me, full in the face, and I heard the sound of wailing trail and die out in the darkness—as a shooting star trails across the heavens and dies out... and dies out. I lay upon the earth listening to a minute and far-off sound as of a rivulet—it was remote and incredibly far-off and at the same time it was very near. It was the sound of the blood that was trickling from the wound in my head across my ear, and then that, too, died out and there was darkness and silence.... A time came when I found myself climbing slowly with infinite labour and pain up from that deep abyss of darkness—like a broken and lonely man climbing up the dark face of a vast and overhanging precipice at midnight—scaling, through aeons of incalculable anguish, the very crater of hell itself. And at last—at last I struggled clear of the darkness and won over the brink to consciousness again. It was night—but the night was red with flame and there was an odour of dust and blood and smoke in my nostrils and a distant shouting and tramp of feet in my ears. I lay upon my back staring up to the skies and there were stars far on up there, that were veiled and unveiled and veiled again in flying smoke. I felt a weight lying upon my breast and I saw presently that it was the arm of my wife who lay face down at my side, with one arm flung across me. Her face was near mine, and it was cold. She was dead—and in the hollow of her other arm was my little one. And she was dead too... dead, too.... Her little, yellow curls...."

The eyes of the man were shut tightly so that he seemed like a blind man talking. He continued:

"There was a little wood behind the house and I crawled there with a spade... and during that night I buried them there.... Then I said,'I must not die until I have killed for these,' and I set out to kill but not to be killed.... I have lived in the woods for five days and I have killed a little, and have been able to arm myself from those whom I have killed. But now I desire only to kill the King-Beast and leave the others to those who will follow me. He is lairing at Aix-la-Chapelle—I have overheard his grey devils bawling it one to the other—and I must go—"

Then he shivered, and opened his eyes, like a man waking from some nightmare-haunted sleep.

"Belgium will go up in flame and smoke," he said, with a sort of deadly calm, "That will be quenched only by her own blood! Who are you?" His shining eyes of steel played over them.

"God forbid!" said Mr. Bunn, piously. "We are British—except Sweern, who is Dutch, and the Chinaman, who is my property."

"British!" The man's face lighted up. "All Belgium is looking over its shoulder towards Great Britain. You will send Armies?"

"Armies! Believe me, friend, Great Britain will send armies that will open the eyes of the world! Give her time—give her time!" Mr. Bunn's eyes began to gleam and the veins to stand out knotted, like cords, upon his forehead. "She moves slow—she always did and always will—but she'll move! Give her time! There's million upon million upon million of first-rate fighting devils in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, India, Australia, South Africa, that will jump for it—when they know they're wanted. Listen to me! Now it's come—now it's here—Great Britain is just jam-full of men who want a cut at these Germans. They've wanted it for years but somehow or other they've been doped into believing it wouldn't happen. They won't fight any the worse for that. They'll jump for it, I say. They'll eat it! Get that right in your mind, man. These Germans have given you torment, you said—you and a lot of others. They'll get death for it! Ask my friends here—Mirza Khan, here, an Indian gentleman! Hey, Mirza? He says that if Germany's an adder of the dust there's a certain crowd of cobras from India lining along for that adder.... Among others! Armies! Sure, Squire! D'you think England doesn't know of the jealousy that has been eating into the heart of Germany these last few years? She does—and there's a Navy somewhere about, so I've heard. A kind of lot of ships with sort of guns on board. It belongs to England. We don't see a lot of it over there, but I got a kind of idea that there is a Navy about somewhere or other!"

Mr. Bunn was using a ponderous irony but it did not last long. "Yes, a Navy—a bit of Navy—and she'll mop up the floor of the North Sea or any other sea with the damned German Navy—or any other Navy, if it comes to that! Make a note of it!..." Then his tone changed again—the condition of the man and his lamentable story had moved him, as it had the rest of his friends, as much to pity as to rage. "But, here—have a cigar? There's nothing else to offer you. God knows I wish there was."

The Belgian—they learned afterwards that his father had been an English artist, settled in Belgium—took the cigar with a sort of passionate gratitude.

"If I had tears I could weep for your kindness—and your news.... Ah! Those avenging Armies! God speed them!"

He was smoking the cigar with the lingering, careful regard of an old smoker, starved for his tobacco.

"There were four armoured cars that must have passed you!" he said. "Did you hide in the woods?"

They explained quickly,—his face brightened at the tale of the shooting of von Helling—and asked him their whereabouts and of their chances of finding food and petrol.

"There is a village two miles away—but it is ruined and sacked. There will not be much food or petrol there. Yet—a little, perhaps. I will take you there—but I will remain in the woods while you go forward to the house of a friend I know there—if it is still standing. We will arrange a signal from me to him so that he shall understand that you are truly friends. Come, let us go. I can spare little time from my mission."

He was clearly in desperate anxiety to start—and they were in no mood to delay their progress.

But a mile farther on, he stopped dead at a place where the main track turned at right angles, warning them back from the corner with a gesture.

Craning round Mr. Bunn saw the four armoured cars not more than a hundred yards farther on. The men were lounging about, eating and smoking, at the side of the track. Two of them were just issuing from under the last car with tools in their hands. Evidently they had halted to eat and had taken advantage of the halt to effect adjustments, or vice versa.

Since they had already run the gauntlet, so to speak, of the men in charge of the cars there was no real reason why one or more of the party should not advance in the hope of borrowing petrol or food, and it is highly probable that this is what would have happened had not a newcomer suddenly arrived on the scene.

A long, low, luxurious light blue touring car was stealing smoothly down the forest track towards the camp of armoured cars. It carried two people—woman who was standing up in the back, waving her hand, and the driver. Even from where they were the Bunn Brigade could see that this was no accidental meeting.

The ruined Belgian turned to them with flaring eyes. "There is treachery here," he said, in a hissing voice.

"That woman is known to me! She is the wife of a distinguished Belgian who owns an estate near here. I go to reconnoitre."

Then he darted into the cover of the trees on the left side of the track and disappeared, making his way towards the cars.

Automatically the eyes of the others turned to Smiler Bunn. Somehow he had dropped, without comment or suggestion, into the position of leader of the company. Just why it is difficult to say, for Fortworth, who in his day had controlled many big business concerns, was more accustomed to handling men than he was; Carey, the South African, who had been through the Boer war certainly knew more of warfare; and Sweern knew the languages that were necessary. Nevertheless, it was Mr. Bunn whom, instinctively, they had made the leader.

"Yes," he said. "We can't let him risk his life, the only thing he's got left worth having, by himself. I don't say it's the wise thing to do, mind you, and if any of you gets a half-pint or so of bullets in you, don't blame me. But, speaking for myself, I'm going to join the Belgian, and lend him a hand if necessary. It's a silly, risky, foolhardy thing to do, I suppose but as we're fools enough to want to do it—why—come on!—"

"The man who makes any noise will most likely get a bullet in his skull before he knows what's struck him, understand," said Mr. Bunn, thickly. "So go quietly!"

He stole, with the weird light-footed silence which seems to be a natural knack with fat men, through the tree trunks, following the Belgian, his "Brigade" following him. They were quickly abreast of the cars, and well screened by the undergrowth they crouched close, listening and peering.

The woman of the blue touring car—a tall, robust creature of about thirty, rather highly-coloured and not unhandsome in a full-blown way—had alighted from her car and, with a map spread out before her was speaking quickly and shrilly in German to the officers, stabbing her forefinger excitedly at the map.

Those of the listeners who had enough knowledge of German—the Belgian, Sweern, and, in a lesser degree, Carey and Mirza Khan—were too far off to hear everything she said, but they gathered enough to learn (as Sweern whispered to Smiler) that she was informing the Germans that there was at a small railway junction, a little to the north-west of the German line of advance, three big trains of important Belgian supplies, held up temporarily, and not sufficiently heavily guarded. "A bold coup," she said, "would wreck them."

Then, having discharged what apparently was her "tit-bit" of information, she dropped her voice. But whatever she added she added quickly, for, a minute later, the Germans, with stiff brusque salutes, moved back to their respective cars. The woman called to her driver to back the blue car out of the way.

As the man engaged his gear to obey, another person came out from a narrow ill-kept ride, dense with undergrowth, just behind the blue car—an elderly man of distinguished appearance who ran, limping as he ran. Mr. Bunn perceived that he was a cripple, and that his face was white and working.

"What do you want—what are you doing here?" she cried sharply in French, a new harshness in her voice. "Go back to bed. It will kill you—the chill air of the woods."

"It is not the chill air of the woods that will destroy me—it is the discovery that my wife is a traitress and a spy!" he said, dully. Then, with a sudden burst of furious anger that shook his frail frame, he drove his clenched fists up in the air. Mr. Bunn saw that his wrists were thin and wasted like those of a sick man—a dying man.

"What has Belgium done to you, tigress, that you must betray her to those? What have I, dotard, bund man, fond old fool that I have been, what have I ever given you but kindness, that you should steep my name in dishonour, taint this Belgian soil with treachery."

His anguish was so plain, so palpable and poignant that even the coarse, stupidly brutal faces of the group of soldiers—Prussians—seemed momentarily stricken with a sort of compunction. But only momentarily.

"War is war," he said. "I regret that it is necessary. At these times it is most honourable to aid one's fatherland. Madame fights for her fatherland—I salute her!"

"Honourable! I have lived to be instructed in honour by a Prussian upon my own lands! That is the last indignity. Honour! Is it, then, honour that inspires the wife of a Belgian, though she be German born, to scheme and plan with other traitors, to destroy the supplies of those who, wantonly attacked and invaded, fight to defend the land which gave her husband birth, and bestowed upon him the wealth and comfort which she has shared for years? Honour—"

The Prussian gave an exclamation of impatience, shouted a harsh order, and took the map from the woman.

"There is no time to discuss these things," he said savagely. "Understand that this is war! Stand aside or I shoot!"

"That is indeed a threat to unnerve a man whose heart has already been broken by his wife's treachery," he returned.

"Gladly!" she thrust back at him, with a hateful triumph, her eyes glancing sideways at one of the officers.

The old man drew himself up, bristling. He had changed suddenly from a sick man shattered with a bitter discovery to an old soldier.

"Gladly, do you say? But I think that you will go neither gladly nor with these German dogs—but alone and shamed!"

The men leaped for their rifles, as a straggling volley of shots burst out from the thickets on the side opposite to the watchers. A leaden hail of slugs clanged against the armoured side of the cars and four of the Germans dropped.

Without hesitation, indeed, with a sort of ferocious delight, the big officer drew his revolver.

The old man nodded, smiling, and the next moment pitched forward upon his face, shot through the heart.

The woman was shouting, in a voice raucous with evil excitement, that the attackers could only be a few grooms and workers on the estate, hastily collected and armed with shot guns.

"Cut them down! Hunt them! Hunt them! They are but a dozen at most! Send in your hounds for these rats!"

She was unconsciously beating her thighs with her clenched fists, in her frenzy, as she shrieked, and the Prussian roared an order to the men who were scrambling for their rifles in the cars.

A moment later they charged into the wood, firing as they went. Six remained, including the officer she seemed to know.

"I am going back to the house. Send up two men if you can spare them—there will be scenes. Then go and destroy those trains and return here to dine and sleep for to-night, if the orders permit. I shall arrange for twenty men."

The car moved away slowly and the officer turned, with the five men guarding the armoured cars, to stare after their comrades fighting in the wood.

And then the Belgian who was crouching low near Smiler Bunn, without haste or warning, and as deliberately as though he were shooting a dog, took careful aim through the ferns and undergrowth and shot the Prussian officer through the head, just as he turned for a last look at the receding car.

Whether their scouting would have culminated in this, had the Belgian not fired, Smiler Bunn and his party never knew. Nor was there time now for any thought upon the problem, for in an instant they were fighting for their lives. The Belgian had charged out upon the five soldiers guarding the armoured cars, like a madman, and the Bunn Brigade followed him. Apart from the cold fury which the agonised story of the desperate and heartbroken man had roused in them, they were infected with the war-lust. Men living in a war zone, hourly encountering evidences of its horror and brutality, must do one of two things—they must suffer themselves to be trodden underfoot and obey the orders of any stronger man they meet, or they must fight. Neutrals, in the exact sense of the word, cannot exist in the war-zone...

It was as sharp as it was decisive. Any fighting conducted with automatic pistols at a range of a few feet inevitably must be sharp and decisive.

The Germans were killed almost before they realized that they were attacked. They had not time to fire more than two or three ineffectual shots.

The attackers stared at the work of their hands, panting—all save Sing Song the Chinaman, a creature without nerves, who was scrambling into one of the great cars, hunting for petrol almost before the last man fell.

There were still a few scattered shots from the direction in the woods in which the other soldiers had disappeared.

Then a bullet went whirring past Mr. Bunn's head and they all turned towards the report. The blue car was returning down the forest track again—and the woman was standing up in the back, steadying herself with one hand on the driver's shoulder, and a revolver in the other, firing as fast as she could press the trigger.

Carey's hat gave a queer little jump, half turning on his head but without falling, as a bullet pierced it, and the South African, a .45 Colt in each hand, wheeled with an oath. But the Belgian was before him.

"Mine! She is Mine!" he shouted, and dropped on one knee in the track of the car, his rifle suddenly rigid.... The gods were more merciful to her than they had been to her slayer's wife—for she could hardly have realised that her doom was upon her before it had been accomplished.

She dropped, limply, in the back of the car. The driver's jaw was thrust out suddenly and he jammed his accelerator hard down so that the car seemed to plunge at the group. They darted clear by inches only—and Carey shot the man through the head as the car leaped past—an amazing shot. The car swerved wildly, crashed into the trees and turned over, its front wheel spinning aimlessly.

Smiler Bunn, a reeking pistol in his hand, stared at the havoc they had wrought. "And so this is war—war, is it?" he muttered. The Belgian turned to him, white and livid, his teeth showing in a terrible smile so that he looked more like a death's-head than ever.

"War, monsieur?" he said. "But this is nothing—child's play—a flash in the pan. Wait until you endure the hail of the machine-guns—and the hell of the shrapnel! This!" He laughed wildly. "This is no more than a little raid—a circumstance of war! As for that woman, what was she? A German woman who has married a Belgian gentleman—and cast his honour in the mud for her German lover. There are many such on the frontier—vipers—"

He turned as three Germans rushed out from the wood, like men panic-stricken. They were racing for one of their cars. Evidently the ambush of the old man had been successful.

"Stand aside!" yelled one—a sergeant—to Sing Song, who had just alighted with four petrol tins, and struck full at the face of the Chinaman with the butt of his empty revolver. The man must have been beside himself with brutal rage and, perhaps, fear.

But Sing Song jerked his head aside and took the blow on the muscles between the neck and shoulder. The pain of it must have been exquisite, for the Chinaman gave a short yelp of agony, dropped his petrol tins, and, his face wry with fury, leaped at the big Prussian like a leopard. They went down, screaming. Sing Song's arm rose and fell—rose and fell—twice... and then the yellow man got up. His right hand was entirely scarlet.

Then a dozen men poured out from among the trees, armed mainly with shot-guns—and a moment later they had shot the remaining two soldiers with as little compunction as they would have destroyed mad dogs. It mattered nothing to these that the men of the armoured cars had not taken any part in the horrors that were happening a little farther west—they wore the grey-green uniform and that sufficed.

"That's finished it," said Mr. Bunn, feeling a little sick. "Who are these men with the shot-guns, anyway?"

A dark demon with flashing teeth, answered him—Mirza Khan, wild with excitement.

"They are the servants off dead Belgian and hiss wife! Thoase who made ambush to trap thee traitress and thee Germans she drove forth to meet!"

The death's-head man was hailing furious commands at the crowd of labourers with shot-guns.

"He is ordering them to drive the armoured cars into the old stone quarry—and to bury the dead at once!"

But it seemed the men were not able to drive, and since, to leave the cars and dead where they were, would be to invite unspeakable reprisals, when more of the invaders came that way—and that was likely at any moment—it was the Bunn Brigade who dealt with the cars, leaving the others to attend to the Germans.

Working in desperate haste they started the cars, and, following one of the men deputed to guide them, they drove the war-machines to the brink of a long-disused stone quarry not far away—into the jagged depths of which, one by one, they sent them crashing down,—and the blue car of the traitress on top of all.

"That lets us out, I think," said Smiler, peering down. "We can't do any more good here—and the sooner we put a few miles between us and this place the better for all concerned!"

They hurried back to the scene of the fight. Already, spurred with the fear of those reprisals that were worse than death, the Belgians had cleared the place of its dead, and doubtless were burying them in the woods.

"How about you?" asked Mr. Bunn. "Now we've got some petrol we're taking enough back to the car to bring us here and pick up the rest. Which way are you going? With us—or where?"

"All this"—he waved his hand—"has not changed my purpose. Now I set forth once again upon my crusade—to Aix-la-Chapelle—or wherever the King-Beast is lairing. I see in your eyes, messieurs, the belief that I shall fail—I am aware, deep in my heart, that I go now to my death, and not to the accomplishment of his! But I must try! And though I fail, be sure that before this war is ended, there will be many bereft and broken men set out upon the same crusade. And when the war is over, and many of the fighting men return to their homes, their wives, their little ones and find, instead of these, nothing but ashes, nothing but desolation there shall—come upon the same crusade those who will succeed where I may fail, and bestow death upon the Hohenzollern though I receive it!... Adieu!"

He waved his rifle and stepped back. The woods received him, swallowed him up, and they saw him no more.

For a moment Mr. Bunn hesitated. Then he turned to his companions. "What can you do about it?" he asked, gravely.

"Let him go. We can't stop him, anyway. There's nothing we can do, except to wish him good luck, and, after what he's suffered, Good Luck and a bullet in the brain seem to me to mean about the same thing."

He stooped, picked up two of the petrol tins which Sing Song had taken from the armoured cars, and leaving the others to divide the burden of petrol and provisions among themselves headed back along the track toward the place where they had abandoned their own car.

CHAPTER IV. — THE AMAZONS OF THE CRYPT

Innumerable hoof-marks round about suggested that it had been captured by a German patrol, but they had not time to linger there for, almost immediately, the jingle of cavalry along the forest track sent them swiftly into the cover of the undergrowth.

The next two hours they spent crouching in ambush, glaring through the undergrowth at an apparently limitless body of troops, that poured steadily, at an extraordinary speed, down the main track through the wood. Thousand upon thousand upon thousand, all looking amazingly alike. It was as though a river of grey-green water had been diverted from its course, and turned through the wood. They were marching at a speed that was not a run but was faster than a walk—a stiff-legged, gliding movement.

The troops were not singing, and the noise of shouted orders was rare—the pace was too fast for unnecessary talking. The most striking sound of their machine-like passage was the low, everlasting roar of their heavily shod feet upon the ground. It was not a clearly defined tramping but an incessant and mighty roar, like the eternal sound of the sea. And it was ominous and menacing and, to any but those with the strongest nerves, terrifying.

"If what that Belgian told us about the check at Liège was true, these men must be reinforcements, making a forced march!" snarled Smiler Bunn, softly, to Fortworth who was crouching next to him.

"Germans or no Germans I'm not planning to crouch here, breaking my back, any longer," continued the ex-financier. "We'd better fade away into the woods. This crowd look like keeping on for a week. How about it?"

So, backing slowly away, going upon their stomachs, after the manner of the serpent of the dust, they retired—in a southerly direction, much to their oathful disgust for it was their aim to bear as much as possible to the north, in the direction of the Dutch frontier.

It was for Mr. Bunn that the Fates had reserved the privilege of discovering, after a laborious retreat of half-a-mile, an abandoned saw-pit, which he did by falling into it with a crash and jar that well-nigh jolted every tooth in his head loose in its socket. Nothing but the thick soft bed of black, evil-smelling and long decayed sawdust saved him from a broken limb—and even the soft refuse failed to save the life of the unfortunate rabbit upon which he fell. The creature, probably dozing in the gloom, could never have known what struck it. When Smiler Bunn fell on anything it was—he said—like "a thousand of brick" falling.

The others dropped in after their leader who, when, some time later, he recovered a small portion of his temper, agreed that the saw-pit, unattractive as it was, formed by no means a bad base from which to scout.

"It's hidden by ferns and brambles, practically speaking, and it will be safer to stay here until the coast is a good deal clearer than it is now,' said Fortworth.

"I hate the thundering place. Look at that unprintable toad over there!" said Mr. Bunn, savagely. "Have we got to the stage where we're bound to share a hole in the ground with toads? What's the good of having got passports from that dog von Helling if we don't use 'em?"

"Well, we shot the man to begin with, and burnt his house down to finish. I don't know how long permits signed by him will be any good, nor how far they'll take us. We've succeeded with them once, but the next time they might let us down. We want to keep them as a last chance," said Fortworth, not without reason.

"There iss advantage to thiss hole in ground that we are att, Mister Flood," he said to the simmering Smiler. "We can get out off it att any moment. But iff we present passports to Germans, and they do not accept them, but decide us to be spies, then they will possible put uss in hole in ground that we cannot get out off. Yess, sar, it will be peretty permanent occupation of thatt hole. Ass for toad, we can remarkably soon evict him from thiss place!"

He crossed over to where the warty little beast was regarding them, not without a very natural apprehension, seized it by a hind leg and cast it from the saw-pit.

Sing Song, meantime, was examining the flattened rabbit with a rather cannibalistic air.

"Well, what do you make of it, Sing?" asked Mr. Bunn, rather pleased at this evidence of his Chinese hireling's keen eye to the future of the commissariat. "Is he squished out too flat for eating, later on, or not?"

Then followed a brief council of war, which led to nothing save a reiteration of the whole party's intention to get out of the war-zone as quickly as possible, after which Carey, the South African, went scouting.

He returned an hour later, with the depressing information that regiment after regiment of soldiers were still pouring through the wood. He had seen one huge siege gun, hauled by traction engines, pass. The silent Colonial was looking very thoughtful—he had had some experience of war in South Africa.

"Liège is supposed to be impregnable," he said, and shook his head. "But if those guns are as powerful as they look—there's a surprise coming."

"D'you think this German crowd of hair-dressers, and second-rate waiters can win, Carey?" asked Smiler, in blunt amazement.

"Man for man against the English Tommy, no. Man for man against the French soldiers, no. But German organisation and German numbers and their preponderance of artillery might make a near thing of it. From the look of things they're trying a sort of mad bull rush into France and Belgium, and weight tells in a rush. That's a fact—and in war you've got to face facts—"

He broke off suddenly, listening. From high overhead came the dry, breathless whizzing of an aeroplane, invisible from where they were, and a moment later they heard the sharp ringing sound of a bursting bomb, followed by a tremendous fusilade of rifle shots. Then, as sharply as it had broken out, the noise died away. Probably it was a Belgian aeroplane scouting far ahead of the battle-front, welcoming with bombs the troops in the wood.

They waited, tensely, expecting more—but for the remainder of that day, the following night and for the greater part of the next morning, they heard no further sound of war, unless a deep, very far-off rumbling—so deep and remote that it might almost be termed a sensation rather than a sound—came from the guns of Liège.

Nevertheless, had any one of them doubted that they were anywhere but almost in the midst of things, it was only necessary to climb out of their saw-pit and scout cautiously northwards through the undergrowth a little way. Ten minutes would bring the seeker after knowledge within earshot of the track through the woods along which troops were still passing.

So things remained with them until the temporary sustenance afforded by the provisions looted from the cars, and the morsel of uncooked rabbit each yielded to the "bull-rush" of appetite again, and at about nine o'clock of their second day there Mr. Bunn suddenly rose and voiced the general feeling.

"If there were forty million Germans between me and an eatable meal I would have a dash for it," he said, deliberately, and clambered out of the saw-pit.

"I'm off," he said, staring down at his comrades. "North, if I can—if not, north-west. Any of you coming? If not—so long!"

Without delay they moved north. Just what they intended to do when they reached that living stream of troops they were too hungry to plan.

So that it was just as well for them that they discovered the track to be empty. Evidently the Army Corps to which this route had been assigned had passed. The track seemed to have sunk since they saw it last. When they left it before, it had been soft, mossy, dry turf, growing upon a sort of crumbly mould, largely composed of decayed vegetable-fibre. Now it had been hammered by the passage of hundreds of thousands of feet, hoofs and wheels, as flat as a lawn and as hard as concrete.

Half an hour later they emerged from the wood and came upon a place that once must have been a large and prosperous village—practically a small town.

The little company halted abruptly on the edge of the woods and stared down to the base of a slope where lay that which the Germans had found a pleasant place of homes, but had left a desolation. Many walls still stood there, blackened and ragged, but, it seemed, there was not one complete house left. There were houses with the roofs sheared completely off, as the top of an egg is sliced away; houses with their fronts removed, as though by a gigantic knife, exposing the rooms as the rooms of a doll's house are exposed—in most of these, articles of furniture, beds, wardrobes, still balanced precariously upon the sagging floors, ragged at the edge with torn and splintered beam ends; there were two churches there, one, a small one, with the lower half of a slender spire still protruding from the shattered main building below, jagged, like a broken mainmast; in the rubble-strewn streets were piled odd bits of furniture, tables, chairs, with, here and there, a cat slinking silently among them, or a dog moving aimlessly, stopping, at times, to howl mournfully like a thing in physical pain; everywhere were heaps of bricks, and stone, and smashed, charred wood, with points of broken glass gleaming in the sunlight; and, over all, still hung a thin, greyish, haze of smoke, rising in ghostly, unsubstantial streaks of vapour from the smouldering piles of waste and wreckage. With the acrid odour of the smoke was mingled another, and a more terrible, odour of corruption. They saw an old white-haired woman emerge from behind a high mound of wreckage leading a goat that bleated incessantly, slowly pass down a street and disappear behind the remains of one of the churches. Three crows rose lazily from near the place where she had disappeared and flapped heavily into the woods.

The main road that led into the village ran parallel with the wood, and was strewn with smashed waggons and carts and poles and torn tree trunks wreathed about with a hideous tangle of barbed wire. Here and there they saw odd little bundles of clothing lying, it seemed, just as they had been dropped. It was not until they descended into the village that they saw there were dead men in those shapeless bundles. In some of the fields around and along the roadside were bodies of horses, sprawling in stiff, ungainly attitudes. Lying close against the body of one, a great white cart-horse, was a big, black dog, feeding grossly upon the carcase, glaring apprehensively over its shoulder from time to time, like a guilty thing.

But, save for the old woman with the goat, the place was utterly empty of human life. There were no signs of any Germans remaining there. It seemed as though the troops had blotted the place out of existence and gone away. The little company looked at each other silently. It was their first glimpse of an act of "frightfulness—" carried out and accomplished on German lines. They had expected to see sights—but not such a sight as this. Realization of the sheer, devil-devised wantonness and maniac waste of it beat upon all their faculties like a physical blow. It was Mr. Bunn who spoke first. "I can't see the reason for this," he said in a queer, puzzled voice. "This place was only just a little country place—there are thousands in England like it. There weren't any forts.... If you turned a herd of raving lunatics on to a place they couldn't have done more than this. I suppose the people who lived here were just ordinary, simple sort of people, and most of them have probably gone away—refugees, they'd be, I take it. Anyway, they'd have no chance against even a hundred of those grey swine that went through the woods. There was no need for this. It's about in line with the sort of thing the village idiot does when he finds a bird's nest—takes the eggs and then pulls out the nest and tears it to pieces.... And that's how the wonderful German Army means to fight this war—like village idiots that have been put through a long course of military training!"

"You can take it from me that if this isn't all a mistake,—if this is Germany's idea of warfare, there can be only one end to this war. War? This isn't war—it's hydrophobia! The world can't afford to let a nation win whose army does this sort of thing. It will end in a strait-jacket for all Germany for ever. The nations of the world will line up shoulder to shoulder—the United States, Japan, Italy, all of them that can claim to be civilized—to muzzle the beast..."

And so they went down the slope, their faces set, their eyes hard, and, like millions of others in Europe, masking the cold fury in their hearts until the hour should come when it could be unleashed effectively.

But they found no further sign of living people. It was as though the old woman they had seen from the hill-top had been an ancient ghost, prowling about the desolated place in which once it had lived.

Then Sing Song called them to a place in the shadow of one of the shattered churches, where he had made a fire and had cooked meat—what meat, Mr. Bunn did not dare to ask. Certainly it was nothing better than horseflesh and might have been worse. They devoured it in silence, ameliorating it with a strange but not unpalatable dish compounded of a few stray vegetables which the indefatigable Chinaman had found. There were a few baked apples for which Sing Song had searched through a dozen trampled orchards.

Probably it was the first meal since the beginning of their retreat at which neither of the partners levelled at least one barbed criticism. But they said nothing—indeed, there was nothing to say. Food in face of the desolation that surrounded them had suddenly become, for the time being, nothing more than a kind of fuel—something which they passed down their throats as quickly as possible, because it was necessary to do so in order to keep their strength.

They cleared what Sing Song had prepared, and the Chinaman came across from the rough bench and fire where he was doing mysterious things with a knife and chunks of horseflesh and twigs of green wood—presumably endeavouring to smoke some of the meat.

"Plenty food left, mastel," he said. "Can glill big steak velly quick. Gettee mole apples?"

Smiler glanced at his comrades. There were no acceptances of the hardy Chink's offer.

"No, Sing Song, my lad. Enough is as good as a feast," he said. "You've done very well—very well indeed, considering...." His eyes fell upon the carcase of a horse lying some way down the street, and he paled slightly. He said no more, merely motioning the Chinaman away with his hand. But Sing Song produced instead an oblong tin box.

Sing Song handed the box to Smiler, ignoring Mirza. Indeed, the more desperate the position of the party grew so the more exclusively, openly and untiringly the amazing Chinaman appeared to devote himself to Mr. Bunn. Nor was it a devotion inspired by fear. It was in normal times a pose of Sing Song that he was desperately afraid of his master, though probably the Chink feared nothing on earth. He simply worshipped Smiler. A word of praise from Mr. Bunn meant more than gold to the Chink—though, be it said, he had a full and perfect knowledge of the value of gold. And, though he would have been surprised, probably, to realize it, Mr. Bunn's appreciation of his Chinaman was mingled with liking to such an extent that, though he paid him about a half of the average valet's wages, he would not have dispensed with him on any terms whatever.

The tin box contained half a pound of cigarettes, which Sing Song, at imminent risk from tottering walls and sagging beams, had found time to ferret out from an ember-choked cellar which had once been under a tobacconist's shop.

"Ha! There's a good lad!" said Smiler, assisting himself, giving a handful to the Chink, and passing the box round. "You're a yellow-headed conjurer, my son. I've always said so and I don't doubt that I shall say it again—"

But he did not say it again. He said nothing further at all, for at that moment, noting a sudden start on the part of Carey, he turned his head, and perceived that which the South African had started at.

A little group of women, perhaps ten or twelve of them, had appeared suddenly from behind a corner of the church. They were armed with rifles—and each man of the Bunn Brigade was covered by one or more of the rifles.

For a moment there was a deadly silence. Not a man of them moved. It needed no more than a glance to see that the rifles were held steadily and straightly and with serious intent. If ever these women had been unaccustomed to handling firearms, or nervous in dealing with them, it was evident that they had passed that stage.

"Do not move!" cried one of them, sharply, in a voice of grim warning. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

It was Sweern, the guide, who answered, briefly, but with a nervous tremor in his voice. He told the truth—or as much of it as he was able to compress in the limited time at his disposal.

Then, when Sweern had finished, a tall, well-built woman, at the beginning of middle age, with a heavily-lined and absolutely colourless face, who seemed to be the leader of the party, gave an order.

Two women put down their rifles and stepped across to the party—strong, firm-faced women of the working class.

"If you resist you will be shot instantly," called the leader, and there was no mistaking the resolution in her voice.

With a sudden icy qualm Mr. Bunn remembered the passports and permits given them by von Helling. These were clearly Belgian women—and, as clearly, they had suffered at the hands of the Germans. The grim recital of that lonely crusader, the death's-head man, rose before his mind's eye, and Mr. Bunn realised that those papers now had become death warrants—passports that assured only a safe passage to the grave.

"For God's sake, Sweern, get on to your job!" he said. "Tell them that the passports and papers they will find on us are false—to get us past the Germans. Say it plain—and quick, or we are dead men!"

Instantly he poured out a lava flow of French, in furious haste and, as the Bunn Brigade heard very gladly indeed, with clear conviction in his voice.

"Do not proceed too swiftly, ladies—" he began, but the leader of the party interrupted him with a pale and bitter smile.

Sweern, prodded into an unaccustomed smartness by the spur of imminent danger, picked her up quickly.

"Women of Belgium," he said. "Be careful that you do not act too swiftly. Each man of this party bears papers—permits, passports, letters—signed by German agents. But the possession of these papers do not make their bearers Germans! All that, we will explain. These men are British—the party is all British, except only the Chinaman, and myself—a Dutchman! It was necessary—"

Then the woman, her face utterly unmoved, signed him to silence, as "Marie" took from Lord Fortworth's breast pocket his sheaf of papers, and went across to her leader with them. She read them with a quickness of comprehension that showed her to be a woman of education. The Bunn Brigade, sitting on the ground in the sunshine, their hands still held wearily over their heads (until such time as Yvonne should have completed her collection of their weapons) watched anxiously.

If it were possible the woman's face was harder and whiter and more deeply lined than ever, when, her hasty perusal of the papers finished, she looked again at her captives, and an icy chill of apprehension shot through the souls of each man of them, courageous though they were.

Sweern broke again into tremulously voluble explanations, but was immediately silenced by an abrupt gesture and a hissed word.

Four times, in deadly silence, broken only by the rustle of the papers, the woman Marie made the little journey from the Bunn Brigade to her leader and back, each time delivering up a set of the fatal papers.

And, watching like snared wolves, the men saw decision engrave itself more and more certainly and unalterably upon the tragic face of the woman who held their lives at the unwavering rifle-muzzles of her followers.

"We're all in this time, Fortworth!" said Smiler, unable to stand the still tension of it any longer.

And, thereat, sheer madness—lunacy—swamped the soul of Mr. Bunn like a wave.

"Why should I?" he bawled, utterly reckless, staring with bloodshot eyes at the woman. "You don't give us a chance! I tell you that those papers were obtained by a trick from a German hog I shot with my own hand! We're using them to get out of Germany, and through the German troops, but they don't represent us right! D'ye understand that? Are you going to give us a chance to explain, and to prove that we are genuine Britishers or not? It looks to me as though you'd made up your mind already. But you're making a mistake. You want to get a grip on yourself and distinguish between friends and enemies. But if you've made up your mind that you won't be convinced, why, shoot—snoot—that's it, shoot—and be damned to it!"

Evidently she understood English, for the desperate outburst of Mr. Bunn seemed momentarily to have shaken her decision.

Either Smiler's outburst, or, possibly, the fact that, traitors or not, assuredly not one of the party was German, had left her unwilling to act at once.

"You say that you are British! Very well—you shall have an opportunity to prove it," she said, and ordered the Bunn Brigade to stand up. Next she placed her followers, skilfully enough, about the prisoners, as escort, and bringing up the rear herself ordered them to march.

In single file, each three yards from the other, and each acutely conscious of a rifle-muzzle pressing against his back, the little company of captives marched into the partially wrecked church, and were halted along the ruined splinter-sown aisle.

Then, one by one, still steadied by those obtrusive rifle-muzzles, they were passed through a small door, as it might be a vestry door, giving on to a small stone-flagged chamber. In the middle of the floor a stone trap-door was raised, and they went down an iron ladder to find themselves in a dark tunnel or gallery hewn, as far as they could see, out of the solid chalk—now black with the damp of many winters or the passage of many users.

Evidently they were bound for some crypt or secret subterranean place that belonged to the dangerous days when the church was built—centuries before. They passed through the run-way and a few moments later emerged into a cavern—a cave in a hill of chalk, that was larger even than the church through which one had access to it.

A murmur of voices greeted them and they saw that they were by no means to be alone in the cavern for the period of their visit there.

The place was alive with people—women, children, old men, and, away to one side, bound so that, literally, they could not move hand or foot, were two scowling officers and four white-faced men with eyes of terror—all German infantry.

Messrs. Bunn and Company were ordered to range themselves in a line against the rough chalk wall at the side of the big cavern.

This they did with the promptitude and dispatch which may be expected from unarmed men surrounded by people on the edge of desperation.

A cripple boy, with a stained bandage round his jaws, livid face and feverishly bright eyes, an old man lacking a left arm, and two women of the peasant class, all armed with revolvers were detailed by the leader of the women to watch them.

Then she turned to the refugee. She was addressed, usually, as "Baroness," the Bunn Brigade noted, and it was evident that the people adored her. Thrice they heard her called "mother." And, clearly, that was what, in effect, she was to this great cavern full of the homeless.

There were perhaps twenty rough beds—plain mattresses for the most part—ranged along one side of the cavern. Some of these were occupied by boys, some by old men, and two by wounded Belgian soldiers, who lay still and unconscious.

The Baroness presently disappeared behind a big screen or partition roughly made of wood and curtains, probably taken from the houses overhead. No doubt, behind the screen were more beds, occupied by women.

In a great angle of the cavern were piled boxes of stores, piles of potatoes, loaves, flour-bags, a heap of tinned foods, all tidily arranged. Two women seemed to be making a list of the things.

Mingling with the unmistakable odour of drugs was the faint, unpleasant smell of paraffin vapour, which seemed to come from the dark opening of a tunnel leading out of the cave. They learned afterwards that it was in a small chamber beyond that such cooking and heating of water as was imperatively necessary was done.

The children sat silently about. They were unnaturally subdued. They whispered to each other, but they did not play. They simply sat or stood, holding each other's hands, and staring mutely, with frightened, puzzled faces at the bound Germans.

It was not difficult for the Bunn Brigade to realize the position at once. It explained itself. No doubt a body of Germans had occupied the place for a night, and, for reasons which seemed good to them, had looted it—dealt with it as, afterwards, they were to deal with many Belgian villages and towns. The presence of the wounded Belgian soldiers and the shelling which the place had undergone showed that the village had been fought for before it was occupied.

Then the Germans had probably marched south—the village being of no present military importance—and those that remained of the population, organised by the Baroness, had fled to this secret underground retreat. All the men capable of fighting had either been massacred or had fallen back fighting with the Belgian troops. But if there was something fine in the work which these women had accomplished, there was more that was pathetic.

Fresh from witnessing the march through the woods of those close-packed myriads, which yet could not be more than a fraction of the troops Germany was pouring over the frontier, Mr. Bunn and his comrades could not fail to see the heart-breaking futility of the attempt to secure, as it were, a permanent sanctuary at a place that was only just off the line of the German advance, and which, soon, must inevitably be occupied again and again.

At any hour—any moment—the great crypt might be discovered, and the labour of the women be utterly lost.

Doubtless, the Baroness and her aides knew this—but, meantime, they were doing what they could.

Mr. Bunn, grasping all this, moved uneasily. He glanced at his companions and, in a moment, spoke to Sweern, the guide.

"I say, Sweern, my lad," he said. "Just ask one of our guards to tell the Baroness that when she is at liberty I should feel obliged if she would step over here to receive an apology from the Englishman that shouted at her a few minutes ago. She's not the sort of woman that I feel proud of bawling at. She's worth a dozen of me."

Sweern interpreted to one of the women watching them. She nodded but did not move.

Mr. Bunn flushed. He was not in the habit of volunteering apologies so frequently that a refusal to accept one instantly left him wholly discomposed.

But just then the Baroness, still carrying their papers, appeared again, and came over to them. Her face was white and set. The woman guard repeated Mr. Bunn's apology to her, and she bowed formally to him. But her expression did not soften. It was as though a criminal on the scaffold had apologised to the executioner for shouting at him while being pinioned in his cell.

"I accuse you of being spies and traitors in the pay of Germany!" she said, not loudly but distinctly. "If you can prove that you are not, do so quickly for your lives' sake. There is—"

She broke off as four more women entered—powerful, muscular women of the class that do the work of men upon farm-lands.

Sweern, standing next to Mr. Bunn, caught the words and Smiler heard a sharp hissing intake of his breath.

"My God!... Fortworth, did you get that?" he said to his partner, but the Baroness turned again for an instant.

The party saw then that all in the cavern were staring at the men—strangely, tensely, with horror in their eyes. Even the children...

The scowls suddenly disappeared from the faces of the officers, as though some invisible hand had wiped them away, and their sullen jaws dropped.

For a moment there was a fearful silence—broken, almost immediately, by a low, moaning whimper of pain from behind the screen.

Six of the women took their rifles from a corner, and stood promptly to attention before her.

"Take them away in two sections and carry out the sentence!" ordered the Baroness.

The sagging jaws of the officers gripped again, as they set their teeth. Their blanched faces were quite hopeless.

Two of the men began to beg hoarsely for mercy—mercy—but at that word the Baroness flamed.

"Mercy!" she said fiercely in French. "What mercy had you and your fellow-wolves upon the men and boys of this village? The mercy of the bayonet and the machine gun! What mercy upon their wives and daughters? The mercy of demons and madmen, made more diabolical by lust and drink! Is there any lack of witnesses—or of victims?" She waved her arm round upon the marble-faced women standing by, with tortured eyes. "What mercy had you and your fellows upon their homes? The mercy of incendiaries—the mercy of the flames!" Her voice rose, ringing with an unquenchable scorn and hatred.

"You have committed deeds that civilization can never forget—never forgive," she said. "And you were taken in the act. You were even more evil than your fellows, for you lingered behind them—unslaked—and at a hint of yet more havoc to be wrought allowed yourselves to be lured here. Mercy? There is no mercy for you. You shall be destroyed! Were there women here weak enough to shrink from doing justice upon you—and there are none—then I would execute you with my own hand!"

It was done in an instant. The men were given enough freedom to hobble, and no more.

As they went, herded to their doom, one of the officers turned, with a last malediction, backed by a savage threat.

"Tiger-cats!" he snarled. "What can you do against Germany? Soon will come back to this place those who will stamp you into the earth till you are nothing but stains!"

The Baroness ignored him and a bayonet point in the side schooled him to silence.

Then they were gone—the clatter of their heavily-shod feet died away—and it was the turn of the Bunn Brigade.

"This isn't a case for anything like addressed envelopes or private correspondence—if we've got any on us—to prove who we are," he said. "How about it? It's no good saying who we are—we've got to prove it—and prove it quick! So if you've got any ideas—"

"Can't she see we're English—" began Fortworth, sullenly, but Smiler turned away.

"Do you get any news here, Baroness?" he asked. "If so, perhaps you have heard of what happened in the woods not far from here yesterday. I mean those armoured cars."

"Four German armoured cars," went on Smiler Bunn, laboriously. "We—and some Belgians from an estate close by—captured them, killed the soldiers running them, and dropped the cars into a pit! Have you heard of that?"

"Well, it's true, anyway," he said rather feebly. He racked his brains, and after a muttered colloquy decided to tell her of the movements of himself, Fortworth, Sing Song and Sweern, from the declaration of war, and of the whole party from the time they met Mirza Khan and Carey at the quarters of von Helling.

Long before he had finished the firing party had returned. One glance at their faces was enough to show that their work had been done.

The return of the party seemed to discompose Mr. Bunn—either that or the stony air of disbelief with which his account was being received.

Fortworth was already counselling in a whisper to Carey the advisability of making a rush for it—sheer suicide though it was—when Mr. Bunn arrived at that part of his story dealing with their meeting with the death's-head man.

"That man lived in this village," she said, then, to Mr. Bunn. "All that you have said is true. But none knew what had befallen his wife and little one. Yvonne has gone to the wood to see if the grave is there. Meantime, tell me of the fight with the armoured cars."

Now that he seemed to have succeeded in establishing the beginning of proof other points came thick and fast to corroborate him. The Baroness, it seemed, knew that woman spy who had met and endeavoured to aid the Germans with the armoured cars.

"I always suspected her," said the Baroness, pensively. "You do not surprise me. What happened to her husband?"

"He was killed by a German officer who was killed himself immediately afterwards!"

But she still hesitated—hung fire, as it were. She looked searchingly at them all.

"You have told us nothing that a spy might not know... and your papers are completely against you."

She broke off again as the woman Yvonne returned to the crypt. But she was not alone. She was half dragging, half-carrying a man—a man who plainly was very near the last grim frontier—the frontier of death. His head, bound in red and dirty bandages, rolled wearily on the shoulder of the sturdy peasant woman who had brought him, and he trailed one foot helplessly, leaving a red stain upon the chalky floor where he touched it. The foot had been smashed by a bullet. There was an oblique, crimson stain across his cheek also, that stood out against the livid face as though it were a smear of paint instead of what it was—a bullet-graze. One arm hung oddly crooked, as though from a broken shoulder blade. And the face of the man was grey with agony.

And he was yet so much of a man, of so fine and unconquerable a spirit that he could still spare breath for a last defiance.

He recognised the party—guessed why they were lined up there, under an armed guard. He smiled indomitably.

"Ha, my friends!" he called huskily to them. "You see, my words were true. The privilege of destroying the King-Beast is not for me! They saw and fired on me in the woods.... My crusade is done. But there are a thousand others that will come after me. I who am dying say that to you!" The Baroness spoke swiftly.

"Good friends,—good friends to Belgium! I answer for them..." his eyelids fell, and the husky voice trailed off in a whisper.

The Baroness said it over her shoulder, to the Bunn Brigade, as she hastened to the man.

"He was lying upon a grave in the little wood at the back of his house! I brought him in alone. It hurt him... but I dared not wait to call for help, for I thought I saw Uhlans riding under the edge of the wood. He begged to be buried there—if he should die—to be buried there with his wife and his little one!"

"We fought those hounds with the armoured cars with him, Madame," he said. "And to-day he has saved us. We should consider it an honour if you will let us do that for him."

"There is no Belgian who would refuse him burial at the hands of Englishmen!" she said.

They carried him aside, to a place indicated by the Baroness... and, presently, they laid him beside his wife and child even as he had desired.

"Well, it wasn't much to do for him, but it was about all we could do," said Mr. Bunn, quietly. "I wish it was more—for he was a brave man, and, unless I'm very much mistaken, if he had not happened to have come in when he did, we should have been dead men ourselves by now. I don't think the Baroness was believing us. And, with papers like ours, I don't see how you could expect her to!"

Then, picking up their tools, they turned from that lonely grave and went slowly back to the crypt.

It was little enough they could do there. They placed themselves at the disposal of the Baroness, but she shook her head.

"There is nothing to do—except what we women can do," she said, and that was true. So they went on....

CHAPTER V. — THE PREY OF THE WAR HAWKS

NOON of that day found them sitting in the shade of an orchard some three miles north of the ruined village, planning their line of retreat.

"Well, what about it?" said Mr. Bunn, flatly. "To make it an easy matter to step across the frontier into Holland we ought to be on the north side of the German line of march. Only we aren't—you want to get that well into your heads. We're on the south side—the wrong side—and to put it bluntly, we seem to me to be more or less bung in the middle of the line by which the Germans are invading Belgium. I'm not a geographical sharp—I admit it—but as far as I can see we've got the choice of going north, south, east or west. We seem to be just inside the Belgian frontier. If we go east we don't stand a Chinaman's chance of meeting a solitary friend until we've crossed Germany and come to Russia. So we can cut the easterly march out of it. If we go south we shall find ourselves in the thick of the fighting all the way to Switzerland. So we can cut out any southern dreams, too. We've got to choose between north or west. If we go north we look like running full tilt into the advance of all the troops coming up to support what I suppose you'd call the German right wing; if we go west we shall simply be travelling the same way as the German army, with some in front and some behind us—and if we stop where we are, sooner or later the Germans will march over us. So what about it?"

"It iss decidedlee difficult peroposition," said Mirza Khan. "But speaking on behalf off self, I am off opinion thatt we may go north most safelee off all directions. For thanks to thee land lady off thee church we do not look soa much like filthy tramps. That iss to say, we are clean, and well-shaven, and our linen is peretty fair, and clothes, too, are still quite decent. Soa that if we collide with German teroops we can produce the passports and papers and demand safe conduct through Belgium to Dutch frontier. It would be peretty stiff bluff, oah yess, indeed, but there iss no option."

Fortworth scowled or, rather, he caused the scowl which for the past week or so he had worn as a permanent fixture, to engrave itself more deeply upon his brow, and spoke, briefly, but bluntly and to the point.

"The first man of this party who demands anything worth having from any German crocodile in Belgium will be more likely to get twelve inches of steel in him than anything else," he observed, sullenly, and having handed in this contribution to the consultation, helped himself, with every appearance of intense loathing, to another of the cooking apples which were the only variety left in the orchard.

"Well, what's the good of a remark like that?" snarled Mr. Bunn, resentfully. "We all know that. But we've got to take a chance or two, if ever we're going to get out of this country."

"Sure, we have!" barked his partner. "And we're taking them right here. We're carrying on us at this minute papers and passports that would justify any Belgian soldier or sandwich-man in blowing our blocks off at sight."

"I suggest that we go north. Even German troops can't go on for ever. If we find a half-mile gap anywhere—and we shall—we can nip through and head for Holland. It's the least dangerous way."

"Carey's right," said Mr. Bunn. "He ain't much of a talker, but when he talks he talks sense."

"All bayonets look alike to me," grumbled that inveterate pessimist, "I'm willing for north."

"Oah, yess. It iss all one to me, Mister Flood, thee quickest way to the Indian contingents iss thee way I wish to adopt," replied the late confidential body-servant to His Highness the Rajah of Jolapore. He grew a little excited, as he invariably did at any mention of the Indian troops which Smiler Bunn had assured him inevitably would take part in the war. "Ahaa! Itt will be peretty good business to get into saddle once more—to charge with His Highness' body-guard off Lancers! If onlee I had thee wings of a kite—"

"Wings of a balloon!" grunted Lord Fortworth, who thought Mirza referred to the toy instead of the scavenger hawk, most graceful of fliers. "You'll get there fast enough, Mirza Khan. This isn't any week-end war. You'll be so sick of charging and lancing before it's finished that, for the rest of your fife, the very thought of a saddle will give you the creeps!"

"Well, we all seem to have got on to the north route," said Mr. Bunn. "So we'll make it a dash to the North." He paused, thinking. After a moment he resumed:

"It might easily mean that we shall have to travel fast, when it comes to rushing the gap,—if any. The way to travel fast is to travel light. And it seems to me that carrying a lot of food in parcels ain't the way to travel fight. We don't want to load ourselves up or encumber ourselves. The best thing we can do with what food we've got is to put it where we shan't be likely to lose it, if it comes to making a rush for it. Eat it, in fact. We've got to bear in mind that any minute a party of German stiffs might grab us, and the odds are that they'd pinch our lunch, if they had a chance. What about it?"

Judging from the unanimous approval which greeted this far-sighted proposal, Mr. Bunn was talking very soundly.

So, without delay, various parcels were opened and the company, their appetites whetted rather than blunted by the apples they had consumed, lunched. There was not much food there, and it was not too alluring. But it was all that the Bunn Brigade felt justified in accepting from the refugees in the great crypt.

They ate the rough bread, cold potatoes and the few scraps of cold meat in silence, washed it down with water, and gave themselves a few minutes with the cigarettes which Sing Song had excavated from the ruins of the deserted village.

Then they arose from the orchard and continued their journey northward, aiming always towards such woodlands as lay in their way.

They talked very little, for they were travelling too fast to render any protracted conversation a pleasure.

Except for the past day or so, Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth had walked so little for years that they required practically every cubic inch of air they could get. In any case, it was too hot for conversation and, finally, away to the west and south, was always the low and ceaseless mutter and rumble of great guns.

But for that eternal reminder which came sullenly reverberating from over the edge of the horizon the Bunn Brigade, keeping themselves always as inconspicuous as possible—along hedgerows or through copses and woods—encountered for a time few evidences that this part of Belgium was in possession of the invaders. The wooded countryside looked peaceful enough, but this was only because they were off any main roads.

And even so, they had one abrupt reminder that there were those not far away who regarded their lives as being completely unimportant. They were skirting a small wood, when suddenly the murmur of birds and insects from the cool recesses among the trees was blotted out and lost in a racket from above, faint at first, but increasing in a swift crescendo that quickly made itself recognisable as the sound of motor exhausts.

They looked up, waiting, and a few seconds later they saw sliding high overhead, in a south-westerly direction, the first Zeppelin they had seen since the outbreak of war.

There was nothing in the appearance of the long, slim murder-device to justify any assumption that it and its kindred were going to prove a military failure during the war. On the contrary, and so far as the Bunn Brigade were in a position to judge, it looked extraordinarily capable. It was travelling very fast.

"Well, I've got to say that I don't see what there is to stop the murderers on that airship from tipping over explosives by the ton. It looks a biggish thing for an aeroplane to tackle!"

"And what would our guns be doing while they tipped?" he enquired. "To say nothing of half-a-dozen aeroplanes buzzing round it, dropping bombs or hosing lead out of their machine guns, at it? They're big, serious-looking things, I admit, but what can they do?"

A faint, far-off flash and puff of smoke made itself just visible for a fraction of a second, at one of the cars under the Zeppelin, something whined in the air close by, and a little plume of whitish dust jetted up in a field some thirty yards in front of them.

It was a bullet. Someone in the airship had taken a passing "pot" at them, possibly for the sake of "frightfulness" or as practice, but conceivably just for "fun."

"What's the good of swearing at them?" he asked. "They're miles away. They don't care! They can't hear. You're wasting good air, bawling at them that way."

"The blackguards shot at us," he shouted. "Are you going to put up with that?" he added, rather wildly.

"Put up with it?" said Fortworth, with a hard grin. "Not likely—I'm going to knock their heads off!"

The Zeppelin being almost out of sight by now, and still travelling fast, Mr. Bunn realised that Fortworth was speaking sarcastically, and calmed down somewhat.

"Well, but what do you think of that?" he said, his voice trembling with anger. "Potting at a man like a rabbit from a perfectly safe distance, like that?"

"What can you expect from a hog but a grunt?" said Fortworth, tersely, amid the popular approval of the whole party.

"Oh, all right,—as you wish," grumbled Mr. Bunn. "But if that bullet had arrived where it was intended to there's one, at least, in this party who would have taken a little keener interest in the rules of war."

But a few minutes later Sing Song again drew the attention of the party to the direction in which the Zeppelin had disappeared.

The airship was returning. It was still so far off and now had risen to such a height that it looked very little larger than a vegetable marrow.

They watched it for a moment. Then Sing Song, who possessed among other accomplishments the vision of a vulture, turned to Smiler.

"What's that? Aeroplanes!" snapped Mr. Bunn, straining his eyes. "Those specks? Can you see 'em, Mirza? Those specks. Sing says they're aeroplanes, attacking the Zeppelin!"

The Zeppelin had risen until by the time it was overhead, it was little more than a speck, and the aeroplanes that had hounded it back were not visible.

Smiler brought his head again to the perpendicular with a jerk, and rubbed the crick out of his neck.

"Well, it's no good wasting time like this. We are hunting for Holland—not Zeppelins. We can't catch her. We haven't got a butterfly-net," he said, with mild irony. "Let's get on."

But they had not proceeded more than a hundred yards, before Sing Song once again hoarsely directed their attention to the skies.

An aeroplane was falling—falling in long, sick curves and aimless swoops. Then it steadied and dropped just as the watchers were involuntarily stiffening themselves for the crash, the engine started with a whizzing roar, the fall of the machine was stopped, and she glided forward upon an even "keel."

"Good man," said Smiler, in a burst of relief. "He's got her where he wants her, again."

Almost immediately, however, the engine was cut off again, and the airman brought her to earth on a straight down slant, landing her with the deft lightness characteristic of the expert. They had seen the colours painted upon the planes, and hurried forward to greet the flying man, who was sitting bent forward over his wheel, like a man asleep.

It was not until they were close, that they saw that the side of his face was red with blood.

"It is all right—only a bullet-graze!" he said. "It made me a bit dizzy for a minute." His eyes were a little dazed as he looked at them. Then, suddenly, he stared round the skies.

"Better push her under the trees until I get tied up," he suggested, his eyes still searching the heavens for any signs of enemy aircraft.

The party ran the machine—a biplane—into a little opening in the line of trees, and there, roughly screened from view, they helped the airman staunch the flow of blood from a gash from a bullet that must literally have grazed the bone of his skull just above the ear. There was some brandy in the machine, which helped to steady him. Then he lit a cigarette and stared, with more interest, at the Bunn Brigade.

"Why, you're English, aren't you—most of you? What are you doing here?" he asked. He was a thin hawky-looking youth, and the presence of the Bunn Brigade in that place appeared to surprise him considerably.

"Oh, we're not here because we like it," said Mr. Bunn. "We got out of Germany days ago and we're heading for Holland—wherever Holland is. It's a pity that machine of yours isn't a seven-seater, so to speak. There's a lot of us would like to be the other side of the German front."

"I can take one," he offered. "But it isn't a tram, of course. And I can't promise to come back for you. The rest of you must make a dash for Holland. Did the Zeppelin get away?"

"Yes—she didn't like the company she was in," he said, and moved back to his machine, which he began to examine quickly. "You had better be deciding which one comes with me, hadn't you? I must get back."

He explained rapidly that he was an Englishman who, at the outbreak of war, was flying in a French school, and had been given a commission in the French army at once. Then he asked again which one of them was going back with him.

"Well, Black and I and Sing Song are partners and I guess we'll hang in together, hey, Black?" said Smiler.

"Then it rests between you, Carey, and Mirza and Sweern," continued Mr. Bunn. But Mr. Sweern thought not. He feared the Germans, but he feared even more, it seemed, a journey in the fragile-looking biplane. So Sweern declined.

"Oah, yess," said Mirza, hesitated, then added quickly, "I am verree sorry to be such damfool, but I think I will not take thee advantage off your offer too-day. Upon the whole, I have decided—att last moment—too stick with my old pals. Soa, Mister Carey will accompany you, sar, upon thiss occasion!"

But whether that would have fitted in with the arrangements of Mr. Carey was not immediately to be revealed to the company, for at that moment they heard, coming from somewhere over the north of the wood, the whirring of another aeroplane.

They stiffened, listening, staring up through the thick foliage in vain attempts to locate the machine.

"It's a Taube!" said the English airman softly, "A German machine. Help me turn mine, to get a clear run when I start."

Very quietly and cautiously they did so. The space in which to turn was very limited, and by the time they had the biplane facing the strip of mossy turf at the edge of the wood from which the airman intended to rise, the hoarse whirr of the enemy machine had passed over them, still a little to the north.

Then abruptly the engine of the Taube was cut off, there followed a few seconds of silence, and then, not very far away, a sound of men's voices.

"They've come down—just over there near the corner of the wood," said the English flyer. "There's a small château there...." He turned to his machine again, but halted, irresolutely.

The hands of the entire Bunn Brigade—excepting only Mr. Carl Sweern—stole to the pockets in which they kept their weapons.

"Well, why not?" said Mr. Bunn, grimly. A minute later they were gliding through the trees, their automatics gripped ready in their hands, heading, silent as Red Indians, towards the corner of the wood from which the sound of the alighting Taube had come.

The Taube was standing upon the wide lawn of a modern château, tiny but beautifully built and designed, that was perched on the side of a long, gradual slope down from the wood, surrounded by orchards and well-kept kitchen and ornamental gardens.

Bending over the engine of the aeroplane was a German aviator. But he was not looking at his engine. He was staring over his shoulder at an older man in uniform, who looked like an officer of high rank. This one was crossing the lawn, going towards the balcony upon the house. The watchers saw that upon this balcony stood a girl, dressed in white, facing towards the approaching officer. Mr. Bunn, glaring out from his cover, heard a slight exclamation, and turned to the airman who was at his side, and was using a pair of binoculars.

"She's frightened!" muttered the airman. "She's a lovely girl, but she's as pale as death, except for two red patches of rouge on her cheeks."

"Yes. But—it's queer—she seems to have been expecting him. She's beautifully dressed—" he broke off as the aviator left his machine and followed the older man towards the house.

"Well, queer or not, there seems to be only a pair of them. It isn't going to take us long to receipt their little bill," said Mr. Bunn.

The airman glanced at the sinister automatics of the men crouching about him, and nodded.

The German general—the airman had whispered the man's rank to Smiler Bunn—reached the balcony and, standing below, bowed elaborately to the rouged girl who was looking down at him.

A tall woman of middle-age, with a hard yellowish face, and an artificial smile, also very carefully dressed, appeared on the balcony, bowing and smiling to the general. Then a door below was flung open by a soldier servant, who stood stiffly at attention, while the general entered the house. A moment later the door closed again. The German aviator was left standing in the sunshine, staring towards the balcony.

Then, as they watched him from their covert, he threw out his arms suddenly in a queer gesture of appeal to the girl, brought the finger-tips of both hands to his lips and blew her a kiss. But there was nothing of lightness, nothing of gaiety, in the gesture—it was done with an earnestness that was almost tragic.

The girl made no response, either by word or gesture, but the woman with her shook her fist playfully at the aviator.

The bulky form of the general appeared at the French window behind the women and they turned to him, while the aviator wheeled abruptly and went back to his machine.

The watchers heard a shrill outpouring of rapid German from the elder woman, as though she were welcoming the general, but the man appeared literally to ignore her. Instead, he put a hand, gently enough, upon each shoulder of the girl and said something in a low voice to her.

The watchers could not hear what he said—though long afterwards, they learned that it was a florid phrase to the effect that he had snatched an hour from "the stress of victorious battle" in order to come "on swift wings" to see his "little white dove."

But they heard, very clearly, the answer of the girl. She said—standing quite passive under the hateful German hands:

Indeed she was. Mr. Bunn stared round at the English airman by his side, and, to his amazement, he found that the airman's eyes were wet, though his face might have been carved from brown steel.

"The sound of her voice brought England—my home and my sisters—back to my mind—suddenly—like a knife," muttered the airman, with a sort of shamefacedness.

"But what is the idea, anyway? What is she—a little English girl—doing there with these German rats round her?" said Mr. Bunn, his forehead corrugated in a black frown.

Two soldier servants appeared on the balcony now carrying a table partly laid for a meal. Evidently the general and the girl were to have déjeuner, on the balcony.

Then, suddenly, the attention of the watchers was diverted from those on the balcony to the officer on the lawn. He had been moving uneasily and a little aimlessly about his machine, staring at intervals at the girl on the balcony. But now, with a violent shrug of the shoulders, he turned away from the machine, took out a cigar case, selected a cigar and strode quickly towards the trees, straight for the spot where the Bunn Brigade lurked.

Evidently he did not wish to go to the house, and probably intended to sit in the shade of the trees and smoke a cigar until such time as his services were needed again. He came on, feeling for his match-box, supremely unconscious of the seven revolvers and automatics that, masked by the undergrowth, covered him from the instant it was seen that he was coming straight to the party.

As he came nearer they heard him muttering softly to himself. He was making for a little path upon each side of which crouched the watchers.

The German stepped into the wood, and—instantly found himself face to face with a fat man, with eyes of menace and a merciless mouth, who held an ugly, black-lipped automatic pistol jammed close up against his body, and who said in English:

The German, with starting eyes, saw that there were others with this fat man—and that these, too, were armed and looked ready to use their weapons.

Even if he had not understood English the aviator would have realised that any resistance or outcry was simply suicide.

So, with a palpable effort, he pulled himself together, and in almost perfect English, said, coolly enough:

His tone lacked the stupidly exaggerated arrogance usual in that of a Prussian officer, but it abated nothing of the deadly menace of the air of the men surrounding him, or in the tone of Mr. Bunn, as he replied:

The German obeyed. They halted him when they were completely masked from the view of those on the balcony.

"My lad, you have put your head into the mouse-trap all right!" said Mr. Bunn, grimly, as Mirza and Sing Song ran their hands over him, removing his weapons.

The English airman, glancing from one to the other of the Bunn Brigade, looked serious. After all, there were certain rules of war—and these men looked like killers. The German aviator realised that, too, and was quick to seize upon it.

"You are a French officer, sir," he said. "I trust that you intend to enforce the rules of warfare—which do not permit the murder in cold blood of a prisoner of war!"

"Rules! Rules!—" the man blanched at the snarl with which the Bunn Brigade greeted his words.

"Gently," he said, "we haven't captured him to cut his throat, have we? Hadn't we better question him? I know that the average German idea of rules is that they are only rules when they've an advantage—but I think you will find that this man is a cut above the average German. He talks like it."

"We want to know a lot of things. But he needn't expect any petting from us. That's what. Now—" he turned to the prisoner. "Answer—and answer quick. What's that General doing here? What's that English girl doing here? What's she frightened of?"

"Do you expect a Saxon officer to submit to examination from any ruffian that finds himself temporarily in a position of superior force?" he asked haughtily. "I refuse to answer any question!"

Mr. Bunn's face went white—or rather, a curiously mottled colour, and a peculiar and nerve-trying change came into his eyes. His pupils contracted and narrowed to pin-points so that his eyes seemed to become a singular, dull green colour—like unpolished jade.

"Lay him down, Sing Song—you needn't hurt him—and hand me your knife," he said. His voice had become curiously soft with a thick, heavy softness—but there was a latent threat in the sound of it which chilled the blood of the listeners.

Sing Song had the big Saxon tripped and flat on his back in an instant. The man, after an exclamation of surprise, lay quiet. Mr. Bunn dropped on his knees—one knee on the ground each side of the Saxon's chest.

"Don't worry—yet!" he said, still in that soft and deadly voice, turned again to his prisoner, and laid the knife gently upon the man's chest.

"You're suffering from a disease called ignorance, d'ye understand?" began Mr. Bunn. "You think that refusing to answer my questions—our questions, I suppose I ought to say—is an act of bravery. You're wrong. It's an act of suicide—painful and lingering suicide, without any glory in it. Remember that, for there isn't time to tell you twice. Now listen carefully. Because there's a British—French—officer here you've got the idea that this crowd is going to play your game, and deal with you according to the rules—the rules you German scum are the first to break. You're wrong. The British officer is in a minority of one here, and he's outvoted. You're dealing with five wolves from Wolftown—private citizens who don't consider themselves bound by any military rules to Germans except the rules their leader makes. And their leader is me. I'm the rules.... Listen. I am going to ask you a few questions. I'm going to ask you each question once and only once. You can answer me or not—please yourself—but if you refuse to answer I will take this knife, and I will shred you slowly.... Ah! don't shout!... Open your lips again and I'll pin you through the throat!"

"Now, then!..." Mr. Bunn took the knife in his hand... "Who is that little English girl?"

The man was silent. His face went the colour of stone and his eyes rolled appealingly round at the merciless eyes of the group, only to return to the fearful eyes set in the big, mottled face hovering so close to his own.

An icy sweat broke out upon his forehead, as Mr. Bunn very slowly began to move his right arm.

"You Germans seem to think that frightfulness means strength. All right. I'm going to show you that other people can be 'strong'—German style," he said in a grim and sinister whisper.

"I will speak!" he said, flushing scarlet and from scarlet turning literally livid again.

"Her name is Muriel. I do not know her surname. She was in a convent near the frontier. There was some trouble and the convent people were—disciplined. Muriel was spared by the order of the General."

"She is most beautiful, and the General was infatuated. He had her quietly sent to the château, in charge of a German lady. This is the first time since the advance that he has been able to spare an hour to visit the château."

"What is his idea? You say he is infatuated with her. Does he mean to force her into a marriage with him?"

"His wife is a German lady," muttered the officer, for the first time failing to meet Mr. Bunn's eyes.

"Now, about you," he said, more sharply. "You're infatuated with this girl, too. We were watching you on the lawn."

"I love her," he said, quietly. "I respect her. I had the honour of saving her at the sack of the convent. She is very sweet. If the General had not seen her—if it had not been for the war—I should have striven for the privilege of paying my addresses to her!"

"You respect her, do you? And love her? And yet you bring that blackguardly old General to frighten her..."

"To hell with such orders!" snarled Mr. Bunn. "No man would obey an order to help another man seize the woman he loved."

"I know it," he said. "But there is no choice for me. If I disobey an order I am dishonoured as a soldier—if I obey I help to sacrifice that lady. Either way I am dishonoured. What am I to do? I would cut off a hand to serve her—but I am helpless."

Mr. Bunn, struck by something, some note of sincerity in his voice, looked at him closely.

"Why? Wait your chance. Whisper to her that friends are close at hand—anything. It's easy—for a man with brains. She's not for you, anyway, but you can save her from that blackguard on the balcony. Will you do it?"

"Well, if he tries to double-cross us we can rush the place and fight for her," said Fortworth. "But we shall have to do that anyway, if we don't trust him. It's worth the risk."

"Here and there you come across a gentleman among the German officers, you know—though not many. But this man is one of them, unless I'm mistaken," he said. "If he agrees to try it, it is worth our while to trust him."

"Treachery be damned," snapped Mr. Bunn. "You will be doing what any decent-minded man would do, apart from the fact that you love and respect the girl yourself. You'll swear to do it?"

"I swear it, on the honour of a German officer," he said, seeming quite unconscious of the irony of the phrase.

The Saxon drew himself up, gravely saluted the British officer, and, studiously ignoring the others, went down the footpath towards the lawn.

Automatics in hand, they followed him to the edge of the cover, where they crouched to watch as before.

The Saxon did not hesitate. Perhaps he knew that there was no possible hope of getting word secretly to the English girl. But however that may have been he made no attempt at concealment. He went straight to the balcony, where the girl sat fearfully at table with the man who had caged her.

The General looked up, making an impatient gesture to the younger man, waving him irritably away. But the aviator saluted, and addressed the girl. The watchers could not hear what he said, but they saw the girl suddenly stand up, and look across the lawn.

Then quickly, very quickly, she left the balcony, and began to run towards the footpath. The young officer came a few yards with her, speaking quickly. Suddenly she stopped and offered him her hand. He took it, bowed over it, touched it with his lips, and released her. She came on again, running desperately. The General was shouting furiously and, more slowly, he came down the lawn, red with rage, to the young officer, shouting to him to bring the girl back.

The General drew a revolver and shouted his order again. The Saxon saluted and—remained where he was. And the General—a big, burly man, remotely like the pictures of Bismarck—fired full in his face.

The aviator fell limply. Then the General turned towards the girl. It was his last glimpse of her—and of the world—for Carey, the South African, planted a bullet squarely between his eyes as he turned. He collapsed across the body of the man he had murdered a second before.

"There—there—that's all right—that's all right, my dear. There's nothing to fret about—there's a nice young British aviator waiting to take you home—to take you home, see? Don't cry—that's a good little girl—no harm done—there, there—here, take her, old man—quick!" He handed her over to the flying man, and, pistol in hand, went lumbering across the lawn, with the others, firing as he ran, at two soldiers who had come out. But it was Carey who dealt with them. The man was an amazing shot—he picked them off almost simultaneously, one with the right hand, one with the left.

They all poured into the house, except Carey, who went round to the back to cut off anyone likely to retreat. As in the case of the fight at von Helling's house, and in the affair of the armoured cars, they were not in a position to take prisoners, or to allow any but friends to them to escape.

But except for the two Belgian maidservants, and the woman they had seen on the verandah, the château was empty. They left Sweern to explain to the maids. Carey, ex-Lord Fortworth, and Mirza Khan found, in a gardener's shed, spades and mattocks, and hurried into an adjoining coppice where they purposed to bury the dead at once, and Mr. Bunn and Sing Song, taking charge of the German woman, hurried back to the British airman. They were none too soon.

The English girl had fetched coats and, well wrapped up, was already seated in the passenger's seat of the big aeroplane.

"That's a good girl," said Smiler, vaguely, as he hurried up. To the airman he said, "Look here, old man, how many passengers will that machine of yours take? Here's this German woman. We can't take her prisoner—got nowhere to put her—and if we let her go, she'll have a gang of soldiers down on us as soon as she can find them. She won't have far to look, either. Can you cart her clean out of the country? It's the only thing short of shooting her, and that's impossible—though, no doubt, she deserves it, for I suppose she was that blackguard's jailer for Miss Muriel."

"Oh! I don't, my dear—but you're a little sportsman, so have it your own way."

The airman, whose eyes had been devouring the charming face of Muriel most of the time Smiler had been talking, nodded.

"All right. Help her up," he said. "The old bus will do it, but it won't be comfortable. Miss Muriel, I'm sorry, but it can't be helped."

They packed the woman and the girl away as comfortably as they could, and the airman took a last look round his machine.

"So do I," said Smiler, wistfully. "Good-bye—take great care of that little girl. She's too pretty to let come to any harm—don't you think so?"

The airman, quite a young and, probably, impressionable man, flushed slightly at Mr. Bunn's low-voiced comment and the little smile which accompanied it.

"I shall," said the airman, confidently, and climbed into his seat. "By the way, you might smash up that monoplane if you have time."

"I will—if we don't need it ourselves," replied Smiler. "Sing Song, start the propeller, there's a good lad. You're younger than I am. Good-bye, Miss Muriel."

"Good-bye, and thank you—thank you—thank you—" she cried, with a quiver in her voice. Smiler waved his hand.

But this one deliberately spat over the side of the machine—glaring at him like a wild-cat.

Then, suddenly, the propeller roared, Sing Song leapt clear, and the biplane shot out from the woods, down the grassy slope.

"There'll be the French Army between that child and the Germans before long, my lad. So she's all right. But it was a lucky thing for her we came along when we did. That German General had pounced down on her like a hawk—a war-hawk. But we pounced on him—and another war-hawk got the lady. Only he was a British hawk—the right kind, hey, my lad?"

CHAPTER VI. — THE TRIAL BY TERROR

THE Taube monoplane, standing deserted on the lawn, presented no difficulties whatever.

Within five minutes of the departure of the English airman Mr. Bunn, armed with a crow-bar discovered in the gardener's shed by Sing Song, was clambering up into a strategic position for attack.

He drove the crow-bar into the heart of the engine with such enthusiasm that within a space of minutes he had smashed the magneto, completely botched up the carburetor and cracked a few cylinders, Sing Song, meantime, man-handling the propeller in many places. In the world's list of destructive agents man that is grown of boy that is born of woman, may be placed second to high explosives when he really sets his heart and hand to the work—so that by the time the others reappeared the Taube bore a far more striking resemblance to a huge rat-trap struck by lightning, than to a flying machine. Then the Bunn Brigade dragged what remained of it into the wood and by the simple process of undercutting the side of a small sand pit they had found, buried the shattered machine and all traces of it under some tons of sand—even as they had already buried the Germans.

"We haven't got a lot of time to waste in hanging about here," he continued as they emerged on to the lawn again. "But, at the same time, I think we can risk an hour or so. It will give those two maids a chance to help Sing Song cook us an eatable meal. And while they're doing that we might be able to hunt up a bath and a change of linen and perhaps a razor or two. I hope Sweern has had the sense to tell those girls that we're hungry."

The party agreed fervently, and, replacing their spades and other implements in the tool-shed from which they had taken them, hurried into the house.

The two maid-servants, who seemed to be the only ones of the original tenants of the little château remaining there, were looking for them, and, with startled eyes, the elder of the two asked in French what had happened to the English mademoiselle and the German woman.

"The little mademoiselle is safely going home," he said, "and the German lady jailer has been made to go with her—for our safety," he said.

"They are now buried in the wood," said Mr. Bunn grimly, Sweern translating, "and the graves are well hidden. And their aeroplane is smashed and hidden too."

"Tell them that we don't want to keep them here against their wish, Sweern," said Mr. Bunn, "sooner or later this place is going to be stiff with Germans enquiring after the General—if he left word where he was going, though it's quite likely that he didn't. It wasn't a journey to be proud of. Tell them they're free to go when they like, as far as we are concerned. But make them understand that if any Germans should happen to come while they, or we, are here, then the only hope for us—and them, too—is to deny to the last breath that the General has been here at all. They must say that the English girl escaped from here yesterday and that the German woman in charge of her and the two soldier servants went to search for her and have not returned. Make it clear to them, Sweern, my lad, for the sake of our lives as well as their own."

Sweern did so. Not until the women understood everything which Mr. Bunn, at Sweern's elbow, intended them to understand, and promised everything which Mr. Bunn desired them to promise, did Smiler feel himself free to approach the question of personal comforts. But probably nothing was lost by the delay, for, once the women realised that they were all British (Smiler blandly included Sing Song as a "naturalized" Englishman, though he looked more like a Canton illicit opium-den proprietor) they simply placed the château and its complete contents at the sole disposal of the party.

This understood, the Bunn Brigade lost no time. And when, an hour or so later, the company of adventurers almost reverently entered the dining room, one would hardly have credited that the clean, closely shaven, astonishingly well-dressed party was the identical set of shabby, soiled men that, shortly before, had charged across the lawn with death in their eyes and death spurting from their hands. They had been fortunate in finding a house whose owner possessed a generous supply of clothes, linen and such things. He had left practically everything behind when the invaders first came, the maids said.

So they had helped themselves. Three of them, Smiler, Fortworth and Mirza, were as nearly as possible the same size as the departed owner—evidently a well-nourished individual—and one of the women found some things, belonging, it seemed, to a son, which suited the lean Carey admirably.

Mr. Bunn stood just inside the doorway of the dining room, and surveyed the table with a rapt and passionately grateful gaze.

"They've got some hors d'oeuvres, I see," he said with a sort of ponderous playfulness.

"Yes, mastel—five, six kinds—velly good," said Sing Song who was hovering, with one of the Belgian women, about the table.

Mr. Bunn looked sharply at his saffron-hued vassal as though attracted by something in his tone.

"Listen to him, old man? Ain't he a yellow conjurer?" demanded Mr. Bunn excitedly of ex-Lord Fortworth. "How about fish, Sing Song, my son? We don't want to crowd you and this good lady, but—well, how about it, anyhow?"

"Nice Scotch devils!" bawled Mr. Bunn, in amazement, "where did you get it? I suppose you'll claim next that there's some roast chicken and salad and sweets and cheese and coffee and liqueurs."

"Oh, yes, mastel," replied the imperturbable Chink. "Allee ready—waiting. Omelettes, too, mastel. Clucumbels—salads—plentee flute and wine, too."

"How's that for high!" he demanded, with a wave of his plump hand, still refreshingly redolent of soap—Pears', no less—"Ain't little Sing Song the real miracle-maker?"

"He's the genuine chloroform," agreed Lord Fortworth, moved for once from his habitual dourness into something like hilarity.

"Oah, thiss iss extremely gratifying, yess, indeed," stammered Mirza Khan. "Thee worthy Sing Song iss totally deserving off unlimited approbation, by Jove!"

Sing Song, selecting bottles from a sideboard, explained that part of the materials for the meal came from a supply forwarded by the General and partly from the resources of the establishment itself. The salmon had arrived, packed in ice, from Holland only that morning—for the General.

Mr. Bunn nodded, gratefully. A nod was as good as a remark to the Chinaman—and Mr. Bunn required his breath for purposes other than conversation just then.

Corks popped, knives and forks clattered cheerily, the Belgian women smiled and watched carefully that nothing was lacking, Sing Song moved like a yellow ghost from kitchen to dining room and back, with occasional side-trips to the cellar, and so, gradually, the feast wore on to its natural end.

"Amen to the only meal I ever ate!" he declared. "You may call me coarse for mentioning it—I shan't mind—but I tell you all to your faces that I'm full up—completely stodged—and I'm proud of it! There you are! That's the truth—take it or leave it. I've said my say!"

He raised his glass, smiling, to the Belgian women, and—his jaw dropped suddenly. He was facing the window.

"And now," he said, in a very loud and distinct voice, "I want you all to drink with me to the health of—the Kaiser!... Damn his soul!" he added in a low whisper.

Living on the knife-edge of danger, as they all were, they recognised instantly the meaning of the sudden grating note in the voice of their leader, and of his amazing toast, and even as they raised their glasses their eyes went glancing windowwards.

Two German officers were staring in through the French window—and, behind them, across the lawn were approaching many soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets!

"Remember!" said Mr. Bunn, in a low, tense whisper to the Belgian women, and, without a second's hesitation, waved his glass in the friendliest fashion to the officers.

"Sing Song, open the door for them—and then go and help Sweern fetch up some more wine as quick as you can. Cases of it!"

Sing Song opened the door, bowing with a rare assumption of deference, as the Germans stepped in, automatic pistol in hand.

The newcomers did not answer immediately. Instead they favoured the Bunn Brigade with a long and searching scrutiny, which the extended presently to the ruins of the repast.

Outside, the men—some twenty or so of them, as nearly as Mr. Bunn could judge—were lined up at attention by a non-commissioned officer with a voice like stone grating against iron.

Mirza Khan, pending the arrival of Sweern, who had gone to get more wine from the cellar just before the appearance of the Germans, translated for Mr. Bunn, and at the sound of the English the superior officer—a colonel—scowled.

"These cursed English—" he said to his companion. "These cursed English—they are everywhere... Interrogate them, von Spann."

They saw that his eyes were shifty and a little wild—like those of a man whose mind is only just balanced.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Bunn, as Sing Song, followed by Sweern, entered, bearing bottles—many bottles. Smiler indicated these with a little smile. "It is very hot and dusty," he said. "Dry work, in fact. Shall I have some wine opened for you?"

The Colonel shook his head impatiently, saying something in a sort of snarl to the younger officer.

"We wish to know what right you have to offer hospitality in this house. Answer quickly. This is an extremely serious matter."

"What we have used and what we offered you gentlemen, we are perfectly prepared to pay for—in good German money," said Mr. Bunn.

The Bunn Brigade made a simultaneous movement. Clearly the moment had come when the value of the passports, letters of introduction and other documents given them by von Helling was to be tested again—and stringently.

With an air of quiet confidence which they were inexpressibly far from feeling, the little company produced the documents, each man placing his little sheaf upon the table before him. A shadow—as of disappointment at the serene readiness of the hated Englishmen to show their papers—fell across the face, and darkened the restless eyes, of the Colonel.

"What wretched rubbish is this?" he demanded roughly, taking what Mr. Bunn called his "commission" in the German spy and traitor army, from the junior officer to whom Smiler had handed his papers. His disquieting eyes played over the contents and he tugged fretfully at his moustache.

"So," he said presently, in German, "you are in the pay of the German Secret Service?"

The German was not satisfied. He worried at the papers—glancing up sourly at Mr. Bunn every now and then.

"You are en route to England?" he said, presently, "to carry out your duties there? What are they—these valuable duties?" he asked, with a sneer.

"To aid the German Empire, Colonel," said Mr. Bunn, quickly. "That is all I am at liberty to say, without permission."

"Oh, no. I—or any of us—will answer very willingly if you will procure us a written order from our chief, Herr von Helling, to give you details of our instructions."

Mr. Bunn thought he detected a gleam of approval in the eyes of the younger officer—von Spann.

"Give me the other papers," ordered the Colonel, and went through much the same procedure with them.

"To New York, yes—to aid the Empire!" he replied, his brows set in a permanent scowl. He did not specify the Empire.

"Yes, Peking filst—and Canton, too, after little while. Plentee fliends in Canton!" smiled the Chink.

"I am a professional guide—Dutch nationality," quaked Sweern, proffering sundry documents.

The Germans conferred together, in low tones. Presently the Colonel turned again:

"You will be re-examined presently as to these," he said, touching the papers. "Meantime, explain your presence here."

Mr. Bunn did so, briefly. He described how, after leaving the house of von Helling, they ran out of petrol and while they were searching for fresh supplies, their motor was stolen. He described, with quite a wealth of detail, how, nearly poisoned by eating certain doubtful food commandeered by them at a deserted cottage in the woods, they had remained in that cottage for four days, recuperating, and hoping against hope that some part of the magnificent German Army might pass that way. He described how, at last, they decided to make a bee line for the Dutch frontier, and how, in the process of doing so, they came upon this château, deserted save for two Belgian maidservants, and, finally, how, exercising the right of members of the vast military organisation of Germany, they "requisitioned" clothing, food and wine,—during which occupation, concluded Mr. Bunn, they were pleasantly surprised by the Colonel himself and his men. Smiler added that, all being now explained, he would venture to renew his invitation to the Colonel and his officer to take wine.

A certain admiration for their indomitable leader showed in the eyes of the Brigade as they listened to the massive untruths that flowed so smoothly, easily and fluently from Mr. Bunn. They knew, as well as Smiler himself, that he was lying for their very lives, but even so they were pleasantly surprised at the unfaltering concoction of ten per cent. truth dissolved in ninety per cent. untruth to which Mr. Bunn, his brain working at full pressure, had given vent.

This Colonel, they knew, had come there, expecting to find General von Leningen spending an idle afternoon in company with the English girl-prisoner for whom the infatuated General had requisitioned this château—and to find, instead, that the place, or at any rate the dining room thereof, was occupied in force with a select committee of comfortable gentlemen from all parts of the British Empire, all of whom (plus a Chinaman) claimed to be German secret agents, and produced papers to prove it, obviously could not, in the nature of things, be at all satisfactory.

They waited patiently while the Colonel, plainly extremely perturbed, conferred in harsh whispers with the younger officer. Presently he turned abruptly to the white-faced Belgian maids, and questioned them in strident French.

He got from them nothing but a statement, stubbornly reiterated, that the English "Miss" had left the château the day before—"escaped," they put it—and that when her flight had been discovered, the German lady in charge of her and the two soldier servants left there by the General, had hastily set out to follow and retake her. None of them had yet returned, nor had the General visited the château that day. They explained that certain delicacies had arrived the day before, which they understood were for the use of the General—but his Excellency had not arrived, and therefore, rather than let the things spoil,—the salmon, for instance,—they had served them to the "Messieurs" now present.

That was their statement—flat, bald, definite. The Bunn Brigade, watching the women, saw that they would never allow themselves to be shaken into altering it. The smouldering hatred in their eyes startled Mr. Bunn and his company, even though they had already seen it in the eyes of those deadly-silent Amazons of the crypt, and even though they knew it would be found in the eyes of Belgian women for generations to come.

"Have you, or any of your companions seen or encountered any sign of General von Leningen, or the aeroplane which set out to bring him here or of the men or women he ordered to remain here?"

"None whatever," said Mr. Bunn, gravely. "About an hour before we arrived here, an aeroplane flew over further to the south-east—and shortly afterwards we saw a Zeppelin. But they were flying very high," he added helpfully.

He barked an order to the non-commissioned officer just outside the window, who harshly passed it on to his men. Twelve of them, with fixed bayonets, filed into the room.

To fight, plainly, was merely to commit particularly swift suicide,—so Mr. Bunn poured himself, and leisurely drank, a final Green Chartreuse.

"We are quite at your disposal," he said, without a qualm. Certainly there was nothing in his manner, or in that of his friends, to suggest that not two hours before they had buried the General and his men and the aeroplane also, within two hundred yards of the house.

"Search them and confine them in the empty garage," ordered the Colonel. "Until I order the firing party."

The Colonel muttered to the younger officer, who answered Mr. Bunn calmly, but with absolute decision.

"We wait until six o'clock,—two hours. If General von Leningen has not arrived, and if we have gathered no news of his movements by that time, you are to be taken out and shot," he said composedly, and turned away.

"March!" rasped the voice of the sergeant—and the Bunn Brigade filed out of the room, between the bayonets. Five minutes later they were under lock and key, with an armed guard outside the door.

"This," said Mr. Bunn, dully, sitting on an empty petrol tin, "this puts 'paid' to our bill. That man means it."

Fortworth glared. He had every reason to believe that Mr. Bunn spoke the stark naked truth, but, nevertheless, it jarred him to the foundations of his being, to hear his own opinion put with such excruciating bluntness.

"Itt was great pity we did not fight for it," said Mirza Khan, perspiration shining on his face. "But it was impossible to know iff thatt snake-eyed crocodile had thousand men behind him or not. Iff—"

"If the horse hadn't stopped to eat grass he'd have won the race, Mirza, old man," said Mr. Bunn cheerlessly. "What we've got to bear in mind is what we've to do—not what we might have done." He glanced pessimistically round the garage walls. "Solid stone work," he said. "I don't see us boring holes and escaping—even if we could fight through that gang with the bayonets outside!"

"In fact," he continued, in a low voice, "I don't see us escaping at all—unless the General and his aviator turn up—and we all know that that won't happen. They're no moles nor sand-martens!" grimly. There was a momentary silence. Then Carey, that man of few words, spoke.

"It looks to me as though the Colonel is putting up a bluff. These Germans don't do things haphazard. And our papers were in order. They may know that von Helling—died—soon after he gave us the papers, but that shouldn't affect the genuineness of the papers. If they knew how the man died it would be a different matter. But they don't—we left no traces. I doubt whether a German officer of the rank of Colonel would dare to shoot a batch of German secret service agents, whose papers were in order, simply because he found them resting at a house where he expected to find a General—who, according to the servants, has never been near the place. He will have to get orders from someone higher up before he takes the responsibility of shooting us. Let's hope so, anyway!"

"That's sense, Carey—sound, solid South African sense. It sounds good to me. And it's our only chance in any case. This Colonel suspects we know something about the General. But he can't prove it and so he hopes to scare us into confession. Confession!"—he drew a deep breath and, sinking his voice so that they all had to crane close to hear him, he continued, his eyes on Sweern as being presumably the weakest willed of the party.

"We must get this into our systems—and thoroughly, mind, Sweern. If we confess or weaken or give ourselves away a half inch about the General or anything that's happened here, we're dead men in five seconds. Hang on to that—even though they torture you. Our only chance—good or bad—is to stick to our story. Those women will stick to theirs, make no mistake about that. If not for love of us, they'll do it for hatred of the Germans. If, in spite of our giving nothing away, this man really means to shoot us—well, he'll shoot us, and that's all there is to it. Carey thinks he's trying to terrorize us into giving ourselves away. And so do I. You'd better all think so, too, for as sure as we're prisoners here, it's our only chance. We must stick it out to the finish!"

"Remember that—even if you find yourselves staring into the muzzles of half a dozen rifles at once. You've got to remember it, any way."

His comrades nodded, grimly—even Sweern—for they saw, to a man, that Mr. Bunn spoke the simple truth.

"Correct," snarled the sullen Fortworth, "but it's all the chance there is. You want to hang on to that hard."

"Oah, itt iss all one to me," he said, "I am fatalist, sar. If itt iss ordained thatt I die here in space off two hours, assuredlee I shall die. Itt iss matter off total impossibilitee to alter thee arrangements off thee gods."

"Well, that's one way of looking at it—but it ain't my way," said Mr. Bunn, glumly, "and if I didn't believe they're bluffing I should be planning to make a dash for the woods as soon as I get out of this motor house. That's what—gods or no gods!"

"And dashing to the woods would only get you a magazine-full of bullets in the back instead of in the chest," said Fortworth. "No, Flood—if these men aren't bluffing we are fixed for fair."

Then abruptly the door of the garage was flung back, and the sergeant, his voice more rasping than ever, ordered them out. They were marched with a bayonet-bristling escort round to the front of the house where, on the verandah, at a table bearing glasses and wine bottles, the two officers sat.

They were lined up and the Colonel, through the English-speaking von Spann, addressed them briefly.

"This is your last chance," he said, "state what you know of the reasons why His Excellency General von Leningen and the others whom we expected to find, are not here, and if your reasons are satisfactory you shall be set free—or, if they are unsatisfactory but sound truthful, you shall be given a fair trial."

"If we knew more of the truth than we have already told you," he said, "we should tell it. But we have already given you the facts—and if we added a bunch of lies to that, we should only be postponing trouble. It's up to you gentlemen to decide. If the penalty of your not believing us is death—well, it's death, isn't it? I leave it to you to judge whether death is likely to scare very much a crowd of Britishers who have got so little to live for, anyway, that they've had to accept positions in the German Secret Service. You want to think that over before you shoot us."

But it appeared the Colonel had already thought everything out, before sending for them.

"What is it, Sweern?" muttered Mr. Bunn, but the younger officer heard and answered for the white-faced guide.

"It is an order to dig the graves!" he said briefly, with a twisted smile. "As you will occupy them it is only just that you should dig them! You see—death is death, exactly as you said—and there are formalities in connection with even the execution of spies which have to be considered. Their burial, for instance."

One of the men jabbed his bayonet point into Sing Song, with a muttered curse at the "Japanese," and the Chink half-wheeled.

"Quiet, Sing!" snapped Smiler Bunn desperately, just in time—a fraction of a second would have seen the Chinaman at the soldier's throat, and an instant later, Sing Song would have been riddled with bullets.

Somewhere at the back a small pile of implements lay ready for them. With a heavy spade in his hands Fortworth glanced round at the escort, hungrily.

"No good, Squire—stick it!" said Mr. Bunn softly. "They're four to one with rifles—and out of reach. They could blow our heads off before we could reach them. Bank on the bluff—it's that or our finish!"

He was right. The Germans clearly were alive to the fact, that probably the most desperate man on earth is an able-bodied man set to dig his own grave—and the escort accordingly had fallen well back and half of them had their rifles levelled.

There was nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by forcing an issue then and there against such odds—and so, taking each his spade or pickaxe, the Bunn Brigade continued sullenly to "stick it."

The sergeant, with unnecessary slowness and deliberation, marked off an oblong space—some seven feet by ten.

"Dig deep!" echoed Mr. Bunn to his Brigade, with a leaden effort to take the thing lightly. He noted how closely and curiously the sergeant was watching them—as though to note the effect of the brutality upon them—and it faintly increased his hope that the whole thing was a "bluff" to force them into "confessing" if they had anything to confess.

"Iff thiss iss bluff," muttered Mirza Khan, in a taut, wire-drawn voice, "by God, sars, it iss most realistic bluff off my experience."

"Dig," said Mr. Bunn harshly, "dig and stick it! We shall know one way or another in an hour!"

Digging in soft, cultivated soil, it does not take six men long to excavate an oblong crater of a size sufficient to serve them all as one common grave, so that, when their task was completed, it yet lacked a quarter of an hour to the time set by the Colonel for the blotting out of the Bunn Brigade.

As they finished and clambered out of the grim, suggestive hole, the two officers arrived.

"There are yet ten minutes—" he said meaningly to Mr. Bunn, whose eyes were on the Colonel. He was pointing out to the Sergeant a blank wall—the side of the motor-house wall—which ran along close to the oblong pit.

"Yes," continued the lieutenant, "it is against that wall where you will be shot."

"As you wish—all walls look alike to me!" he said, his voice hoarse but steady. "You are wasting your time if you are hoping that you can get me—or any of us—scared."

"My good Englishman," he said, "you are scared, now—your soul is quivering with terror; you manage to conceal it, true—but all men fear death."

There was something very true in what he said, but if it was his purpose to increase the fear which Mr. Bunn and his company were concealing, he miscalculated.

A cold and bitter fury sprang up in the heart of Mr. Bunn, like the icy blast of a mid-winter north-easter, that swept away the last vestiges of fear.

Smiler laughed—a dry, harsh, sinister sound—with more of menace in it than mirth.

"Don't make any mistake about that, my lad," he said. "Do you think von Helling doesn't know his business better than to chose men for the German Secret Service who fall on their knees and howl for mercy the moment they find themselves up against it? If it's any consolation to you and the Colonel there, I—and probably the rest of us—have had a qualm or two, digging our grave. So would anybody but a natural fool. But that's a different proposition from being afraid. Hey, my sons?"

He turned to his company, who snarled back their agreement, like a pack of bayed leopards.

"Listen to me," continued Mr. Bunn, the veins of his forehead swelling, "we've had qualms—I'll own it. But they've gone—get that well into your heads! Gone! Bring on your rifles—put us up against your wall—and get out your field glasses—for if you're hoping to see any of us show the white feather, you'll need them. Get that!"

His voice was harsh with rage—he was on the edge of new defiances—challenges—when he checked himself. He turned again to his party.

What it was he had seen in the face of the lieutenant he himself could not have told, but there had been something, some momentary change of expression that reminded him of the opinion the South African had expressed in the motor-house.

"Keep your minds on the last chance!" he said—and stepped back between Fortworth and Sing Song.

The Colonel looked at his wrist watch, waited a second, and then dropped his arm, with a nod to the lieutenant.

"It is time!" said the latter, and with an air of brisk decision addressed the victims.

"For the last time, tell what you know of the disappearance of General von Leningen and the people that were here," he said.

"We know nothing more than we have said," snarled Mr. Bunn. "Now line us up and shoot and be damned! That's what!"

The Colonel gave an order and the sergeant in charge of the escort took a little pile of table napkins from the corporal of the firing party, and advanced to Mr. Bunn.

His companions did likewise—Sweern, evidently inspired by the example of the others, or probably calling upon some deep reserve of courage inherited from some grim old Dutch ancestor, doing as well as the others.

Then, under the eyes, so to speak, of twelve levelled rifles, three of them were lined up under the wall—Mr. Bunn, ex-Lord Fortworth and Sing Song. Evidently they were to be shot in two batches—Smiler's taking precedence.

"Funny they should want a special firing party. Why didn't they use the escort? But stick it!" said Mr. Bunn, with stiff lips, as they faced the six. "I'm glad we're going out together—if we are going out. And—in case—so long, Fortworth. We've had a fine run for our money, all told. So long, Sing Song, my son—you've been a good lad!"

"So long!" he called to Mirza, Carey and Sweern. Their hoarse answers seemed to rattle against the fatal wall behind the three, like stones. "So long!"...

The three, comrades in many a close thing, and, it seemed, fated to be comrades in this—waited.

"Nothing," barked Mr. Bunn, clinging to the last to his belief that all this was a "bluff "—only a bluff.

The Colonel rapped out another order—and the three found themselves staring at the rifles' muzzles.

"For the last time," came the voice of the lieutenant. "Have you anything to say?"

* * * * *

A THOUSAND years later—or so it seemed, though it could not have been more than a few seconds, it occurred to Mr. Smiler Bunn that he was still standing with his back to a wall in a kitchen garden, facing a crowd of staring German soldiers. There were a few thin streaks of smoke hanging lazily in the sunshine. He became aware that his partners, Fortworth and Sing Song, were standing one on each side of him. Then he realized slowly that he felt no pain—had felt no shock—that things, indeed, were very much as they were before that big report—that, in fact, he was not dead.

A strange thrill ran through his whole body and—suddenly he found himself normal.

He glanced at his comrades. They, too, were staring in front of them, like men just awakened from sleep.

"For God's sake, pull yourselves together!" hissed Smiler. "It was a bluff—the cartridges were blank."

"Have you anything to confess?" asked the lieutenant. But now his face was white, his eyes actually sympathetic, and his tone perfunctory.

"Nothing but what we've told you already," said Mr. Bunn. "How long are you planning to torture us, any way?"

Mr. Bunn felt suddenly a terrible impulse to put his face in his hands and cry—weep, as a child weeps—but with an effort that shook him to the very roots of his soul, he fought that impulse down, and, as a final triumph over the Germans, said—with a mechanical smile:

"As you wish. Do you happen to have a cigar and a whisky and soda—not too much soda?"...

The test was over—such a test as only a German was capable of ordering, and one which few men were capable of resisting.

Even the queer-eyed Colonel seemed satisfied that they could have no knowledge of the missing General, and seemed to be prepared to accept them for what they described themselves to be.

He returned their arms and papers, with another "pass" each, stating that he had examined them, and that they had "answered" to his "complete satisfaction." Then as quickly as he came he—and his men—went away, presumably to Head Quarters, and, plainly, desperately anxious about their General.

But Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth were not among those that saw the grey cars leave. The partners were stretched out, upstairs, sleeping—sleeping like logs. Strangely, they had come out from their ordeal, exhausted—literally wrung out. They were asleep before they had finished the generous whiskies and sodas that followed their test. That was how it had affected them.

Well—certainly there was nobody in that château who grudged them their rest. They had earned it—full measure and flowing over.

Carey, talking it over in the cool of the evening, with Mirza Khan, gave it as his opinion that they could expect the Germans back before long.

"They are tenacious swine," said the South African, "and they want to find that master-swine, the General, pretty badly. But I want to see those two wake up as comfortable and level-headed as usual—not nervous wrecks. So, Germans or no Germans, they are going to have their sleep out!"

Mirza Khan held his glass to the setting sun. The wine glowed against the red west like blood.

Which was as well—for Sing Song, who had worried it out for himself, as usual, was curled up on a rug outside the bedroom door, and undoubtedly would have knifed any man who attempted to break the rest that, he argued—and rightly—the indomitable pair needed.

CHAPTER VII. — THE NODDING MAN

BUT Mr. Bunn was himself again on the following morning, though for some moments after his waking, he did not realise it.

Long before his partner, ex-Lord Fortworth, had dragged himself reluctantly out from the depths of slumber, Sing Song had glided in through the door and across to his master—bearing a neat tray upon which were two big steaming cups of creamy coffee.

"That you, Sing?" said Mr. Bunn, a little less wildly. "My lad, I've just had a hell of a dream! A nightmare, my son!" He wiped his brow on the sleeve of the pyjama jacket he had requisitioned from the absent owner of the château.

"I dreamt those German devils had us all belted on to the noses of half-a-dozen six-inch guns, Sing. And were on the point of touching off the charge! I did!" He reached for the coffee, drank it in great, thirsty gulps, and lit the cigarette which lay beside the cup. Over in his bed Lord Fortworth stirred heavily.

"Just pull up that blind, Sing Song, and let's have a look at the sunshine. I tell you, my lad, I thought I'd had my last glimpse at it, that time. Eh? Strapped on the nose of a great six-inch gun! You want all your nerve with you if you're going to start dreaming that sort of stuff! Look at this!" He indicated the pyjama jacket. It was moist with cold sweat.

"This comes of being sentenced to death, digging your own grave, and being stuck up against a wall in front of a firing party—that fires at you!" said Mr. Bunn. "If you don't know that they're only firing blank cartridge, it leaves pretty much the same impression on your mind as it would if they were using machine guns with explosive bullets!"

Ex-Lord Fortworth sat up, massively, with a sound that was partly groan, partly oath and partly grunt—by no means an attractive or elegant noise.

"Gr-rr-ump! Hey, Flood—I've had a fearful night—cram-full of death and fire and spies—" he said, sullenly. "That's what—coffee, Sing Song? Give it here."

The two partners stared at each other, gradually recovering from the effects of the dreams which, evidently, had haunted the unnatural slumber inspired by the mental and physical exhaustion of their terrible experience of the previous day.

"Waking from sleep, huh?" said Fortworth. "If waking from the dead is any worse then I never want to do it?"

"How about him, then?" he asked his partner, presently, indicating the Chinaman. "He went through it with us—same thing, exactly—and yet here he is, grinning, perfectly happy, carts in coffee and things, just right, all to time and everything, and looks as though he never had a little nightmare in his life? What d'ye make of him, then?"

"No, mastel—no dleams last night, thank you. Plitty good sleeping last night—on lug outside!"

"Sently—allee same sently—mastel. To be leady if mastel want me," replied the smiling Chink.

"Sentry. In case I wanted him," repeated Mr. Bonn, admiringly. "Well—put it there, old wolf! You are a champion, Chink, my son. I mean it!" He reached out his hand and gripped that of the almost embarrassed Chinaman. Never before had Sing Song had his hand shaken by Mr. Bunn. The honour of the thing nearly staggered him. He went whitish under his saffron complexion. But it was clear enough that he valued the compliment not less than he would have valued a decoration.

"Thank you, mastel," he said, his black eyes glittering. "I am now getting masters bath leady!"

"So do, my son," said Smiler, enthusiastically. "There's a good lad. And consider yourself fixed up for life—I'll look after you all right."

"There are millionaires in this world who would pay that Chink of yours five thousand a year to do for them what he does for you for eight shillings a week, and his keep—and what that fat fraud Bloom fails to do for me for fifty pounds a year, and the run of the cellar, more or less," said the ex-peer, referring to his own valet, left in England.

"Yes—he's a very good lad," replied Mr. Bunn, absently. "I don't spoil him. I don't believe in spo—"

The door opened again and that dark and glossy gentleman, Mirza Khan, entered, smiling so extravagantly that the rays of the rising sun caused his white teeth to flash almost dazzlingly. He was scrupulously bathed and shaved, in clean linen and comfortable clothes, and, comparatively early though it was, master of a very complete and soul-satisfying breakfast. He was smoking a cigar, and everything seemed well with him. There were few, if any, points of resemblance between him and the anxious-eyed, mud-stained Indian who, with the others, had spent an hour or so digging the big grave in the kitchen garden of the château on the previous afternoon.

"Ahaa! Good morning, sars!" he said, breezily. "I trust that you have rested yourselves pretty thoroughly thiss morning, after terrible experience off yesterday! Itt iss delightful morning, perfectly free—ass yet—from Germans. You have slept for space off fourteen hours. Mister Carey and I rose with lark, soa to speak, but off course we had not endured equal quantity off sufferings as yourselves yesterday. You will partake off very satisfactory breakfast, however. Thoase excellent Belgian women are veree peroud off your acquaintance, sars, and they have conspired veree considerably with thee worthy Sing Song to produce you attractive breakfast. Yess, indeed. Mister Carey and myself have already breakfasted. We have done ourselves peretty well—but not quite soa elaborately as you will be able to do. There are some remarkable cooks in thiss establishment thiss morning!"

"Well, if that's the case the sooner we get next to the breakfast, the better," replied Mr. Bunn, forgetting his nightmare, and getting out of bed with considerable alacrity. "Speaking for myself, I could eat a camel. Hey, Fortworth?"

"Sure,—hide, horns, hoofs and all," replied the ex-financier, following Mr. Bunn's example.

Sing Song put his head in at the door, announcing that the bath was ready, and Smiler paddled cheerfully out, while Mirza Khan departed to convey to Carey, the South African, the news that, despite the brutal ordeal of the previous day the partners' nerve was about as good as usual, and their appetites, if anything, even better.

Within twenty minutes the partners had discovered that Mirza had spoken nothing but the stone-cold truth. The Belgian maidservants had, indeed, spread themselves, and as, in addition, Sing Song desired to celebrate in no uncertain fashion the narrowest escape from death that men ever had, the breakfast which resulted was of a character calculated to bring tears to the eyes of the two robust old gourmets—had there been time for sentiment.

Carey and Mirza Khan, sitting with tobacco in the morning sunshine at the open French window, watched the partners breakfast, chatting idly.

The passing of the imminent risk of the previous day had left them all a little relaxed. But that was natural.

As Mirza Khan put it—"Thee Germans have gone forth from thiss place and itt iss undoubtedlee beautiful morning. We are not far from Holland now, and thee passports of thee whole party have been strengthened by signature of thee German Colonel. We are now in thee midst of plenty, soa to say, and we are entitled to take slight rest after shocks and terrors off yesterday."

Carey agreed slowly, and Mr. Bunn nodded, neatly dividing a remarkably trim-looking omelette in twain as he nodded.

"At the same time," remarked Carey, lovingly brushing a speck off the barrel of one of the revolvers upon which he was so efficient a performer, and which he had just completed cleaning, "we don't want to overdo it. The Germans haven't finished with this place yet. We know their missing General won't turn up at this headquarters again, but they think he will. When they have finished telegraphing and telephoning over two-thirds of Belgium for him, they'll turn their eyes here again. And if they find us here then we shan't get off easily, passports or no passports. I'm not trying to hurry you—but it's just as well to bear in mind that we haven't got all the time there is."

"True," said Mr. Bunn, thoughtfully, finishing his omelette. "After breakfast we'll have just one cigar while Sing Song is packing up a little snack or two to help us on our way, and then we'll pull our freights out of this without wasting any time. These women ought to leave, too."

"Oah, thatt iss settled," said Mirza Khan. "After you have bereakfasted they are going to their homes thatt are near Brussels. They are in no danger and Mister Carey and I have bestowed ample supply off money upon them. They are intelligent young parties, and now they are well supplied with money, they anticipate that they will be able to collect their relatives and, presently, get out of Belgium in satisfactory fashion." Mr. Bunn nodded.

"Good work, Mirza, my lad," he replied, absently, investigating a dish which Sing Song offered him. "You can promise them another—say a thousand marks from us—hey, Black?"

"Well, they've earned it," said Smiler—and, this being settled to everyone's satisfaction, the meal proceeded tranquilly to its end...

It was perhaps an hour later when Mr. Bunn, standing with his Brigade on the edge of the woods overlooking the château, turned to wave a friendly farewell to two figures emerging from the gates on to the road. They were the two Belgian maidservants, leaving the château, richer than they had ever dreamed of becoming and, thanks to the perilous operations of the Bunn Brigade, freed now from any further duties there.

The two women waved their handkerchiefs enthusiastically back to the little group of men with whom they had run such fearful risks, and then, after a moment, moved briskly away down the road.

From where they were standing it seemed to the Bunn Brigade that the deserted château and its grounds looked as trim and well-kept and drowsily peaceful in the bright sunshine as though a red tentacle of war had never touched it.

"Look down there," he observed. "Have you ever seen a prettier, more peaceful-looking place in your life, any of you? It seems more like a rotten dream—the things we've done—had to do—down there, hey?"

"Well, if we littered the place up a bit we tidied it again. Everything not needed we've buried—including a German General, an aviator, two soldiers, and an aeroplane. That's all to the good, anyway," said Lord Fortworth. "And we may as well get on as hang about here admiring the scenery."

So they turned away and, still skirting the edge of the wood, continued their march Hollandwards.

But though the spot they had left may have seemed unstained by war, they needed only to look towards the south and south-western horizons to know that war was not far away. In these directions they could see, here and there, great pillars of smoke, rising up like mighty, huge-headed mushrooms, and through the heated air the far-off concussions of great explosions and incredibly furious gunfire, still throbbed dully. But from the direction of Liège they no longer heard the muffled grunting of artillery, for Liège had fallen.

Mr. Bunn trudged along, muttering his reflections, partly to himself, partly to his Brigade. He seemed to have fallen into one of his rare pessimistic moods.

"We've read about war, and we've talked about war, and I don't doubt that there were a few hundred thousand people in England and elsewhere thought they had a very fair idea of what war was. I was one of them, a damned fool who had about as much idea of what a modern up-to-date war meant as a bullock has got of modern, up-to-date slaughter-houses. Hey, Fortworth? For years we've all been sitting down staring with great pop-eyes at this hog of a country, Germany, working at war like galley-slaves and paying hand over fist for the privilege of working. Hating the nations that didn't do the same—and hoarding it up for us. Hoarding up murder... and now they've let it loose. And it looks as though they might get what they want—if they've hoarded up enough of it."

"Yes—if!" snarled Fortworth, with sour acrimony as he plodded along. But Mr. Bunn ignored him.

"They're strong and they don't give a hoot what they do—can't deny that, anyhow. They don't recognise rules, their artillery seems to be something new in artillery, and there are millions of the grey swine! It's going to be a tough job—a tough job——"

"Oh, cut it out, man! You give me the willies!" bawled ex-Lord Fortworth, furiously. "Drone—drone —drone—like a damned rheumatic old bumble-bee that can't get his drop of honey! Did you ever hear of a war that wasn't a tough job for either side? It's got to be a tough job to get the best out of the countries that are going up against Germany. Who ever got the best out of an Englishman or a Scotchman or an Irishman or a Colonial either—until they had got him jammed up in a corner with his hackles up, his ears laid back, his eyes showing white where they aren't bloodshot, and his jaws shut down as though they were clamped there—and praying for trouble? Nobody that ever I heard of—and—"

"You're right, old man," he said. "That's what Germany's up against—Great Britain, France, Russia, half the world, in fact, with their hackles up and their ears laid back—that's the dope, all right enough! You ought to be one of those poor devils of writers, Fortworth! It can't be done—"

"Ahaa! There they arrive then!" interrupted Mirza Khan. "Itt iss peretty good job for uss thatt we have evacuated thatt establishment!"

He had been glancing back at the château from a slight rise. Already they were some considerable distance away from it—but not so far that they were unable to distinguish a little troop of Uhlans who had ridden off the road on to the lawn.

"Get behind some cover," said Mr. Bunn. "If any of those blackguards have got glasses we should be as plain as balloons."

They slipped into a patch of uncut wheat that stood between them and a small side road, with another wood beyond it, and very cautiously surveyed the movements of the troopers at the far-off château.

"What d'you think, Carey? Are they after us or the General?" asked Mr. Bunn of the South African.

"Probably they want us, though. They'd send a car for the General." Smiler nodded.

"Well, I'm not surprised. But it seems to me that if they start in to look for us seriously, a little wheat-field like this isn't going to be any too brilliant a spot for six men to take cover in. They could ride through it and beat us out like rabbits. We had better pull out for that wood. It's only a couple of fields away and it's a biggish wood. Hey?"

They agreed, and worming their way out of the wheat, they dropped down the side of the little rise farthest from the château and headed for the wood. They crossed a big field of beets and struck the hard road, went over it like rabbits and won to the edge of the wood. It was not until they stopped to get their breath that they saw that the road, evidently taking a sharp turn a little beyond the spot where they had crossed it, ran into and probably continued right through the wood, more or less parallel with their own proposed line of flight.

Mirza pointed this out, but Mr. Bunn, red and gasping, had no complaint to make about it.

"We're in the wood, Mirza, old man—that's the main thing. If the road runs the same way as we're going why—let her run. We shall hear anyone who comes along the road long before they hear us. But, speaking for myself, I don't move a yard farther, until I've got some wind to do it with. That's what!—"

So, for the next ten minutes, they lay on the wood edge, like foxes, able to see who approached them and to retreat into the undergrowth long before they themselves could be seen.

"Well? How about it?" said Mr. Bunn, presently, rising. "They won't hurry away until they have searched the cellar. And I wish 'em joy of what they find. That's pretty well a dry cellar now, hey, Sing? One way and another several parties have had a hack at it. Don't know that you can blame anyone for that—a bottle of wine is a temptation to anyone this weather."

"But not always is it safe to drink wine!" said a low voice in French, from somewhere behind the close-grouped Brigade. They turned like one man. A girl was standing in the shadow of the trees just behind them—an odd, wild-looking girl of perhaps sixteen or seventeen. She was very thin, dark, with lank black hair, unbound, and she was studying the group with steady black eyes. There was something wild and elfin about her. She looked as though she belonged to, was a part of, the shadows and silences of the woods. In one hand she carried a dead rabbit and in the other a bow—an ordinary, three-quarter size modern bow of the kind seen at archery tournaments. It was an odd weapon to meet there—but if archery was not a hobby probably she needed silence for her rabbit killing.

"It is not always safe to drink wine. Even though it is offered generously, and the bottles are corked and sealed with a green seal," she repeated strangely, her great eyes flitting from one to another of the party.

"Oh, isn't it?" said Smiler. "What does she mean? Ask her. She's driving at something or other."

"Oh, yais—I spik the Inglis also not ver' well. I understan'. Please don' forget thees warning I am gif you now—jus' thees thing to rememb'. There is perhaps of a danger more grave than you can know to be blinking the wine that strange gentlemen offer—an' the bottles ver' corked an' sealed by green seals!" she said and moved away.

Mr. Bunn stared at the thicket round which she had disappeared. Then he turned to his friends.

"Well, it seemed to me like a pretty straight tip to keep off any green-seal vintage offered by white-headed strangers who nod," said Fortworth. "If any!"

"It doesn't sound a very likely thing to happen, anyway," mused Mr. Bunn. "But we'll bear it in mind. That was a queer youngster—wild, homeless-looking little party."

"I am off opinion thatt we shall make thee acquaintance off considerable number homeless people before we arrive at Holland," suggested Mirza Khan.

"Well, if you're all rested, we can move on," he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was he who had proposed the halt.

For perhaps ten minutes they proceeded, more or less silently, moving parallel with the narrow roadway.

Then Mr. Bunn who, with Fortworth, was walking a little in advance, stopped abruptly.

"There she goes," he said, pointing to a cottage that stood on the edge of the wood fronting the road. They saw the girl go out of the little garden of this cottage, making her way into the woods again. It was no more than a glimpse they caught of her, for as they approached the cottage, a man who was standing at the gate looking down the road, turned his head, saw them, and without an instant's delay, came threading his way quickly through the trees towards them, signing to them to stop.

He might have been an old scientist, retired to this cottage to spend his remaining years.

"Good morning, gentlemen," he said, in German, then, as his eyes played over them, in English. Mr. Bunn observed that his hair was white—silvery white—and that he nodded continually. Clearly the result of an affliction, there was something uncomfortable and uncanny about the perpetual little up-and-down movements of his head. He was like one of those odd, china, nodding figures one can buy, with the difference that he never ceased to nod. Save for this curious affliction and a remarkable pallor, the man was ordinary enough, in a neat, well-bred sort of way. He might have been an old scientist, retired to this cottage to spend his remaining years.

"You are walking in the woods, gentlemen?" he said, in a low, gentle voice. "Do you not find it hot and oppressive?"

"Ah, yes. That is wise. You are, perhaps, upon a walking tour with your friends. But Belgium is an ill place for a walking tour now. I beg that you will do me the honour to rest yourselves for a few moments in my garden and drink there a glass of wine to refresh yourselves."

He said it so smoothly, so civilly, with such a disarming air of friendliness that Mr. Bunn hesitated. Not so Fortworth.

The nodding man smiled faintly. "You shall choose!" he said softly. He spoke like a man talking to himself, looking at them all with a little smile. But his eyes were blank, and suddenly Mr. Bunn was aware that, in spite of his mildness and his kindly-seeming offer of hospitality, he did not feel comfortable with this silver-haired old man. There was something queer about him—something unnatural, secret.

"Mastel coming away?" he said softly with an anxious gleam in his black eyes. "No stoppee with this man—" his voice dropped to a whisper,—"Mastel, this man allee same mad!"

But before Mr. Bunn could answer, a sound filtered in through the tree trunks and thickets that put any acceptance of the nodding man's offer out of the question. It was the stamp and jingle of cavalry proceeding along the road.

The nodding man turned sharply, listening, and then abruptly and without a word or sign of farewell, left the Bunn Brigade and hurried back to the cottage gate.

But if he had no time for farewells certainly Mr. Bunn's little company had none, either. They pushed on into the wood, running lightly and stooping low.

In five minutes they were out of sight of the cottage, and out of sound of the troopers—probably, they feared, a detachment of the Uhlans they had seen enter the château.

"You can take it from me that there will be something doing in that cottage before long," said Mr. Bunn, when, for the second time that morning, he paused to get his breath again. "Sing Song was right. That old gentleman was mad. Like hundreds of others will be before this war is over. What do you think about it?"

"There can be no doubt off any description," said Mirza Khan gravely. "Thee old gentleman was under thee protection of thee gods, as we say."

"He was a nice-looking little old party, too,—in some ways," continued Smiler thoughtfully. He seemed uneasy. Then, suddenly, he burst out—"Look here, no one can accuse me of being a hot-headed sort of man—I've only got one hide and I value it. I don't believe in any foolhardy rushing into trouble—' steer clear' is my motto—always has been and always will be. You want to get that into your heads before deciding on what I'm going to suggest. But I'm asking myself a question—have been all the time we've been galloping through these infernal woods. What are we running away from? And why? That's it—why? What the hell for? Here we are—six armed men—running like rabbits from perhaps three or four Uhlans—and leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen armed with a bow and arrow—a poor, miserable little bow and arrow—and a nice gentle old man who offered us wine, at the mercy of these uniformed wreckers! It wasn't specially the green seal—the stuff the girl warned us against—that he offered us, mind! He meant playing straight with us! He said we could choose!"

"At their mercy!" he said. "There can't be more than half a dozen of the dogs—it sounded like less—and here we are, six of us—seven, counting Carey's left hand—and we're running away to save our own hides. Why I'd as soon hand an old man and a girl like that over to the devil as I would to those things from Germany. That's what I And so I'm going back."

They turned back. And as they turned the girl with the bow stepped quickly out from behind a dense thicket.

"I have been watching you an' I heard a little of that things you say," she said, hurriedly, confusedly. "But I spik it not ver' well enough that I am able to understand quite perfect. Do you go back then? Why? To drink glasses of wine together wit' my uncle like he have perhaps invite you? I beg of you, sirs, that you shall not do those thing—to drink of any glass wine—" she paled, and her eyes fell—"It is not ver' nice wine to drink—not good wine for any gentlemen to drink."

Mr. Bunn saw that she was trembling, and he spoke quickly, beckoning Sweern to translate.

"Tell her, Sweern, we were not going back to drink any wine, but to see that she and her uncle came to no harm with the German troopers there."

"Uhlans at the cottage!" she cried, in a thin voice of sheer horror and despair, and shut her eyes for an instant. Mr. Bunn thought she was going to faint, and moved quickly to her. But she opened her eyes, and, with amazing deftness, flung an arrow on to the string of her bow and, turning, ran back towards the cottage.

The Bunn Brigade followed her—Mr. Bunn swearing viciously at her folly, and every man of them with an automatic or a revolver in his hand—Carey, as usual, having one in each.

"Catch her, Sing!" gasped Mr. Bunn, "or she'll charge clean into them. And if there's anything wrong with that wine, they'll cut them both to pieces!"

But she twisted herself out of his grip like an eel and, her face white as marble, her eyes wide with fear and horror, her teeth chattering, she menaced him with her bow drawn to the head of the brass-tipped arrow.

"Look out, Sing!" warned Mr. Bunn, and caught her from behind. She loosed her bow-string as she felt his hand, and the arrow shot like a flash of yellow light over the Chinaman's shoulder.

"Stop it, you little fool!" said Mr. Bunn. "Leave it to us. What d'you think you can do against half-a-dozen soldiers? We'll look after your uncle—we're—God, the girl's fainted—here, Sweern, take her and look after her until we come back!"

He resigned the limp, slender body to Sweern and they pressed on, going more cautiously as they neared the cottage, until, at the edge of the garden, they were reconnoitring on their hands and knees, creeping in like Red Indians.

They edged round to the front, still screened by a big bank of flowers and grasses, and listened.

From the roadway came the stamp and shuffle of a horse tormented by flies, and once they heard a man humming a little air.

Sing Song wormed his way in among the flowers and a moment later returned, whispering that there were four horses in the roadway, and one trooper standing by them.

Then, as he whispered, they heard a shout, a rough laugh, and the sound of a man's heavy boots crunching along the path to the door of the cottage.

There came an answer to the Uhlan—but it was not the shout of a man inviting another to drink—it was instead the utterance of a man in agony, and at the point of death.

It came across to the ambushed five, like the croak of a water-bird unseen among the reeds—one thick, guttural, horrifying word—

They sprang to their feet at the word—but they were only in time to see a sight that remained with them for the rest of their lives. It all happened as swift as light—instantaneous.

The nodding man was standing in the pathway just outside the door, a bottle of wine in one hand, a glass in the other. He seemed to be on the point of pouring wine for a big, burly German soldier standing near him. Then, even as the watchers stood erect, the trooper's sword had flashed out, swung like a circle of white light in a savage back-handed cut, and—the nodding man lacked a head. It was so swift, so real and the fashion of the lolling so horribly unexpected, that for an instant the Bunn Brigade were paralysed.

The big trooper turned—and even as he turned a yellow streak shot, humming like a monstrous wasp, across the garden to him. An arrow. It went crashing through his cheek—through both cheeks—and, as he reeled, flinging up his hands in an odd, jerky, mechanical gesture, a second arrow sank almost to the feather into his throat.

He fell, uttering a terrible, unhuman sound, and it seemed that the fall of him shook the garden.

Mr. Bunn and his comrades ran to the open door of the cottage, their weapons ready. But there was no need.

Just over the threshold lay the body of a Uhlan, no doubt the one who had uttered the warning—and by a table in the centre of the room, lay two more—crumpled, loose, collapsed, just as they had slid from their chairs.

Upon the table were two wine bottles opened, three empty glasses, and four unopened bottles, sealed with a green seal.

And on the air of that room hung a faint, faint odour that was strange to them, but not unpleasant—the scent of wine and of the lemon-verbena mingled subtly with that of peach-blossom—sweet, elusive, and most terrible...

For a second they stared in absolute silence. Then Mr. Bunn turned away, shuddering. "I say nothing one way or the other—nothing," he muttered. "It's war—war! These things—such things as this—my God, what can you do about it?"

He got a grip on himself, and stepped to the girl who was staring in a trance of horror at the handiwork of the Uhlan she had killed. Sweern, pale as paper, was close behind her. Evidently her faint had been no more than a ruse to get rid of the most of them.

But before Mr. Bunn could speak she turned her back upon all, and for a long, long minute gazed across the sunlit garden. He saw that her hands were clenched tightly, tightly, and some instinct bade him do nothing, say nothing. He waited, signing to the others to be still.

Slowly her hands, her whole tense attitude, relaxed, and presently she spoke in French.

"Pardon me, monsieur, I have not sufficient courage to turn again.... I am going away now. You also must go, for the Germans, when they come, will take a savage revenge for all this. Only do not think too bitterly of my uncle. It was the war, and the things that Germany has done to Belgium that destroyed his reason, and impelled him to take an oath that he would kill any German soldier or spy that he could persuade to accept the wine which he had prepared. We have heard of the things that happened at the château, and we heard that you were employed by Germany. But I warned you against the wine to save my uncle from lolling you so treacherously. If he had been sane—as he used to be—there would have been nothing to fear, for he was so kind, so gentle.... But that is all past—and there is no more to say. I am going now to my friends."

"But, mademoiselle," said Sweern, prompted by Mr. Bunn's fierce whisper "We are not German agents—we are all British, and we are on our way out of Belgium to join the armies that will destroy Germany. It is only to assure us of a safe passage that we claim to be Germans—to be German agents."

"So much the better," said the girl, her voice utterly lacking either belief or interest.

And without turning, without a word or any sign of farewell, she crossed the garden, and disappeared in the woods. The trees and thickets and shadows received her as they receive and shelter a deer or some silent creature that is only at home in their recesses.

"Nothing," replied Fortworth. "What can we do? She has friends—and she probably knows the country like a book. She's right, too. To stop here would be like committing suicide. Let her alone. She's just one more who has been ground through the war-machine, God help her!"

"If we leave these men lying here they'll be found sooner or later, and the Germans will make the villages for miles round pay for it," he said. "Are we going to leave them to it—or are we going to clear up?"

"Better clear up—as usual," said Carey, quietly. "It will give the district and all of us a better chance."

"All right, I agree," said Mr. Bunn. Then, with a sudden surprising outburst of savage energy, he added, "Well, get to it, you sextons!"

They "got to it," grimly and in silence. There was a deep, dark pond that they had passed half a mile back in the woods—a silent and brooding place, tarn-like, still, and of funereal aspect. Thither they bore the bodies, the deadly green-sealed bottles, the bow, and the harness and accoutrements of the horses.

They obliterated the tell-tale stains upon the footpath, and also their tracks to and from the pond.

And, at last, after an hour and a half of grim, desperate work, they turned the stripped horses loose, and retreated into the woods again.

"North! North!" muttered Mr. Bunn as he went. "Keep North! Believe me, but I shall be glad to reach the frontier of this nightmare of a country!"

CHAPTER VIII, — "HOWITZER NO. 8—"

"One more day ought to land us over the frontier if our luck holds," said Mr. Bunn as the cottage disappeared behind the tree trunks.

But the luck, though it held until they were within a mile or so of safety, did not last, for even as the frontier came in sight on that same afternoon, a party of German infantry engaged in pouring themselves along the dividing line, sighted them. Evidently, even at this early stage of the war, the German troops had received very definite instructions that the frontier was to be hermetically sealed, wherever possible—presumably to keep in Belgium everything which refugees considered worth taking out—and the officer in command probably being drunk, as so many of them were whenever opportunity offered in the early, confident days, the Bunn Brigade, just as they decided to chance it with their passports, discovered that they were not likely to get an opportunity of presenting the passports. For, as soon as they approached sufficiently near to the troops for these to see that they were not in German uniform, they were promptly greeted with bullets—many bullets, but badly aimed. One took the heel off Mr. Bunn's right boot, and another grazed Lord Fortworth's ear.

The shock of the disappointment unsteadied their judgment for a moment, and when, suddenly, there arose from under a low bank not thirty yards from them another infantryman, who took deliberate aim at them, Carey, the South African, had sent a .45 bullet through his chest, before he or any of the Bunn Brigade had quite realised the folly of the thing.

But the fall of the man, and the maniac howl of rage from the grey-green soldiers farther away, had steadied Mr. Bunn and his friends in an instant.

"Why the blazes did you do that, Carey? You've put the lid on it now. Back to the woods—quick! They'll hunt us like rats for that! Move!" bawled Mr. Bunn, and promptly set the example.

Hunted like rats they were—like "unlucky rats," as Mr. Bunn subsequently put it. After a space of hours full of incident and frenzied with bullets they managed to shake off the last of the frontier-gorillas, only, a little later, to fall in with several patrols, whose movements could only be avoided—and narrowly at that—by the Brigade pushing south. Everything that could go wrong for them, went wrong—time after time, their attempts to double back north either by the way they had come, or by taking wide detours, were frustrated And to make it the more maddening, they were frustrated not infrequently by German soldiers, of one kind or another, who were quite unaware that they were in the neighbourhood.

Three days of it they endured—three devil-devised days and two madsome moons. At the end of the third day, in much hillier country (Sweern hazarded a tolerably safe guess that they were in "or near" Luxemburg), they had found a little cave on a hillside, and promptly occupied it.

The first thing they did upon entering the cave was to drop on the floor of it, and fall asleep where they dropped.

Not until twelve hours later did Mr. Bunn, afflicted with an appetite that had grown too ravenous to be quieted by anything but food or chloroform, wake with a start, and, crawling to the mouth of the burrow, greet the dawn with this observation:

"If there is such a thing as luck in the world, then there's only one quality of it kept in stock and doped out to the human race—and that's bad luck!"

From the stifling gloom farther back in the earthy retreat the rasping, saw-edged voice of ex-Lord Fortworth made sour reply.

"That's right, you fat hyaena—dig it all up again and hold another inquest on it. View it from every angle. Enjoy yourself thoroughly, in fact."

It was abundantly clear that the nerves of Lord Fortworth were excruciatingly on edge—and his temper on leave of absence. Mr. Bunn started slightly at the epithet with which his partner had prefaced his sardonic suggestion, but retained his temper.

"I am no fat hyaena, Fortworth," he said, seriously, "and we've got to look facts in the face straighter than any hyaena ever had to. It's no use denying that we're in a hole—a bad, awkward hole."

"Thatt iss undoubtedlee true remark—we are assuredlee in hole," said the voice of Mirza Khan, "but I wish itt was hole off gereater dimensions, yess indeed. Every-time I have occasion to turn in my sleep I push my face in most abrupt fashion against thee excellent Mister Carey's boots. Itt iss too crowded to be luxuriously comfortable hole."

"Well, then, perhaps you'd kindly extract your knees from the back of my neck—they've been there all night, and it gets monotonous after a few hours, Mirza," grunted Lord Fortworth. Mirza Khan was apologising indistinctly when Mr. Bunn cut in.

"You may as well disentangle yourselves, if you can," he said, "for it's broad daylight—or will be in a minute or two. And if any of you feel wishful to see again what a German Army Corps on the march looks like, now's your chance, for there's one passing by, down on the road."

He turned, peering cautiously down the almost dangerously steep slope which fell away from the mouth of the cave to a road that, some distance below, wound round the big hill.

"It isn't worth while taking any chances," he said. "This cave is visible enough from down there and if any of those grey murderers happen to see a bunch of heads and faces hanging out they're just as likely as not to send a few dum-dums up here to enquire about it."

He crawled back a little way into his closely packed group of comrades, who had risen to a sitting position and were staring at each other with weary, red-rimmed eyes.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "you can stare, my lads. It's enough to make anyone stare. When I think that three days ago we were in sight of the Dutch frontier and that now we're miles to the south of it—it gives me a pain. I'm not a crying man, but if I was I could weep tears of sulphuric acid and enjoy it. That's what!"

They bore traces of the ordeal through which they had passed. Mainly the traces consisted of mud, dust and bristling three-day beards. But there were rags, also, where they had encountered thorns. Each man of them, too, had acquired a few fresh lines and crows-feet about the eyes, bearing eloquent witness to the strain which the events of the past three days had put upon them. They were men worn-out—but in their deep-set eyes was the sombre glare that never yet was seen save in the eyes of desperate men, fearless, ruthless, who have grown to believe that life was not such a very priceless possession as once it had seemed to be.

It was characteristic of them that the first thing they did while waiting for the tramping herd below to pass, was to clean themselves as well as possible. They shaved, under difficulties,—Sing Song, at hideous risk, having crawled out of the cave to a little brook close by, for water—and even were able to wash.

But this completed, they had done all possible. There was no food left and no possibility of getting any until the troops were gone.

The sun crept up the eastern sky, and sent waves of heat quivering along the valley; thicker and thicker the fat clouds of dust rolled out from under the marching, iron-shod feet and wheels; and the voices of the soldiers came up to the party in the cave less and less frequently. The men were marching silently now—silently, with a sullen grimness. It was almost as though they sensed to what hell of brief triumph and long-drawn-out failure they were being led. Already, and they were only at the beginning of it, the smell of them—the strange, almost terrifying, ammoniacal reek that emanates from any close-packed, perspiring, insufficiently washed crowd of men—was born up to the nostrils of the watchers in the cave.

"By God, that's horrible," snarled Mr. Bunn, softly, as he caught the odour, and knew what the personal misery was to which it bore witness.

"Oh, they don't mind," said Fortworth. "They're unclean brutes at the best of times—all the world knows that. If you were to take a dozen of those hogs down there and a dozen British Tommies who have marched the same distance, and put a tank of water and a tank of lager beer in front of them, you'd see the Germans go to the beer like one man—and the Tommies to the water. And by the time the Englishmen had washed themselves to their own satisfaction there wouldn't be any beer left for them. And the Germans would think themselves the wiser and cleverer of the two dozen. They'd sit and stink and brood over the beer and hate the Tommies for being clean. It's the sort of thing Germans do. Ain't that right, Mirza?"

"Oah, yess, indeed—nearly all Germans are natural swine! They are decidedlee unfit to use thee same air as Beritish race," he corroborated.

"But all the same I could use a yard of some of their sausage, if I had it," said Mr. Bunn, bluntly.

"Sure! We'll scout round as soon as they're past. There's a house just behind those trees on the other slope of the valley," said Fortworth, and settled back in the shade of the stuffy little den which sheltered them....

But it was past noon before the long column, with its huge train of supplies, finally disappeared round a bend of the valley in the direction from which came always the deep, leaden grunting of far-off big guns.

Carey, raking the road and neighbourhood with a pair of binoculars, taken from the aviator whom they had buried a few days before, presently pronounced all clear, and, without delay, the Bunn Brigade raced down the slope, across the road, and into the belt of trees. But ravenous though they were they carefully reconnoitred the house beyond the trees, a little farther up the hillside, before they approached it more closely.

It was a stone-built, rather solid, ancient place, half château, half farmhouse, with an ill-kept area of vegetable garden and orchard round it. Although it did not appear untenanted, it bore an air of neglect—as though the people who lived there just lived there because they had to live somewhere, and were not particularly proud of their home wherever it was.

Following their usual tactics the Bunn Brigade examined it thoroughly from the cover afforded by the trees. But they discovered nothing—until, suddenly, a haggard old man, with a full grey beard, looked out of an upper window, and stared intently through a telescope in the direction from which the troops had come.

"Well, what good does he think he's done by that?" asked Mr. Bunn, and felt for his papers. "I'm going up to that house and I'm going to shove these documents in that man's beard and requisition the squarest meal he can put next to me—in the name of the German Secret Service. That's what. And I'm going to do it now. If that mad Colonel who was just itching to shoot us, was willing finally to accept the passports and things and countersign them they ought to be good enough for any Luxemburg goat that ever waggled his beard out of a window. Sweern, my lad, keep close to me to translate—and rap what I say well home—never mind about compliments. We'll have to do it German style."

And, so saying, Mr. Bunn rolled out from under the trees like a howitzer. As usual the Brigade lined up and accompanied him.

Mr. Bunn beat robustly upon the door with a brick that happened to lie close at hand.

"German military style," he muttered. A head poked out from the window overhead.

"Give him this, Sweern—right in his teeth—'Party of German Secret Service Agents demand food and—Dr—well—supplies, instantly. Any failure to comply will be dealt with inexorably!'—"

Sweern "rapped" it home like a Prussian non-commissioned officer giving an order to a bull-dozed recruit from German Poland, and the man with the beard was amazingly galvanized into action.

"Yes, yes, yes—I am coming. All shall be arranged as their Excellencies desire it!" he stuttered.

A moment later he came round a corner of the house bowing most humbly. He begged, meekly, that their Excellencies would enter his house by a back door, as, owing to certain repairs, the front door was not in use. Very humbly, he apologised for having at his disposal only a semi-underground back room—a store-room, indeed—to offer them, as the builders had rendered most of the rooms untenable for a time. But if they did not mind—if, in fact, they would deign to permit him to set wine and food before them in that room it would be a proud day in his life and he would lead them there at once.

Their "Excellencies" curtly barked at him, per Sweern, that they were not pleased but would overlook the matter this time.

They passed into the house. Their guide took an electric torch, and showed them down a few brick steps, along a passage way into a windowless, lamp-lighted room which, in spite of a big table, a few chairs and odd articles of furniture, was more of a cellar than a "storeroom." One or two hams hung from the ceiling, in company with a number of sausages of various shapes and sizes, and there were barrels and bottles and cases there also.

Their host stood at the door until they had entered. The eyes of every man of them went instinctively to the supplies.

"Good!" said Mr. Bunn, and something clicked behind him—as it might have been a well-oiled bolt shot home.

The door was shut and the man who had brought them there was on the other side of it.

"Ah!" said Smiler and jumped for the door, fumbled a moment, and stepped back again.

"He's got us," he announced calmly. "We might get out by using explosives—but not in any other way. That's a door and a half. Take a look at it for yourselves, if you doubt me! He was a downy old bird—but, trapped or not trapped, I'm ready for some of his stores."

He reached for a big sausage hanging overhead, as a small boy might reach for an apple upon the tree.

"We shan't starve, anyway," he said. "Where's the bread? Never mind the door for a minute, Sing Song. Rout round, my lad, rout round!"

But there was no hurry. Each man of them—lacking Mr. Bunn's expert knowledge of doors and locks—personally examined the heavy, oak door before following Smiler's example, and, one and all, they gave it up. Carey, it is true, half-drew one of his beloved revolvers, evidently with some notion of blowing the hinges off the door, but Mr. Bunn quenched the idea.

"Unless you can blow off the solid bolts at top and bottom outside, old man," he said with his mouth full, "you'll waste your ammunition, believe me!"

Carey believed him, and joined the steadily chewing circle at the table. They found only smoked, raw stuff, biscuits and wine, but that was enough.

"A full man," said Mr. Bunn, cutting a thick slab out of the very heart of a ham, "a full man would turn up his nose at raw ham, no doubt. But speaking for myself, I've got no complaints. Good raw ham is better than bad cooked ham. Let me have a look at that bottle of Rhine wine, Sing Song, my son!"

Presently, luxuriously replete, they smoked a cigarette each, rendering the atmosphere in the cellar, already seriously impaired by the flaring paraffin lamp, so appalling that Mr. Bunn was moved to rise up and reexamine the door.

"Nothing doing," said Smiler. "We couldn't even ram it with the table. It would smash a dozen tables like this. Good air or bad air, we've got to go on breathing it until someone lets us out, that's what."

An hour, sparsely filled with very pertinent conversation, passed and, goaded to desperation, the Bunn Brigade were rather wildly planning a scheme for extracting the powder from some of their pistol cartridges and blowing their way out if possible, when they heard a bolt shot back—then another.

"No. Let's have a look at what we've got to rush, first. It may be a bouquet of bayonets!" said Mr. Bunn.

"I beg you to be silent, Excellencies," she said, in German. "I—I will explain."

They crowded out and they saw then that this woman was horribly afraid—was on the brink of sheer, hysterical panic. She was greyish-white with fear. In other and pleasanter circumstances she might have been moderately attractive, a woman of perhaps twenty-five. But now, for some reason which the Bunn Brigade did not yet know, she looked fifty. She was trembling shockingly, and seemed to be listening. For a moment she seemed unable to speak.

"Tell her we shan't hurt her, Sweern," said Smiler. "And ask her what's wrong." Sweern did so.

"It is the Krupp howitzer!" she gasped. "The great howitzer No. 8! It is coming—and I am afraid. He—" she glanced upward, evidently meaning the greybeard—"He— it is for the No. 8 howitzer that he has been lying in wait. Leonhard is captain of that howitzer! He has a plan—I don't know it—but he has a plan. Against Leonhard. He must be captured and watched until the howitzer is safely past. I think he is mad with hatred and jealousy. Of Leonhard! Ever since the trouble with Krupp's and Leonhard's promotion—"

Smiler checked her with a savage glare and a gesture. He had nothing but a sort of pity for her, but pity was no way to stop the hysteria which was coming.

"Tell her, Sweern, to pull herself together quick, and give us the cold facts. For her own sake—as well as ours. And put it curt, my lad, or she'll break down. Order her, d'ye understand?"

Apparently Sweern did, for the curt harsh German sentences he used stiffened the woman wonderfully. But her hand went suddenly to her heart, pressing there, and she shivered. Then, with an effort, she said slowly, distinctly, and with an unnatural composure:

"There is coming now along the road which passes this house, one of the greatest cannons in the world. It is a giant howitzer for bombarding the French and Belgian forts, and it is of the most vital importance to Germany. If you are German Secret Agents, as he—my father—said you are, you will know of the great Krupp secret. One of these howitzers is known as No. 8 and the captain of the section of men from Krupp's who work this gun, is Leonhard Brunner, who is betrothed to me. A year ago when we lived at Essen, and my father worked for Krupp's, he invented something very important in the making of the great howitzers. I do not know what it was. But when the plans of his invention were completed and he took them to his superiors, they laughed at him and told him that, a month before, Leonhard Brunner had invented the same thing, that the invention had been adopted, and that Leonhard was about to be promoted for his success. My father said nothing at all, and came quietly away. But when he reached home he was mad with anger. He swore that Leonhard, who of course was often at our house, had seen his plans and stolen his invention, and he swore to be revenged. He prepared to kill Leonhard that evening—but I was able to get word to Leonhard and he did not come. Instead he informed the police, and my father was sent to prison for threatening to kill one of Krupp's most successful workmen. When he was set free we left Germany and came here to live. I came to take care of him and his home until—until Leonhard was ready to marry me. He was not quite ready—" her colourless lips quivered painfully for a moment as though, possibly, she feared, in her secret heart, that "Leonhard" did not wish or intend to marry her at all, and it hurt her to have to make the excuse of Leonhard's unreadiness— "not quite ready"—"and then suddenly the war came. I think my father knew, or he has found out since, the route by which the howitzer No. 8, of which Leonhard is captain, would be sent into France—and I am afraid that—in some way—for he is a clever man—he has planned to be revenged on Leonhard Brunner here—to be revenged—for he hates—hates—"

Her voice died out, she turned even more deathly pale than before, and dropped limply forward. Mr. Bunn caught her.

"Let's get where there's some air," he said, and carried the unconscious woman up the steps as lightly as a child. They found a room, and laid her on an old couch there. Her eyes opened as they did so. "It is my heart. I am often so!" she said, in a whisper. "I shall be better soon. Please capture my father until the gun is past. He—has—a plan—" ana appeared again to become unconscious. Mr. Bunn looked round at his Brigade. "What about it?" he said, softly. "I'm sorry for this poor soul, but if the old man with the beard is going to kill a German gun-captain—well, I don't see why we should interfere. The fewer of those that get into France the better. And I don't like the sound of this Leonhard, anyway. He sounds to me like a swine—the sort of stiff that would edge his way into the house of this old chap under pretence of making love to the daughter, get her to show where the old man kept the plans he was working on, steal the idea, and bolt. That's what Leonhard sounds like to me. And so, summing him up one way and another, it seems to me that the sooner Leo gets his desserts, the better for all concerned."

"Good talk! Veree sound and decidedlee explicit, yess indeed," said Mirza Khan, his lips set in a hard grin.

"Sure!" grunted ex-Lord Fortworth. "You're a tough old wolf, Flood, taking you all round, but you're right!"

Carey nodded, and Sing Song suggested that since Leonhard was doomed, by a large majority, he would gladly volunteer to do what he could to carry the views of the said majority into effect, independent of any arrangements of the old man. And Mr. Bunn promptly quenched his Chinese vassal.

"Forget it, you fathead, you're a bit above yourself!" he said curtly. "If you go anywhere near that howitzer in search of Leonhard, they'll catch you, stick you in the gun and fire you back to China!"

"We'd better call on the old man—he's upstairs somewhere!" continued Smiler. "Go carefully, for if he's desperate enough to lock a bunch of German Agents on active service up in a cellar, he's desperate enough to turn a revolver or two loose on them," and so led the way.

Going softly as questing leopards, they looked into two empty rooms, facing the road, before they found the right one. But when they did find it they were given no opportunity of mistaking it—for the grey-beard stood at the door of it, with a double-barrelled shot-gun in his hands, quite obviously awaiting them.

"Tell him, Sweern, that we—" began Smiler, but the rest was drowned in the crashing report of a revolver. Carey, just behind Smiler, had shot from the hip at the stock of the shot-gun which fell with a clatter. In an instant the German was helpless. He struggled for a moment, literally squealing, not with fear but with a rage that was nothing less than sheer frenzy.

Sing Song and Mirza Khan, one at each arm, shook him into some sort of coherence.

"Bring him in here," said Smiler, and they entered the room from which their prisoner had come.

It was, they saw, an apartment which had been used as a workshop, rather than a bedroom or living-room. There were tools and benches there, and upon a rough table just by the window was an electrical contrivance, with a press button.

"Why not?" asked Mr. Bunn, through Sweern. "Why shouldn't we? Has it anything to do with Leonhard the gun captain's finish? If so, you can rely on our leaving it alone. In fact, go ahead. Blot him out, if you can. It's a pity you can't blot his gun and his gun-crew, too."

"Never mind that. What we are and what we aren't doesn't matter. All we need to say to you is that if you have got any plans to cause a useful casualty or two among the big gun push that are due to pass along, go right ahead and cause them. We shan't interfere."

"Do you swear that? If you are not German agents and mean what you say—then—then—release me and in a few minutes I promise you a sight such as you have never seen."

There was a rabid eagerness in his voice and as Sing Song and Mirza released his arms he snapped his fingers.

"Leonhard, do you say?" he snarled. "I will show you how I shall deal with that thief!"

He went to the window, picked up his telescope, glanced out, and put down the telescope again. He peered out, his hand hovering over the electrical appliance upon the table near the window.

"Look!" he said to the Bunn Brigade. "Cautiously. They are passing—this triumph of Krupp's. The howitzer—howitzer No. 8. One of the guns that will humble Paris—beat France to her knees. What a sight! Colossal! To think that it was I—I—who invented the most important part of all its many parts—only to have it stolen by that dog Brunner!... How smoothly it rolls, that monster! See how proudly the crew (picked men from Krupp's), escort it. Leonhard Brunner is there—bursting with pride—be sure of that—but I am not altogether done with! Not altogether done with!"

He gave a strange, evil little snigger that chilled the blood of the men craning to see without being seen.

"It could bombard Paris from a distance of twelve miles," said the old man. "Think of that? Leonhard Brunner with that howitzer expects to rain death and destruction upon Paris from twelve miles away. But—he never will! He has forgotten this old grey-beard!"

"Imperial Germany is a fine machine—a great machine—but there is a piece of grit within the cogs—and it is I!" he mumbled.

"Robbed—despised—discharged—imprisoned—but the grey-beard still has a spark—one spark—of life, of courage, with which to avenge himself—against Brunner—against Krupp's—even against Germany herself!"

Craning out, the Bunn Brigade saw the two sections of the mighty seventeen-inch howitzer, drawn by huge traction engines, rolling massively but very smoothly on their great pedrails down the road which they had crossed an hour or so before. Before, behind, and about it, marched its escort—at least two battalions of men...

"Nothing can stand before such guns—stone nor steel. Their shells can shatter any forts in the world. The world will see—" muttered the old man, his hand hovering over the push-button of the electric battery on the table. "And I helped to build them. I—"

"Well, are you going to hand it to Brunner or not?" demanded Mr. Bunn, uncomfortably impressed by the uncanny mutterings of the grey-beard.

Then, as they waited, they heard a sound of dragging footsteps in the corridor outside, and of someone gasping.

"That is my daughter—she loves the thief Brunner!" exclaimed the old man, and moved hurriedly to the door.

"Go down to the kitchen! Do not interfere with me. I have warned you before," he said threateningly.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "The howitzer—Leonhard—is passing now, and you have planned to kill or to ruin him. I will not go down until he is past—safely past."

The grey-beard tried to tear himself free. But her despair seemed to have endowed her with an unnatural strength, for she clung to him and would not be shaken off.

"Let me alone! Let go! Do you wish me to strike you—my daughter—a sick woman! There is no time to discuss—Ah! will you let go! The moment is passing!"

He wrenched like a madman for his freedom—but she clung dumbly, her eyes shut, gripping, gripping...

"The gun! The howitzer! Where is it now? Is it in line with a white post standing on the opposite bill-side?"

Every man of them, glaring from the window, infected by the mad exaltation of excitement which possessed the grey-beard, answered:

"Yes—yes. In line. Dead in line!" Unconsciously they howled it—like a pack of wolves.

From under the very wheels of the steel mammoth was vomited, as by magic, a furnace of furious greenish-red flame, roaring in a tempest of sound that shook the earth, cloaked and hooded in a vast cloud of smoke that gushed up and up as though striving to the very skies! And, as the lurid, flame-streaked cloud leaped up, the Bunn Brigade, staring out, saw that mingled with it were great stones, fragments of steel, wheels, showers of earth—and the bodies of men!

For the fraction of a second there was an appalling resemblance in the whole hideous picture to a fan-shaped green, red and black bouquet—but it was gone in an instant, leaving behind it nothing but pain and death and incredible destruction, veiled in fat billowing coils of smoke. Terrible cries came from the vicinity of the great crater formed by the spouting fountain of flame—and, quite suddenly, there appeared on the ground under the eyes of the watchers the body of a man—a dead man. It lay there just as it had fallen—blown there by the explosion.

The grey-beard had mined the road—for the destruction of Leonhard Brunner, the thief. That the destruction of Brunner had involved that of the great howitzer and many men, had not weighed with the man Krupp's had discharged and Germany had imprisoned. The incredible labour and the risks of capture and death which the grey-beard must have experienced in the completion of his device, can only be guessed at. But he had succeeded—he had succeeded. The giant howitzer was now in fragments—and doubtless Leonhard Brunner was dead.

Mr. Bunn tore his eyes from the black, smoking hole in the road, the wreckage all about it, the swarming men running in upon the spot.

"Out!" he said hoarsely to his comrades. "Out of this! Into the woods at the back! They'll be here, in a moment—raving—"

He broke off at sight of the grey-beard—for that one was on his knees by the side of the woman—his daughter—who was stretched on the floor.

"Dead! She is dead! Her heart—her heart! I forgot that!" mumbled the old man, wringing his hands.

Smiler Bunn glanced at Carey who was rising from the side of the woman, and Carey nodded.

"They went out together—thief or no thief, Brunner and she went together," muttered the South African.

The grey-beard looked up at the question. There was no longer any hatred, malignance, rage, or lust of killing in his expression. It had changed. He looked now what he was—an old man, with faded blue eyes, a little vacant, a little childish.

"Yes," he said simply, glanced at his daughter, then at the window, and shivered slightly. "Yes—that will be quite satisfactory!"

The Bunn Brigade left that house, quickly, very quickly, and disappeared into the woods at the back.

It was in reply to Sweern, who had said something about "why such things should be?" half an hour later, that Mr. Bunn summed it up.

"Tragedy?" he said. "Is there anything but tragedy these days? What have we been living in since we started for home but tragedy—one tragedy after another? It's war—and war's a hill built up of tragedies—and nothing else!" He drew in a deep breath, staring straight ahead of him. "For God's sake, don't get into the way of asking the why and wherefore, Sweern, old man," he said. "I'm not up to that—and shan't be for years to come! I pressed that button—sine—and I'd press it again!—I pressed it for England! If I had done it for any reason but that—I—by God, I think I should go mad!"...

CHAPTER IX. — THE WAR-HOUND PATROL

THAT day it rained, heavily and interminably—their first experience of rain since the commencement of the long journey home.

Sweern, too, began to show signs of weakening. He had not the physique of the others, and he was not well.

Night found them wandering in an immense wood, soaked to the skin and without the remotest idea as to where they were.

Mr. Bunn, ploughing through the darkness with the little Dutchman, put the question to him with his accustomed bluntness:

"Where are we, anyway, Sweern, my lad?" he enquired in a voice like the croak of a weary water-bird.

"I do not know—I do not know, Mistaire Flood," he replied, desperately. "How have I the ability of telling you? How do we proceed through these dark nights—is it to south-west, then, or by the north-west, or perhaps once more to the northerly and to Holland? Anything it may be quite easily, but I am not able to dispute against any point of the compass, sir! We proceed slowly through the darkness and the woods without any moon and there are not any stars also. And I am not well at the inside of me. The fogs of the night and the falling of rains have injured my health. That is all I know. I am not such as a sailor who can direct his travellings by the angles of the stars over his head—and there are not even stars! Monsieur—I have been lost many days, and ill, also. I go on—marching and tramping and perfectly lame to my both feet—but if I am in Belgium I cannot tell, and if I am in Luxemburg who knows that, or France even? It is but only the same always for me at this period—and that is to march on—always to march and march and march. And I am sick and wet and cold and forever hungry. And weary to break the heart."

The little Dutch guide almost sobbed as he ended, and Mr. Bunn's big arm slid in a protecting sort of way round his shoulder. "You poor little devil," he said sympathetically. "It's getting you down. But don't worry—no sane man would expect you to know any better than any of the rest of us where we are. But stick it, Sweern, my lad, stick it, my buck! This sort of thing don't last for ever—it can't. It's h—in its way—and even that can't last for ever—the hinges would rust. Get your teeth together, old cock, and plug along. You've done fine, Sweern, fine—and, considering your build you've beat every other man of this push hollow for sticking it out. Hey, Sing Song? Ain't that right?"

He appealed to a dark blur just in front—to help him hearten the plucky, but rapidly failing Dutchman.

It was the voice of Mirza Khan, however, which trailed back through the wet darkness to Smiler.

"He iss undoubtedlee remarkable and persevering young chap!" said Mirza, staunchly, "and has unquestionablee saved thee lives off whole party on several occasions. I am off opinion thatt we are gereatlee indebted to Mister Sweern and I am perfectlee convinced thatt when, in thee course off time, my master, His Highness thee Rajah off Jolapore, enjoys thee privilege off seeing me restored to him, he will most certainly be soa delighted thatt he will make Mister Sweern a veree wealthy man. Soa it would be best plan to stick it. We are veree peroud of you, Mister Sweern!"

But even Mirza's romances could not infuse energy into the exhausted limbs of the Dutchman. The plain fact was that Sweern was physically at the end of his tether and had to have rest and food, or be left behind. Mr. Bunn realized it, and gave the order to halt.

"Sweern's all in to the last ounce. We camp here," responded Mr. Bunn. He groped to a tree. "Sit down, Sweern—here, with your back to this tree. Don't sleep till you've eaten. Sing Song, my son—where's that ham?"

"Not camping in this place, mastel! You come little way mole—pelhaps twenty yard—and camping allee same in empty house!"

"Empty hotel! Where are we going to find any house in this infernal forest, you lemon," snarled Mr. Bunn, failing for a moment to catch the Chinaman's meaning.

"I telling you, please, mastel. Onlee twenty yard mole walkee and we are coming to little house—allee same wood-cuttel's cottage."

"Can you beat him?" he demanded. "Can you match him? Eyes like a cat's, nose like a fox-hound—he can see in the dark! Sing Song, my son, if ever we get out of this it's Easy Street for you for good!"

Sing Song grinned in the dark. He did not feel that it was necessary to explain that he had been walking a few yards ahead of the party, and so saw the woodman's hut first. Indeed he had nearly run into it. Instead, he bent down and slipped a powerful hand under one of Sweern's arms, and helped Mr. Bunn lift the little man to his feet.

"Come on, Sweern, old man," said Smiler encouragingly. "You'll be in the dry and warm in a second or two—and unless I'm very much mistaken in little old Sing Song here, there'll be a few slabs of grilled ham and some hunks of fried bread on offer before long—hey, Sing?"

Then they saw a faint glimmer of light ahead. Carey had entered the hut, struck a match and was taking a look round.

"Half a minute—" said Carey, warningly, striking another match. "What's that on the bench there?"

In the faint nickering light thrown by the match they saw a dark form lying upon a low wooden bench built along the wall nearest the rough fireplace.

"Itt iss a man—the charcoal-burner or thee wood-cutter who iss proprietor off establishment. He iss asleep. Wake him," said Mirza Khan, and stepped to the still form.

Mirza Khan put his hand on the man's shoulder, as another match blazed,—and recoiled sharply.

"Dead—yess, indeed. There is terrible disfigurement of thee face. He has been sabred!"

"Sabred!" he said between his teeth. "You've said it, Mirza Khan. How a man with a wound like that lived long enough to crawl in here to die is a mystery!"

Sing Song lighted a candle—one he had paused long enough to purloin in the house of the man who had killed Brunner—and set it on the rough mantelpiece. Utterly ignoring the still, tragic form on the bench, the iron-nerved Chink fell to his work. It was an education to watch him. Swiftly he took a few sticks of dry wood from a bundle in the corner of the hut—a wooden erection with only the one room—and laid and lighted a fire in the brick fireplace. Then he turned to the rough deal table at which Sweern was sitting, his head resting on his arms, and busied himself with the big bundle he had carried all day.

"Out in the rain! Lord knows it's not the way to treat a man after he's dead—to lay him out in the rain—but what else is there to do?" muttered Smiler, as they laid him down at the back of the house.

"He's only one of many," said Carey, with an odd note of apology in his voice. "One of many that will sleep in the rain to-night. And it may be us next."

"Some unlucky French wood-cutter who fell in with German cavalry, and was sabred in sheer wantonness!" said Carey.

Even in the few minutes they had been away Sing Song, aided by Fortworth and Mirza Khan, had contrived to impart to the hut an air of something that, after the dark, dripping forest, was almost comfort. The fire looked good to the rain-soaked adventurers, and the various items of food which Sing Song had crammed into his bundle that afternoon, made a highly satisfactory show to the ravenous Bunn Brigade. Sweern already occupied the bench of the dead man—he had been so worn out that it is probable he had never even noticed the grim burden it had borne.

"Well, my lad, what you got there? Pans and things, hey? That's it, ain't it? Frying-pans—hey? And there's a pot, my son!" He turned to Fortworth, his partner, who was staring moodily at the fire. "Put some more wood on the fire, some of you!" he said enthusiastically. "I can see a chunk of boiled ham coming down the turnpike!" It was Mirza Khan who darted to encourage the fire. Mirza was a Mahommedan—but hot boiled ham sounds just as good to many a half-starved Mahommedan as it does to an entirely empty Presbyterian. This may not be very religious, but it is painfully true. Let it not be forgotten that the Bunn Brigade had been passing through a period which had included moments when they would have paid good gold, and large quantities thereof, for edibles (so-called) at which any vulture in moderately prosperoua circumstances, would have turned up his beak.

Hence the general feverish anxiety to help Sing Song. As in a country entirely inhabited by lunatics a halfwitted man is king, so in a wood-cutter's hut entirely populated by hungry men, a cook is Tzar.

On this occasion, therefore, Sing Song was Tzar—and after a moment's thoughtful concentration upon his supplies he realized it, and used his power. Working swiftly himself, he ordered, with utterly irresistible urbanity, Mirza Khan and Carey out to the back of the house with a candle, to see if there was a potato patch, or any vegetables of any sort. Fortworth was suavely requested to nip out to the well, if any, and draw water. Mr. Bunn was exempt—naturally. Sing Song was not the man even to contemplate allowing his idol to soil his hands, while there were others to do the work.

So Smiler crossed over to Sweern, and did what he could for him—took off his saturated boots, and drove a little warmth into his chilled feet by energetic rubbing, and similar kindly little offices. Messrs. Bunn and Sing Song, together with ex-Lord Fortworth, might be (and undoubtedly were) "crooks," in times of peace, but in spite of their peculiarities there are many men who would have made worse comrades in war time.

If for the next hour or so the imperturbable Chink worked them thoroughly, he worked himself like a creature with two pairs of arms, and several sets of brains.

But that it was worth while was unanimously carried when, in due course, he produced from the various humorous-looking utensils with which he had been juggling over the fire, a supper that, if plain, was at least plentiful. Even Sweern aroused from profound slumber to "do his bit."

They did not talk much, for they were used up to the last muscle of their bodies, and, one by one, as they were filled, they dropped to the beaten earth floor of the hut and slept.

Mr. Bunn was the last—excepting, of course, the unextinguishable Sing Song. And as Smiler stretched himself on the floor alongside Fortworth, with his feet towards the fire, he muttered drowsily—

"That's a good lad—wonderful bit o' work, Sing my son—I'll look—after you—all right.... see you on—Easy—Street yet—"

The yellow man, left to himself, grinned wearily, and taking the stump of a cigar from somewhere in his clothes, fit it and smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes.

Outside the wind was rising. It went hooting and howling through the writhing tree-tops with a sound like some long-drawn menace; the hiss and patter of the rain increased, died down, and re-commenced drearily; the hut already was indescribably stuffy with the steamy emanations from the soaked clothes of the adventurers; and the turmoil outside drowned the sound of their breathings so that they lay there like dead men.

Not till the cigar stub was so short that the red glow of it seemed like a live coal laid against his lips did Sing Song reluctantly abandon it. Then, moving silently as a yellow ghost flitting over and about a heap of the dead, he quickly cleared away the remains of the banquet, piled up the fire, insinuated himself into the only vacant space left on the floor and was asleep in an instant.

At intervals throughout the night this amazing man would wake with automatic precision, and, in absolute silence, replenish the fire. Then, always taking a close look at the unconscious Mr. Bunn, he would curl up again.

It was a scene worthy of the talent of a painter of the weird—the dark interior of the hut, spasmodically flushed at intervals with the sudden red of a starting flame from the fire; the hunched, shapeless bodies upon the floor, and the crouching attitude of the Chinaman as he bent over the form of his master, his black, beady eyes glittering, his yellow skin accentuated by the firelight. Once he touched the shoulder of Mr. Bunn, that jutted up from the floor like a rock—touched it lightly, caressingly. There was in this affectionate gesture something remotely akin to the light playful pat of a leopard or some such great cat, touching a cub...

So, in that Black Hole which had come as a haven, the Bunn Brigade got their rest.

It must have been about midway between three and four, or perhaps a little later, and the grey, eerie light that presages the dawn was creeping into the hut, when Sing Song woke and rose quickly to his feet, listening.

Someone was approaching the hut—and it was someone who appeared to care little whether he proceeded quietly or not. He came heavily, with dragging, irregular footsteps.

Sing Song was at the door in an instant, the dull blued barrel of an automatic protruding from his hand, sinister as the head of a snake. Softly he swung back the door and stared out.

Through the thick, white vapours of the dawn that were wreathing themselves about every tree trunk and every thicket, a man was approaching. He was, as yet, only an indistinct blur, but even so the Chinaman saw that he did not walk straight, but zig-zagged drunkenly, stepping heavily. And he was talking in French to himself in a cracked, gasping voice.

Not till he was quite close did Sing Song perceive that he bore a burden, and that he was in the uniform of a French officer.

He stopped before the Chinaman and gently laid his burden down upon the wet ground. It was the body of a girl—a girl of perhaps nineteen or twenty, possibly less.

"This is the journey's end—the end—and if we have not yet come to the exits of hell—no matter—" muttered the soldier incoherently in French—"no matter. I can go no farther. She knows. Who are you?"

He stared at Sing Song through eyes so puffed and swollen that they seemed all but completely closed, and the Chinaman saw that this man was torn—terribly torn. The flesh of his hands and arms—plainly visible, for his incredibly soiled uniform was in rags,—was slashed and mangled as though by the teeth of wolves, and brownish red with dried blood.

He stared through his puffed eyes at the Chinaman, and a faint change passed over his face as of a momentary surprise.

"Who are you?" he said thickly, swaying as he spoke. "At least you are not German—or French—"

"Flench officel, mastel—allee same velly sick—hungry, pelhaps—velly wounded."

Sing Song stood aside and Mr. Bunn, moving to the door, saw the newcomer for himself. He changed colour a little.

"Why—something has cut him to rags!" he ejaculated, and went to the man with open arms.

The Frenchman's eyes lighted up a little, then, without a word, without warning, he closed them and pitched limply forward. Mr. Bunn was just able to catch him.

But Sing Song, who had formed his own ideas as to what ailed the officer, promptly surged back into the little den. He knew that when a man is suffering from physical exhaustion, aggravated by pain and loss of blood, the things which he requires are water, nourishment and rest. And these requirements Sing Song set himself to fulfill...

Ten minutes is far from an extravagant amount of time in which to prepare a bowl of soup—and when one's materials therefor consist in the main of water, a ragged ham, a heel or so of mysterious looking German sausage, and a few chunks of stale rye bread, the production of a palatable and stimulating broth, in the said space of ten minutes, becomes a culinary miracle.

But the indomitable Chink worked it. Indeed it was largely the extremely savoury odour of the compound which they were enabled shortly to offer him, together with certain loudly-uttered encouragements by Mr. Bunn, that seemed to arouse the unfortunate man from the coma into which he had fallen. There was a dash of brandy in the food, and he devoured it ravenously. Indeed he looked for more. But what was left of the compound Sing Song had given to Sweern, who was looking vastly better for it and his night's rest.

The Frenchman fell back upon the ham, and they "gave him room according to his appetite," as Mr. Bunn subsequently put it.

Then Sing Song, hovering about the fire like a wizard of olden times, produced a tin basin full of warm water and a bundle of comparatively clean linen—it looked like half a pillow case, and probably it was, for the Chink's raid upon the supplies at the house of the howitzer-expert had been comprehensive, if swift.

So they bathed and bandaged the worst of the wounds of the French officer, who, occupying the bench evacuated by the now revived Sweern, proceeded to tell them his story.

The food, the washing and dressing of his ugly and neglected wounds, and above all, the knowledge that he was with friends, had transformed him into a very different man from the reeling, half-mad wreck that had confronted Sing Song in the dawn. But for all that he was desperately fatigued—worn out—and he made short work of a story which, told in detail, would have filled a big volume.

With two other officers and about eighty men while fighting in heavily wooded country, during the early stages of the big German effort which failed before Nancy, he had been cut off from the French—and for three weeks these men had been behind the German lines, living in the woods, trying in vain to break back and join the French Army. They had failed to do so, and man by man they had dwindled away. Some had been shot by German patrols, some had died, sick and half starved, some had been captured, one or two had surrendered, others been hunted down by German cavalry, and by dogs trained to the work, some had been betrayed, some had found haven among the countryside folk, sacrificing their uniforms for the blouses of agricultural labourers, and some had simply disappeared or gone away in pairs or little groups. As soon as the company realized that the Germans were sufficiently well aware of their presence to take considerable trouble to hunt them down—and they had learned this from a printed poster furtively scanned in a village, offering a reward per head, dead or alive, to anyone able and willing to betray them—they had broken up of their own accord. For himself, continued the officer, he had been fortunate; he had found friends at a farmhouse, friends who had been very kind to him, and for a week had been able to rest and recuperate from the effects of a slight wound received in action—quite slight, he explained, only a bullet through the fleshy part of the thigh, nearly healed now. It had been his great good fortune, he said, to win the esteem of a girl, a daughter of the house, and for a few days they had approached as near to happiness as was possible for anyone of French nationality in such times and circumstances. But there was a cousin of the girl, who was jealous. And this man had betrayed his whereabouts to a German patrol that was using hounds to scour the woods. This patrol—some four men mounted with two couples of hounds—surprised the girl and himself near the farm on the previous evening. There had been a fight—bitter, horrible. Fortunately it was dark, and the girl knew the district perfectly. She had guided him where only the hounds could follow, and after a nightmare struggle in the woods he had managed to shoot some and beat off the rest. Those torn wounds were from the hounds. Then he and the girl had started to press deeper into the sanctuary of the woods. But the noise of the fight with the hounds had given the survivors of the patrol—two of them he had shot—an indication of the whereabouts of their quarry. And they had fired a dozen shots at random into the darkness after them. One of these shots had hit the girl. He had taken her into his arms and pressed on. He had no lights, nor any notion of where he was. And it had began to rain. And Fleurette had grown cold in his arms...

He ceased abruptly, staring round at them all, and they saw then that which not one of them had ever seen before, nor desired to see again. Tears were running down the Frenchman's face, but the man himself was wholly silent, neither sobbing, nor even breathing more heavily or quickly. He sat like a statue, perfectly still, but with tears steadily welling from his eyes and running down his face. It was far more terrible than any uttered expression of grief. Abruptly the Bunn Brigade turned away. They were too familiar with suffering now not to recognise that this was a case where the time for spoken sympathy was not yet.

"He must have had eight hours in the woods last night—with his girl dead in his arms...." whispered Mr. Bunn to Fortworth. "Leave him to himself for a few minutes. I wonder he isn't mad."

They went quietly out to see what could be done for the girl—but there was nothing to do. She was very beautiful, lovely even in death. But they could provide for her nothing—nothing to soften the starkness of death but a grave. She was just one more—one of millions—caught up and crushed in the great delirium of Germany, wild-beast among nations.

When they went back into the hut the French officer was lying upon the bench, his head on his arms, fast asleep. His weariness had overcome even his grief.

"Let him sleep," said Mr. Bunn. "There's time enough. While he's resting we had better work out what we're going to do. We've got to get on the North route again. If none of those eighty Frenchmen could break back west to their own lines we aren't going to do so. The longer I live the plainer I can see that it's a case of Holland for us—Holland, at all costs—Holland or H—, in fact! That's what, my lads! And now, if there is such a thing as a rag or two of meat left, we may as well wolf it!"

So they "wolfed" the remains of the remains of the remains of Sing Song's supplies.

Fortunately the downpour of the previous day and night seemed to have exhausted the bad weather, for the sun rapidly grew stronger, rising in a clear, cloudless sky, promising great heat. By seven o'clock the heat was making itself felt, and had dispersed the wet mists of early dawn. Mr. Bunn promptly took advantage of it, by the simple process of stripping to the skin, hanging his still sodden clothes upon various boughs in the sunshine, and paddling round to the swollen, muddy little brook at the back, from which Sing Song had drawn his water supplies. The Brigade still owned a square inch or so of soap. Mr. Bunn was speedily joined by the others, so that some fifteen minutes later the birds of the forest were privileged to gaze (if they desired) upon the spectacle of Messieurs Smiler Bunn, Fortworth, Mirza Khan (a study in dark black) and Mr. Carey, nakedly gambolling and galloping about in a patch of sunshine, in an effort to dry themselves after a vigorous bath upon the banks of the brook. Towels are not to be found in any abundance in the average woodcutter's hut.

From the doorway Sing Song beamed upon these middle-aged gentlemen, like a mother beaming upon her little ones, and even Sweern, sitting on a log in the sunshine, practising the art of economical smoking, with an extra cigarette, perked up somewhat at the sight.

The luxury of the sensation of absolute cleanliness, the absence of hunger, and the warmth of the sunshine had raised all their spirits. Even Fortworth was observed to grin twice.

"It mayn't be so elegant as drying yourself with Turkish towels," said Smiler, gaily, "but the exercise is a grand thing for you!" and administered to the unsuspecting Mirza Khan a sharp, back-handed slap that made the confidential servant of the Rajah of Jolapore, leap a couple of feet into the air in pained surprise.

But if they were in any danger of labouring under the delusion that they were a batch of schoolboys playing truant by the river's brim, a sound that suddenly emerged from a dense bank of undergrowth some forty yards away speedily brought them face to face with hard facts.

For the sound was the deep, throaty note, half bay, half bark, of a hound—and, at once, it was joined by others.

"It's the patrol the Frenchman spoke of!" he said in a low, desperately rapid voice. "They're after him! Th-they'll"—in his frantic haste to speak he stuttered—"They'll think there's only one here—the Frenchman. Bolt for the cover of the house and let Carey do the shooting! He'll pick 'em off like glass balls!"

They tore their clothes from the boughs and raced across to the "lee" side of the hut. It was all very quick.

"Look out, Sing—" he began, but Sing Song needed no warning. He had heard. He had drawn Sweern in and was standing just inside the doorway, with the woodman's axe ready in his hand.

"Good lad. We'll draw their fire—guard the Frenchman!" snapped Smiler and was gone.

"Now, Carey, you old wolf, it's up to you,—for a starter, any way," said Mr. Bunn. "If you are the only one to shoot they'll think it's the Frenchman and be a bit more reckless. If they know we're six or seven they'll bring up their pals and smash us. Pass your guns back as you empty them and we'll load and fill your hand. You're it, this time, Carey, old man. We know what you can do when you're put to it—and we'd like to see you fully extended!"

"Watch!" he said, and swung his battery clear—two big .45 Colts, one in each hand, as usual. All but a corner of him was covered by the hut. Behind him, tense and taut the stark naked trio were lined up, each with a loaded automatic ready to pass along in his right hand, and cartridges clawed from their clothes for reloading in his left.

It was a sight from which all the elements of humour had vanished—the intent to fight was so harshly palpable in the crouching attitudes of the line of pink killers. The right hand of the revolver expert was moving in a queer little to-and-fro movement—a dreadful, menacing gesture, remotely like the gentle, springy, tapping motions of a waiting prize-fighter's fist. It was almost as though the big, blued weapon was a live thing tugging to get at a quarry.

The baying came nearer. They heard the stamp and jingle of hoofs and accoutrements and, suddenly, the thicket facing the cottage enlarged a great hound. She leaped out, open mouthed, her red tongue hanging, and made straight for the door—a big beast, apparently some sort of cross between Irish wolf-hound and Great Dane or boar-hound, with something of the blood-hound in her great jowl and deep ears. A formidable beast, quite probably bred for the work upon which she was engaged. Others were leaping out behind her—how many the Bunn Brigade did not count. Only one of them was in a position to count and he was—occupied. His right arm darted out, stiffened... and the South African was in action, "fully extended."

It seemed to the stark gang behind him that a continuous jet of pinkish fire poured from the heavy blue barrel of the revolver—the reports followed each other so swiftly that it might almost have been a short roll upon a kettle-drum.

Carey swung back his right hand and Mr. Bunn snatched the smoking revolver, jamming his own automatic pistol into Carey's hand. An odd, fugitive fancy shot into Mr. Bunn's brain, in the momentary cessation of the reports, that the South African was whistling between his teeth as he fired—a queer, unconscious sound, half whistle, half hiss. (Afterwards Carey confessed that it was so. He always did it when firing rapidly, he said—and for some extraordinary reason, seemed half-ashamed of it. He appeared to regard it as a weakness).

The left hand revolver was emptied into a hell of snarls and groans and throaty bayings. The pack evidently had been reinforced, for the hounds seemed innumerable. One got through in the flurry—but Carey smashed the top of its skull with a single bullet, in mid-air, as the hairy demon leaped for his throat.

Then, over the naked shoulder of the South African Smiler saw through the haze the heads of horses, tossing, white-eyed, with flattened ears—the heads of frightened horses and the helmets of men.

"Now!" shouted Carey, in a strange, trumpet-like voice, and, an automatic in each hand, ran out a few yards to the right, naked and terrible, firing from both fists as he ran.

Carey stood stark, hosing lead at the Prussian man-hunters as surely never man nor devil had shot before.

The panic scream of an injured horse rang horribly above the roll of the pistols and then, even as Mr. Bunn, frenzied with excitement, ran out with two loaded weapons—one revolver, one automatic—the marksman stopped firing.

"All over!" he said, in a flat voice, dropped his hands and stood staring... staring.

As the others joined him he raised one hand sharply and fired again. The head of a horse which had been struggling to rise fell like the blow of a hammer.

"It's a pity. The horses, I mean. But they had to go!" muttered the South African.

But the others hardly heard him. They were looking at the welter of death spread out before them. Seven great hounds, five horses, four German troopers and a man in ordinary riding dress—stone dead, or so they seemed to be.

"It's not impossible," said Mr. Bunn slowly, his words dragging, "because I've seen it done. But I didn't believe—I—but, well, there it is—done!"

"I lost one of the hounds—" began Carey, but broke off suddenly as he turned to the doorway. A hound was sprawling limp across the threshold, his head split clean back to the neck—an ugly sight—uglier in its red way even than that of the silent pile of dead before the house.

Sing Song came out, his eyes glittering. He leaned on the haft of the axe, looking thoughtfully on the dead.

The wounded Frenchman, pallid as marble, stood in the doorway. "You have there one who was mine!" he called in a high, wild voice.

And as he pointed a thrill ran through the Bunn Brigade. For the head of that man moved—was raised up quickly—and it spoke.

"For God's sake, mercy!" it said, and rose to its knees, holding up both hands above the head.

The French officer cried out at that, and reeled from the doorway to the man who begged for mercy.

"This is the scorpion that betrayed us—Fleurette——Fleurette and me!" he said. He dashed his hand against his forehead, as one who suddenly remembers—

"Fleurette! I carried her here—fell and forgot her.... Ah! she was dead—dead in the darkness...." He gazed at them all, his mouth working, anguish and despair in his eyes. Behind him the kneeling man muttered desperately of "Mercy," "Pardon," "Forgiveness" and again "Mercy."

"I have an account to pay," he said, and bowed to the South African. "Monsieur, to whom I am already so inexpressibly indebted, will not refuse to grant a heartbroken man yet one little favour?" He spoke with exquisite, icy courtesy, reaching out a hand for one of Carey's pistols.

"Confess!" he said, in a voice of incredible authority—as those at the point of death may utter a command—"You informed the Prussians where they might surprise Fleurette and me? Is it not so?"

The man looked into his accuser's eyes and suddenly his head fell forward, his chin resting on his breast. There was an odd painful air of finality about the movement.

"Gentlemen! You see?" The French officer turned to the Bunn Brigade. They had seen—if it is possible to recognise guilt without words, they had seen it.

"There is one left," he said. After what they had seen, and were seeing, the significance of the South African's almost professional information passed them by.

"Attend to me, canaille! You are unwounded? Is it not so?" he said, with uncanny penetration. "You have feigned death—in the hope that we should pass you by? Confess it!"

"Good!... Now listen!" continued the Frenchman. "I do not invite you to take a pistol and fight with me—because my life, such as it is, belongs not to me but to France! To France! Though I may never again fight for France, but rot in a German gaol, yet my life, such as it will be, belongs to France, and if I throw it lightly away I waste that which is the property of France. So,—I do not fight you. I execute you!"

The man rose, stiffly, like an automaton, and the Frenchman shot him through the heart then and there...

"Because of the little hole in Fleurette's forehead!" he said—for he was French.

Carey slowly took back his revolver. It was characteristic of the man that mechanically he reloaded it at once.

The Frenchman addressed Mr. Bunn. "Tell me—where is Fleurette?" Smiler Bunn took him to a corner of the hut and pointed...

When Mr. Bunn returned, clutching a bundle of clothing, the Brigade were discussing the feasibility of burying the hound patrol.

But Mr. Bunn was in a strange and bitter and implacable mood. He had seen, as some of them had not, Fleurette's beautiful face, and the bullet hole in her forehead.

"Bury them?" he said. "Not with my consent! Do you know the sort of men they are? I bury no more Prussians! Let them rot!"

And so he turned back to the hut, followed quietly by his henchman, Sing Song, to prepare for the continuation of their journey.

CHAPTER X. — THE SALAMANDERS

THEY gave the French officer, one Major Fleury, as long as they dared for the sleep which it was imperative he should have, but four hours was all he would take. He knew, as well as, if not better than, they, the perils of delay. So that it still lacked an hour of noon when, once again they set out northwards.

When they started, the Frenchman had not yet quite recovered himself. For a little he would walk with them quite silently, then, suddenly, he would burst into low, rapid mutterings,—maledictions against Germany, for the most part, Sweern whispered to Mr. Bunn—and once he stopped to shake his fist savagely, first eastward, then to the west, his face convulsed. But gradually he steadied himself. He muttered no more. He seemed to cool into a set dangerous calm—as the blade of a dagger cools under the armourer's hand...

They strode on, quickly, almost mechanically reconnoitring every turn of the forest track, before rounding it—like outlaws or hunted beasts.

And this was as well, for when, quite abruptly, the track ran out into a metalled road, narrow, and evidently not a main road, Mirza Khan, who happened to be leading, peered round and stopped short. He slid back to the group.

"There iss German military motor-cyclist close att hand, making arrangements with hiss engine!" he said softly.

Mr. Bunn's brows knitted slightly as he thought it over, but the Frenchman did not wait for his decision. He stole forward, cat-like, and glared out from behind a clump of cover, nodded swiftly and then, on tip-toe, darted out.

The Bunn Brigade raced round the corner just in time to see him take a flying leap at the German who was bending over a motor bicycle. This one heard the footsteps of the Frenchman and writhed back with a snarl of surprise, clawing for his pistol. But he was too late. Fleury was on him before he could raise the weapon, and they went down into the grass at the side of the road together, like two wrestlers. The arm and pistol hand of the German emerged, as it were, from the struggle, but the Frenchman's left hand was locked on that forearm, just below the wrist, and his right was clenched on the German's throat. It was odd to see how the right wrist of the man underneath tried to turn the pistol inwards—like a wasp that turns its body in to stab something under it. But the Frenchman, fighting silently with an incredible fury, kept the pistol-arm straight up, pointing to the sky. It was all very blurred and swift, and it was Sing Song who settled it. He darted in like a yellow snake, as the struggling men rolled over, and stabbed swiftly, his arm curving downwards. The German groaned and relaxed.

Fleury rose and checked the Chinaman as he bent over to draw the long horn-handled knife from where Sing Song had planted it—to the hilt at a spot where the neck of the unfortunate motor-cyclist joined his shoulder. It was a knife which the Chinaman had found at the hut of the wood-cutter.

"No, no—pardon me," said the Frenchman. "Do not remove the blade yet. I desire his clothes—and if you take away the knife he will bleed."

In a few hasty words Fleury explained his plan and, within a minute, the motor cycle and the dead man were off the road, and in the cover of the woods.

It was grim work, but grim work had become a commonplace in the life they were now living, so that within less than a half-hour from the moment when Mirza Khan had first sighted the German, the Major had transformed himself into a German military motor-cyclist complete.

He was, it appeared, an expert motor mechanic, and by the time Sing Song, who had volunteered for the work, had stripped the dead German, the Major had put the engine trouble right. A few minutes later he had put on the motor-cyclist's uniform, run through his papers, which contained nothing of value but a cipher message, and was balancing astride of the machine as he said farewell to the Bunn Brigade.

He intended working his way round the south-west and making a dash through the German lines. Once, during the preparations, he had hesitated. But that was only because he had felt a twinge of regret at leaving behind the German lines the little group of adventurers who had treated him so well.

"I have a feeling that I desert you—" he said. But Mr. Bunn had quickly reassured him.

"Don't let that worry you, Major," he had replied, cordially. "There's only one grid—" he referred to the motor-bicycle—"and I don't suppose there's another petrol-sharp, except Sing Song perhaps, in the bunch who could ride it. I'm damned sure that if I started to straddle my way home on that animated rat-trap, it would have me down on the mat fighting for my life before I'd got half a mile. And, anyway, you're an experienced military man—which none of us are—and I don't doubt that they need your kind the other side of the German line more than they do us. No, sir, only one can go, and everything points to you as the prize-winner—ability, inclination and duty. And good luck go with you! Ain't that right, my lads?"

"Sure—sure!" The "lads" were unanimous. The Frenchman started his engine. "Gentlemen! I shall be forever grateful—for your many kindnesses—" he began, but Mr. Bunn stopped him.

"No, nothing—except to put a new heart into a broken man," said the Frenchman, shook hands all round, and with a final "Adieu" rode away.

The Bunn Brigade never saw nor heard of him again. Since the beginning of their journey there had been many like that—men, and women too, who had been whirled into their lives from whence they did not know, and, after a little, had gone again to a destination or fate equally unknown to the Bunn Brigade, and to themselves. They came and went, like autumn leaves whirling along before the breeze in some mad and meaningless dance—tragic, macabre, useless. It was war...

Nightfall found the Bunn Brigade resting in an outhouse upon an abandoned farm, hollowly exchanging congratulations upon the really remarkable distance they had contrived to travel that day—quite uneventfully, after the episode of the German motor-cyclist.

With them, of course, was their eternal companion, Hunger and his intimate friend and ally Fatigue, but even Mr. Bunn and ex-Lord Fortworth were rapidly losing the habit of commenting upon the presence of these discomforts. To-night Fatigue was in the ascendant. Hence, with the sole exception of Sing Song, that human lynx, the little company, having equally divided the few bundles of straw which the outhouse contained were sprawling in various attitudes denoting a desire for rest. Sing Song was prowling somewhere round about, probably in search of the hen roost.

That he did not find an inhabited hen roost was abundantly clear when presently, like a yellow-faced phantom he slid soundlessly into the outhouse, and unerringly picking out Mr. Bunn in the gloom, went quickly across to him.

"Zeppeelin aleship, mastel. Bin bloken—come down close to this place. Engine tlouble and a plopellel shaft gone long. Plentee Gelmans mending by electric light in galden of big house—castle—not velly fal off!"

"Hear that?" he asked. "A Zeppelin's come down close to here, and they're mending her by electric light in the grounds of some castle or other. What about it?"

"Two—thlee minutes to go," replied the Chink. Fortworth sat up, with a considerable access of agility.

"Thiss iss decidedlee not correct place for us to pass thee evening, sars!" remarked Mirza Khan, with decision.

"No. But before we make up our minds which way we shall bolt for it we'd better take a look at these airship toughs!" said Smiler. "Are there many of them, Sing?"

The Chinaman was uncertain. He had not seen many,—forty or so, perhaps a few more. He had noticed that the Zeppelin was moored with a complete network of ropes, and under a couple of hastily erected arc-lights they were working like demons of the pit. Sing Song explained that he had not stayed long enough to see many details. There were sentries, he said, and he wished to acquaint his master with his discovery before approaching too closely. Now that he had done so, he was ready and willing to reconnoitre if necessary up to the very shadow of the great airship.

"You want to regard yourself more as a pointer than a retriever, my lad," said Smiler, severely. "Lead on, and don't forget to point in time!"

They had left the dense woods behind and were in a hilly district, timbered in patches, with broad, shallow valleys running between, and it was up one of these valleys that they were proceeding.

Almost immediately they saw the flare of the arc-lights which, although shaded overhead by wide, hastily constructed shades of canvas stretched upon wooden frames, drove a fierce bluish-white light down upon the scene of the German mechanics' labours. There was a clump of tall trees between them and the Zeppelin but occasionally, as they stole forward, they caught a glimpse of the upper part of the great craft, gleaming silvery-grey under the electric glare. They could hear faintly a clink of hammers.

A little further round to the right, higher up on the hillside, reared the bulk of the castle—a great pile, looming dark against the last fading greenish-lemon streaks of the sunset. It was ablaze with lights—lit up like a big hydro at the hour when people are dressing for dinner.

There was a daunting sense of the "bigness" of things upon the spirits of the indomitable Bunn Brigade. Tonight everything was on the huge scale—the castle, packed, as they guessed it to be, with Germans, rioting upon the supplies and luxuries there; the great, gleaming airship held down between the two long sloping hillsides; the faint hum of activity from behind the trees and the number of men which, obviously, were at work or on guard there. It was all big—at any rate to the little gang of six tired, half starved outlaws who were advancing upon it all, without any idea of what they purposed doing beyond looking for the safest and quickest route past to the north.

There was not one of them who had not already thrilled with the wild hope of finding an opportunity of destroying the Zeppelin, but, equally, the commonsense of each man of them had choked down the crazy hope as quickly as it was born.

If they were able to get past without a gigantic detour they would be lucky—and that was about all they could expect to do.

They stole to the edge of the trees in Indian file like a procession of shadows, and there held a hasty whispered discussion, which resulted in Sing Song, Carey and Mirza Khan gliding off, each in a different direction to do a little preliminary scouting.

Mr. Bunn and Fortworth were to scout straight on through the tree clump, and Sweern was to wait where he was, whither as quickly as possible they would return. There was nothing definite in their plan, beyond an attempt to see how they stood...

It was a lonely half hour that Sweern spent there—the loneliest the little Dutch guide had ever known. He knew that within a hundred yards of him, and quite possibly, much less, were a ring of armed sentries, each so to speak, with his finger crooked round a trigger ready to pour a stream of lead towards the first suspicious sound in the darkness—and for the hundredth time he marvelled at the recklessness of these mad Englishmen, the equally mad Indian, and, especially, the superlatively mad Chinaman, who seemed deliberately to bite at danger more eagerly than a hungry fish at a baited hook in an odorous Amsterdam canal. But if it was nerve-racking for Sweern, he knew that it was even more so for the five "scouts" of the party as they went worming through the darkness to see anything that might be visible. Even if he had not known it then and all the time, the low whispers of Messieurs Bunn and Fortworth, who returned first, would have convinced him.

He gathered from them, and the others as one by one they came in, that the Zeppelin was roped down upon the great lawn of the castle, with a line of sentries at each side of it and a machine gun at each end. There was a wide space kept clear all round it, and it would have been a matter of sheer impossibility for any living thing to have crossed that space to approach the Zeppelin without being seen at once.

There were about fifty men working on the big war-machine and many others in the castle. Mirza had gleaned from the muttered remarks of two of the sentries, also, that the worst of the damage was repaired, and if the weather kept calm the airship might get away at dawn, en route for her shed near Cologne. She had been lightly hit by a fragment of shrapnel over Paris, and had been compelled to come down before she could get back to Germany.

Sing Song, who had circled completely round the huge craft and her ring of sentries had returned, via the darker parts of the gardens—once he had passed under the very walls of the castle itself—reported that there were no sentries in the gardens, though there was one at each door of the main building.

So they pooled the results of their perilous prowling—but, face to face with the total, found that if they hoped to get past this breakdown, they must back clean out of the valley and cross the northern ridge a mile east of the castle.

Mr. Bunn was reluctant to agree, though he admitted readily that it was the only way out.

"What sticks in my gizzard," he whispered, "is letting this Zeppelin get away with it. I suppose there's nothing much else to do, but it's fierce to have to quietly fade away like this. If we had a few sticks of dynamite we might beat 'em—"

"Sure!" hissed his partner, Fortworth, sardonically, "Or a few sticks of liquorice we might eat 'em! Come away, Flood, there's nothing doing in miracles to-night—What's that?"

He started violently, as the dark figure of Sing Song who had been couching close by, suddenly glided a few paces, and leaped like a springing animal. It landed on something that sounded soft—something that gasped—a dark shadow that rolled over and over. For a few seconds the Brigade, with starting eyes, watched the writhing shadows struggle in absolute silence, and then, as they all closed in, lay still.

Mr. Bunn craned over. Peering, he caught the gleam of a pair of eyes gazing up from the ground.

"A man, mastel—coming cleeping along allee same snake—" muttered Sing Song, astride of the man he had captured.

"Ah! Good lad!" Smiler thrust his face close to that of the listener, and that one felt suddenly the chill steel ring of a pistol muzzle pressing against his ear.

"Feel that, you!" snarled Mr. Bunn, in a low and deadly whisper. "And be quiet. Whisper when you speak—or you'll never speak again! Who are you—and what do you want?"

A swift whisper rose from the ground as the prisoner replied. He spoke French—and Mr. Bunn, who had expected German, felt easier.

"What's he driving at, Sweern?" said Mr. Bunn. He did not remove the cold-lipped pistol muzzle from the man's ear.

There was a swift confusion of unintelligible whispering, and Sweern turned to the craning heads that ringed them in.

"French—he is young French gentleman. He is the nephew boy being with lady of this castle. He has a hatred appalling to all Germans, and I am well able to guarantee by his accent that he is a perfectly pure Frenchman in his nationality."

Again the quick whispers darted and entangled in a further flurry of hissing French.

"Ease up a morsel then, Sing. You needn't flatten him," whispered Smiler. "Now, Sweern."

Sing Song's captive was one Raoul de Fancourt, a nephew of the old Countess de Fancourt, of the castle—pure French though she lived in Belgium. He was visiting her when the war broke out and being exempt from military service on account of a withered left forearm, had been at the castle ever since. Several times the Germans had temporarily billeted themselves on the Castle, but as it lay wide of any main route into France they had not been very seriously troubled until the Zeppelin had been grounded in the valley, and a body of military mechanics and engineers, escorted by a number of Uhlans had been hurriedly flung into the valley to help the airship crew. These had promptly turned the Castle into a drinking den. They worked hard when they were working, but in their spells off,—and some of the officers seemed to do nothing but enjoy spells off—they devoted them to the peculiarly German war-arts of drunkenness and devastation. Fortunately, the old Countess, who remembered the war of '70, had long before sent her women-servants into France—ahead of the advancing German armies, so that, with the exception of one lady's-maid, as grey and old as the Countess herself, the Germans found only a few old men serving the Countess.

The boy Raoul had kept carefully clear of the inrush of ruffians, spending his time in a little secret chamber—one of many relics of the middle ages in that great and ancient pile—which he had long used as his den. He had a taste for things mechanical, and a knowledge beyond his years. He understood quite a good deal about explosives—only his withered arm had kept him from following his father and many ancestors before him into the French Army—and it was down there to his little underground den, buried away among the foundations of the castle, that he would retreat, at the Countess' orders, whenever the Castle was polluted with a new rush of the Prussian and Bavarian vermin from across the Rhine.

There, solitary and subterrene as a hunted rat, using the secret room, and many hidden passages, runways and inlets, the boy had lived through the irregular periods of German occupation. But he had not been idle. The little chamber which only a few months before had been a boy's play-room had abruptly changed from a play-room to a workshop. Raoul de Fancourt had grown up suddenly. The "plant" which had helped him make in times of peace his model yachts, railways, and mended his rook rifle, small-bore shot-gun, made his traps, and so forth, had taken on a greater importance. With dynamite obtained from an old quarryman, not far away and visited at night, the boy had made bombs. Not toy bombs—but effective, dangerous things, laboriously, and perhaps a little clumsily, constructed out of short lengths of heavy, rusty, four-inch cast-iron piping, with a home-made percussive action, and crammed with dynamite. And when, as had happened on the previous day, the Countess, her heart, if not her spirit broken at the savage, wanton swinishness of the German horde, had taken to her bed, Raoul had conceived his plan.

A painful and dangerous journey from his deep den by hidden alley-ways to the great bedroom, via a secret door in its ancient panelling, had convinced him that his aunt's hours were numbered, and he had decided that, when she died, he would use his bombs—some for the Zeppelin, some for the big banqueting-hall which was the officers' favourite rendezvous. He had come out by a secret passage under the garden with an outlet under an old broken stone figure in a corner of a shrubbery, to reconnoitre the Zeppelin, when he had nearly crawled into the Bunn Brigade and had been captured by Sing Song.

That was the story swiftly gasped to Sweern and from Sweern to Mr. Bunn, in the darkness.

"Right! Tell him we are English and will help him," he said. "And ask him if he'll take us to his den."

Five minutes later, through a man-hole disclosed by twisting the broken garden statue round upon a cunningly hidden pivot, the Bunn Brigade were crawling, deep underground, along a passage, little larger than a big drain, to the workshop and den of the French boy.

It needed no more than a glance at the little stone chamber to disclose to the Bunn Brigade that the boy had mechanical tastes. It was, indeed, a tiny workshop—not devoid of a certain comfort, for there was a fireplace, and a bed stood along one wall.

Raoul de Fancourt was revealed in the light of an oil lamp as a slender youth, dark, extremely pale, with extraordinarily black, burning eyes. Evidently, the events of the past few weeks had worked him up to a fearful tension.

Mr. Bunn realized this, and in normal times would have gone out of his way quietly to soothe and slacken a little the too-highly keyed nervous strain under which the French boy was living. But—not now. This was war-time, and the higher the nerves of the enemies of those who were labouring so desperately upon the great murder-craft were keyed up the better...

It is worthy of note that of all the remarkably varied personalities with which the Bunn Brigade had clashed since they began their retreat from Germany, not one of these impressed them to the extent which this pallid, black-haired youth did. He was so obviously capable—and, equally obviously, was in such a condition of icy, implacable fury against all Germans that, as Mirza Khan put it along afterwards, the blend of chill sinister intent and ability was what he might look for in a king-cobra, the deadly hamadryad—but not in one who was little more than a schoolboy.

But it was many a long year since Mr. Bunn or any of his retinue had met any personality which did not, so to speak, rebound from their experience-toughened gutta-percha hides and, consequently, young de Fancourt, in spite of the hallmarks of a tragic destiny upon his marble face, was treated in the friendly, man-to-man style which Smiler used to all comers.

"Well, Mr. de Fancourt, let's have a look at the bombs, anyhow," was Mr. Bunn's first remark as they filed into the stone chamber.

Raoul disclosed then the fact that although in the confusion of his capture he used French he was as much at home in English as in French, by answering in rather better English than Mr. Bunn's.

"Immediately, sir—they are in this box!" He opened a big box of polished wood and took out one of a number of the cylinders it contained, handling it with something of the affectionate care with which all good craftsmen handle the products of their skill.

"Oh, yes, Monsieur. It is full of excellent dynamite. Old Pierre, the quarryman, tried at first to persuade me to use the common blasting powder, but I insisted on dynamite. It is a percussive bomb—Monsieur understands, of course. To drop it would be—serious. I have been able to arrange the—the—I think the English word is 'nipples'—the projecting points of steel piping— round the bomb so that no matter at what angle it falls a pin (the pins are made of common nails, a most happy thought, Monsieur, is it not?) bedded lightly against a rubber band or collar—is driven in, explodes a percussion cap—and, naturally, the dynamite. And the walls of the bomb are filed slightly in squares—you will have noticed that—so that the bomb should burst in the manner of a grenade—flying in many fragments."

Mr. Bunn turned the heavy, spiky thing over, respectfully—very respectfully—and finally passed it to Carey, the revolver expert, who was eyeing it with a keen and professional interest.

"And you made that bomb—a boxful of 'em, in fact—all by yourself with one hand, Monsieur?" queried Smiler, admiringly. "Well, let me tell you, my lad, that it's a fine bit of work—fine!"

The youth flushed slightly with pleasure and surprise. Capable himself, he had recognised that he was in contact with capable men.

"They're good bombs," was the South African's curt comment. "A couple, or even one, would make a mess of that Zeppelin. The casing's thick cast iron and they each hold enough dynamite to wreck a cottage."

They drew together for the council of war—a ring of grim, fierce heads, facing the young Frenchman. But before he could speak a section of the opposite wall swung back—like a door panelled with stone—and two women entered, quietly. They were old—very old, white-haired, bloodless, and, plainly, ill. Before their entry the atmosphere of that stone chamber had been one of strength, of grimness, of sinister, masculine threat and deadly intent. To that, the coming of these women added sheer tragedy—real tragedy—the tragedy of helplessness at bay against force.

"Madame!" The French boy, whiter than ever, was astounded. "But you should be resting!"

The first of the women—she was the Countess, his aunt—answered in a voice that, despite the imperiousness she strove to inflect into it, was fading—fading as palpably as her grip upon fife.

"Raoul, I am here because I cannot endure to die quietly in my bed while there is yet something to be done for France!"

Mr. Bunn, aghast at her grey pallor, hastily thrust forward a chair for her. She sat—the white-haired attendant assisting her with feeble hands.

"You spoke of—bombs that you had contrived. Show them to me—choose me two and two for Marie—for though it be my last action achieved with my last strength, I have resolved to launch them from the gallery into the hall among the soulless barbarians carousing there!"

It was the voice of a dying woman but for all that there was a phantom ring of authority and resolve in it.

Of the Bunn Brigade the Countess took no notice at all. It was as though she did not see them, and may well have been really so. Her dim eyes clung to her nephew.

"You have ventured to traverse the secret passages—the long stairway—for this," he said.

The boy hesitated—it was so impossible. He glanced at Mr. Bunn, who nodded sharply, jerking his thumb towards the box of bombs.

Raoul understood. He took a bomb, swiftly withdrew the firing pins, in case of accident, and offered it to the Countess.

"Take care, Madame—it is heavy!" he said. She raised her hands to it—two thin, veined, withered, pitifully feeble and tiny hands—and tried to take the ugly, iron thing. Raoul did not relinquish his hold upon it but allowed a little, the merest fraction, of its weight to rest upon her hands.

They sank beneath it as wild flowers of the wood sink beneath a falling tree trunk. Her strength was gone—gone.

"There are none?" murmured the Countess, and sat mute for a second. Then—"Marie," she said, "Put me to bed—to die! I can do nothing."

They placed her upon the little bed that Raoul used, and she died there without speaking again—almost instantly. The old attendant knelt beside the bed, her face buried in her hands...

The seven men drew dumbly in together again, with the eyes of madmen. They were not conscious of rage nor of sorrow—for they were past that. They were fey now—fanatics, but cold as ice, controlled as machines.

Almost without words their plan took form—it seemed magically to shape itself.

Raoul and Mirza Khan were to bomb the great, packed hall—and Mr. Bunn, Fortworth, Sing Song, Carey and Sweern were to try for the Zeppelin. Around the great hall ran a gallery, which could be reached by a secret flight of steps from the stone chamber. Raoul and Mirza would operate from two different points of this gallery. Outside Sing Song and Mr. Bunn would attack, if necessary, the machine gun crew at one end of the Zeppelin, and Fortworth and Sweern that at the other end—then-attack to follow up the momentary distraction which the explosions in the castle would inevitably bring to the airship sentries. One of each pair would engage himself with the gun crew, the other try for the Zeppelin. Carey was to pick off the arc-lights, and, this done, join Sing Song and Sweern.

It was the plan of men who expected to be dead within five minutes of its launching... but, equally, it was a plan that made grimly certain of a fearful blood-toll upon the barbarians. Afterwards, any who survived were to go back down to the valley to the outhouse from which the Bunn Brigade had come.

They divided up the bombs—there were enough there to lift the Castle from its foundations, if they could have been placed for that purpose. They had two each.

They shook hands, without farewells other than a muttered "Good luck," and, from the partners, a last word to their ally of old time, Mirza Khan. But the stone chamber held yet one spur for them, though not a man of them needed it. Raoul, bending gently over the kneeling maid of his aunt, discovered that she, too, was dead. It was as though, with the passing of her life-long mistress, she had been able simply and of set purpose to relinquish her hold upon life.

As she had died so they left her—upon her knees, by the bedside of the Countess.

Then, softly as tigers leaving their lair, and far more dangerous, the men vanished into the runways...

The five who made for the open, via the pivoted statue in the garden, had twenty minutes' grace in which to manoeuvre themselves into the best positions for their attack.

Within a quarter of an hour—a period of nerve-racking creeping, crawling and edging in—Mr. Bunn and Sing Song were lying flat on the ground just within a dense blackness of shadows beyond the rim of fierce steel-blue illumination flung by the arc-lights. Not six yards from them lounged the three sentries with the machine gun. Some ten yards farther down stood another sentry, and so, at intervals, to the far end of the towering bulk of the airship. The Castle lights were shut out completely by the mighty machine under its maze of mooring ropes that seemed to quiver incessantly as though holding down some vast live thing which never ceased deliberately to test the strength of its bonds.

The clinking of tools came out from the forward engine room, without cessation, and far away down under the swollen side, men were working upon a staging built up to one of the giant propellers. It was not easy to see these, for they were partly in the shadow.

From somewhere far away on the other side of the giant airship the watchers heard the sound of a working motor—probably the source of the current for the lights.

Side by side Mr. Bunn and his henchman crouched, marking their men, and waiting for the double signal—the crash of the bombs from the castle, and the reports of Carey's revolver as he smashed the arc-lights...

Faintly, from far-off, the notes of a piano came at intervals, thin, tenuous, wiry at that distance—the very phantom of a melody; and once a tiny sound of remote laughter from the hall—as it were ghosts or devils laughing far away. The sounds rose and fell—only the clinking of tools from those at the propeller and the engine room, the curt, business-like voices of the workers, and the sizzling of the blazing lights went on steadily.

And then—suddenly there burst out upon the night, a rending crash that shook the soft earth upon which the watchers lay—and another—and, a fraction of a second later, another. A ruddy glow flickered and flushed across the blackness behind the Zeppelin—and then, above a dull rumbling noise as of toppling masonry, and a human screaming, a revolver cracked like a whip in the darkness—and cracked again. The lights went out so suddenly that it was as though the inky darkness had sprung upon the electric glare like a stalking beast.

Mr. Bunn and Sing Song—the Chinaman with a knife between his teeth—leaped out and swung their bombs for the Zeppelin—one after the other so swiftly that each had delivered his second before the fearful shock of their firsts had flung the two flat on the ground...

Instantly the night was filled gigantically with flame and a roaring and vast heat, from the exploding Zeppelin. It seemed to Mr. Bunn, flat on his face from his fall, that a sheet of horrible pain was laid upon his back, and he rolled over desperately. Well it was for him that he did so—and even as he writhed over his lungs filled with heated poison, and the world went out—for him. He seemed to fall face down into an ocean of seething flame and everlasting thunder... and as he lost consciousness a yelling demon, in flames from head to foot, seemed to rise up from that anguished sea of fire to seize upon him...

But the demon was Sing Song—Sing Song, himself at bitter odds with death, flinging himself to the side of Mr. Bunn... dragging him behind a fallen log.

Farther down, Fortworth and Carey had been wiser—they had fired from behind thick tree-trunks, leaving Sweern farther back in the clump—so that the great cloud of flaming smoke had swept past them, in an upward curve. Then, under a red furnace light that blazed news of the coup for miles in every direction they ran—ran like madmen for the rendezvous, extinguishing their burning clothes with wildly dabbing hands as they ran...

The great glare died down—died out—but there were many little glares. Some of the buildings round the castle, even some of the trees, were burning and from one wing of the castle fire was issuing, fire and lamentable sounds. The figures of German soldiers were to be seen running like ants, black against the glow; an officer's whistle began to shriek some incomprehensible signal; a bull-voice rose, bawling meaninglessly like a madman in pain trying to sing...

But the three men in the outhouse waited without looking at those sights, or listening to those sounds.

They were waiting for their comrades—without hope, for it had been so much more terrible than they had dreamed.

One came, reeling and panting, and, as they found when they went to him, wet with blood. It was Mirza Khan. They drew him in, prepared to tend him. But Mirza, indomitable as the rest of them, tried to laugh.

"Noa—thiss blood iss not mine!" he gasped, dazedly. "I have not one scratch—but one thousand bruises onlee! Peresently I will describe. Let me be veree quiet iff you please, sars, for short space off few minutes!"

"God! They've got him—and Sing Song. They've got him—they've got him—" he pulled up sharply.

It was Sing Song, moving slowly, bending double under the weight of the body of Mr. Bunn, which hung across the Chinaman's shoulder.

"You—taking—him—please," muttered Sing Song, and staggered to the door post, as they relieved him of his inert burden. They laid Smiler upon the straw, and while Fortworth bent over his partner, Carey turned to see what he could do for Sing Song.

But that indestructible was already coming across to see what he could do for his master. All he had needed was to get his breath again. He had been badly scorched in extinguishing his burning clothes, but had suffered nothing more serious.

Mr. Bunn, however, gave them very little trouble, for Fortworth had not done more than feel his heart when Smiler opened his eyes.

"Burnt a bit on the back—and my lungs are sore—feel sore, anyhow," said Mr. Bunn. "And I don't suppose I've got a hair left on my head!" He was still a little dazed.

Sing Song had already produced the flask from his magic bag and it went round. Then they took stock. All were there, save Raoul de Fancourt, and, except for their extensive burns, more painful than serious, none were badly injured, though every man of them but Sweern complained of pain in their lungs—evidently due to breathing the heated air caused by the exploding Zeppelin.

"How about that French boy—how did you two get on, Mirza? I never expected to see you again!" said Mr. Bunn.

"Thee boy iss dead," he said, flatly. "He leaped over gallery rail. Thatt was brave young fellow, sars. We proceeded from underground apartment up narrow stairway off hundred steps, twisting like path off snake, and peresently arrived at little door thatt opened secretlee upon gallery around gereat hall packed with Germans—all sorts, officers, and men also, at different ends. There were bottles by thousand and drunken behaviour. Raoul stationed me att gallery rail by secret door and himself crept to other end off gallery. I waited his signal—and when thatt came leaned over thee rail and pitched bombs one among crowd on thee right, one att left. Raoul threw his also and all exploded. I was flung back and badly splashed with blood from somewhere, but att same moment as I fell back I saw Raoul jump from the gallery thatt was crumbling under his feet with sword in his hand—itt was quick like a cinema film, iff you understand, sars—and after thatt I felt myself falling down—sliding head first hundreds off feet. Peresently my fallings were discontinued and I discovered myself in thee steep secret stairway we had climbed to gallery. Thee explosions had blown me back into thee doorway just behind me and I had slid down, sars, until curve off wall interpolated itself abruptly across my course. So... I pulled myself completely together, and continued down to stone apartment, and from thatt place traversed again subterrene passage under garden, and out off thee secret exit under statue."

"Assuredlee! He was too brave to save himself. He jumped down into thatt shambles, with sword he had taken from wall off gallery!"

Mr. Bunn moved to the door of the outhouse, and stared out. The wing of the Castle in which Mirza and Raoul had operated was burning furiously, but now there was only a faint glow, as of embers, behind the tree clump which had helped shelter the Zeppelin.

"Well, we've pulled it off!" he said. "And God knows I wish the boy had won out! Though how any of us escaped being blown to rags or burnt to ashes will always be a mystery to me. Must be some new sort of salamanders, I take it! However—we'd better clear out. We certainly can't do anything else here.... We must back down the valley, make a big circle and be miles north of this place by daylight. It'll be a h—of a journey with these burns—but it's got to be done—burns or no burns!"...

CHAPTER XI. — THE CRUCIFIED MAN

THEY achieved the detour, and, their luck changing again for the better, as luck has a knack of doing with those who "stick it," they reeled off mile after mile northward through the night without encountering hindrance of any kind.

Deadly weary though they were, even at starting, they stuck to it with the grim tenacity of sheer desperation. The journey resolved itself into a delirium for each one of them. They drove themselves as they would not have driven beasts. A moon helped them immensely, though it was late in rising. Twice they circled widely to avoid big German camps, they skirted silent villages, though they did quite a big portion of the march on the roads, time after time they stepped off to allow mounted men, or motors, and once a big body of German infantry to pass.

There were queer, muttered consultations in the middle of fields, or under the edges of dark woods, but always they hammered out the same decision, to push on—while they had the chance. They were making mileage towards the Dutch frontier and, half-crazed with exhaustion and hunger though they were, they realized that now was the time to make mileage—or never. Daily the German grip tightened on the country, and unless they got out of Belgium soon they would never get out at all. So they pushed on until sleep dragged them down, in a little clearing far north of the wrecked Zeppelin, and there, for the next fifteen hours or so, kept them down, lying stone-still, flat upon their backs, with their arms flung out loosely and their legs extended, so that they looked like men drugged—or dead.

It was nearly noon when they reached the clearing and it was well past dawn of the following day when a little summer-cloud slid clear of the sun, so that a hot and dazzling shaft of light suddenly struck through a gap in the foliage of the tree under which Mr. Bunn was lying, and settled full upon his face. He jerked restlessly for a second, muttering in his sleep, then opened his eyes, glaring up. He shut them again instantly.

"Thought it was one of those damned searchlights!" he snarled, drowsily, and sat up slowly, groaning like an old man racked with rheumatism, for at the moment the fangs and talons of an all-pervading and unexpected pain clenched him horribly.

"What's all this?" he muttered, and then understood. He nodded carefully and felt himself with tender hands.

"Where I'm not singed and scorched I'm stiff and sore!" he said, with a wry and painful grin.

Mr. Bunn was not a pretty spectacle as he sat there, feeling himself cautiously and gazing round at his comrades. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and he was sorely, sorely in need of a shave. His heavy muzzle was black and bristling, and where his face was not obscured by hair it was incredibly dirty and smoke-begrimed. All the hair on the back of his head had been singed down practically to the scalp, the edges of his ears were bright red and blistered, and the colour of his swollen hands was something to shudder at. His clothes were mainly rags—and the back of his coat was charred into many holes. His boots were lamentable and he was stained with earth, dried mud and dust to the thighs.

So, for a few moments, he sat silently summing himself up. Then, drawing a deep breath—he winced at that, for the heated gasses from the exploding Zeppelin had left his lungs sore and painful—he spoke to Sing Song who was lying next to him.

In an instant the Chinaman was awake, and up. His mouth twisted slightly as he rose, and Mr. Bunn nodded with grim sympathy.

"Got yours too, have you, Sing, my son? Well, so've I. My joints are screwed together with rusty screws and they grate when I move 'em. D'ye think if I took those boots off I'd ever get 'em on again?"

The Chinaman dropped on his knees beside Mr. Bunn and began to unlace the boots.

"Yes, mastel," he said, confidently, "I gettee flesh watel bimeby, allee same bathe feet, and massage joints, make all comflabil."

He eased off the boots, while one by one the rest of the Bunn Brigade woke from their slumbers—not without groans.

"Good morning, sars!" said Mirza Khan, staring round. "I am off opinion thatt we are in peretty deplorable condition this morning! Speaking on own behalf I am seriously stiff at thee joints and the possessor of profoundlee swollen feet. Also they are perfectly red-hot!"

Lord Fortworth sat for a dour moment in heavy silence, surveying his comrades. There was nothing to choose between them in the matter of rags and mud and dirt. Finally, he looked again at his partner.

"Sore, old man, sore. I feel like a skinned cat," said Mr. Bunn. "I should—" he broke off abruptly. "Did I dream it or was it a part of that thundering nightmare that we came across a farm last night where some old vulture charged us five hundred marks in gold for a bag of food?"

"No dleam, mastel!" he said, and dragged out from a clump of undergrowth on the edge of the clearing, a big bag.

"No dream! Thank God!" said Mr. Bunn. "For I'm starved pretty near to death! But if any of you had said that it never happened I should have believed you. I—don't want another night like last night! We were like a lot of madmen—if you ask me! However, let's eat! Tip up the bag, Sing Song, my son—never mind about manners!"

Sing Song "tipped" up the bag. It was a queer mixture of things that fell out—half-a-dozen loaves of bread, sausages, two chickens, plucked but uncooked, half a ham, a perfectly shapeless chunk of butter, and a small round cheese. For this assortment they had paid five hundred marks, though not a man of them except, perhaps, Sing Song remembered the details of the transaction. Which was just as well. As a matter of simple fact there had been no bargain. An elderly farmer, arising by the light of a waning moon, long before dawn, had suddenly found himself face to face upon his own threshold, with six demons snarling for food. One of these—it was Mr. Bunn—had thrust a double handful of German gold at him, hooting words to the effect that he must sell them everything eatable in the house at his own price, and another—this was Fortworth—had backed up the request with a wicked blue-black automatic pistol, jammed remorselessly into the startled farmer's face. A yellow maniac with a knife had kept up a nerve-racking and sinister gibbering at him, too.... so that the farmer had taken the money and made great haste to sweep his shelves. Then they had vanished into a wood close by...

But though they had sought the woods with the express intention of eating there, they had not the energy left to trouble about it. They had slept even as they flung themselves down...

But now, things were otherwise. They gathered in round the food and commenced to assuage their pangs, ravenously and in silence. They ate like dogs and watched each other do so, unashamed.

"I'm an animal," said Mr. Bunn, once, through a mighty mouthful. "And shall be as long as there's any food in sight. That's what."

But, fortunately, there was enough to fill them—counting the chickens, which they ate raw, first, and openly enjoyed—and a time came when the fight of the lust of hunger died down in their eyes, and they slowed up reluctantly.

"Itt would be demanding much too much from the gods to express opinion thatt little tobacco would prove gereat comfort to men occupying our position," said Mirza Khan, wistfully.

Mr. Bunn cocked a red eye towards Sing Song—but the Chink shook his head. Even he had not been in a condition to trouble about tobacco during that nightmare with the farmer.

"Oh, well, what about it? We shall have all we want to smoke in a couple of days' time, or we shall be where smoking don't matter," said Fortworth. "For much more of this will break me up for fair. Break the lot of us up, in fact."

"Well, the best thing we can do is to clean up a bit, if we can find some water. We can't be far from the frontier now. We've covered a lot of ground the last few days, and we've kept north nearly all the time—eh, Carey?"

The haggard pistol-expert agreed, and Sweern expressed a conviction that they were very near Holland. He did not know where they were, he said, but his instinct told him that they were near the border.

"Instinct, hey, Sweern, old man? Well, we'll bank on that." A month before he would have been extremely chary of trusting to anything so vague and nebulous as an instinct for locality, but Mr. Bunn had learnt a lot in the past few weeks—and learnt it quickly and thoroughly.

So they went, painfully, in search of water, found a brook, and began to prepare themselves for a continuation of their nightmare. It took them a long time, for, as Mirza Khan had said, they were in a deplorable condition...

"Itt iss undoubtedlee scientific fact that thee camel off thee desert will stretch forth hiss neck and snuff with hiss nostrils, when he can smell thee perfume off water far away," said Mirza Khan, quietly to Mr. Bunn, when presently they laboriously started north again.

"What's that got to do with it, Mirza?" asked Mr. Bunn, naturally enough. "Camels? I don't give a damn for all the camels on earth. They ain't here, Mirza, and ain't likely to be. I'd give good money for a soft-backed easy-actioned camel if such a thing was to be had. But it ain't, Mirza. Camels are off—they're those visions—mirages, ain't it?—folk see in the desert. To us, anyway. No, Mirza, old man—cut out the camels—it's a dream."

"I was att point off observing thatt thee gallant Mister Sweern iss giving remarkably fine imitation off a camel in search off water," he said.

The little Dutchman, his eyes fixed straight ahead, was striding along like a returning exile in sight of home. Smiler watched him for a moment. Sweern, he knew, was not far from collapse, in spite of his long rest. The man's chest was not right, nor his digestion, and, like the rest of the Brigade, his feet were in a very bad and blistered condition. He had not been fit for days past. Hence the surprised nod which Mr. Bunn bestowed upon Mirza Khan after watching Sweern, who was leading, for a moment.

It was quite apparent that this sudden, confident speeding-up of Mr. Sweern had had an effect upon the worn-out Bunn Brigade at exactly the moment it was needed. They stepped out more gaily, more cheerfully. This unexpected flare-up of confidence and decision on the part of quite the weakest member of the party, and the only one in the least likely to know where he was, revived them.

"D'ye know exactly where you are, yet, Sweern? Or is it still the camel touch?" Mr. Bunn asked him once as, rather boldly, they crossed a wide stretch of flatish, open country, going from one wood to another.

"I have a very powerful idea, Monsieur," he said. "The frontier is not far. I do not possess perfectly the exact knowledge of the locality, but the frontier is not far to go. Let us make complete haste."

They did so—and as is usual with those who make haste too "completely" they almost immediately found themselves slowed up.

As they came out from the wood for which they had been aiming, they rounded a low hill, like an enormous barrow or ancient burying-place, which lay just outside the wood, running from north-west to south-east. They turned the south west corner of it and, most surprisingly, found themselves at the tail end of a little village. Until they were actually there they had not suspected it—the street or road which cut through the village, turning rather abruptly away from them, the bend being hidden by a clump of trees.

A clatter of hoofs drew his eyes down the road and he saw, galloping noisily out of the village at the other end, a small patrol of Uhlans.

"We nearly trod on the wasps' nest that time!" he said. "Though it didn't take you long to clear for action, old man!" he concluded to the lean Carey, who, as was his way, had swiftly conjured both revolvers clear of their "scabbards," at the first sight of the German troopers.

"Yes," he said, and jerked his head back, presumably indicating the district from which they had come. "The fact is, I think Sweern's right. We must be near the frontier, and I'm not going back again. I'm going to shoot my way into Holland this time or be shot. I've only got about one day's more strength left, at this rate, and there are only enough cartridges all told for one clash."

Mr. Bunn agreed with his whole heart. Looking at Sweern, he perceived, for the first time, that the South African was past middle age—and undoubtedly the oldest man of the party. He was so capable that this had not occurred to Smiler before. But now it was very plain to see. The events of the past few weeks, the lack of food, the long, incessant tramping, had had their effect on the pistol-expert. He was worn thin—so thin that his cheek-bones jutted sharply out under the stretched brown skin, like the edges of sea-shells. His cheeks were haggard, and his eyes sunken—though they still held the warning gleam that told of the unconquerable spirit of the man.

They went forward cautiously, and, the silence of the hamlet and its apparent emptiness continuing unchanged, moved, keeping clear of the middle of the road, down to the houses.

It was quite a small place, containing perhaps no more than thirty cottages, all told—and it was deadly quiet.

The Bunn Brigade proceeded slowly, peering in at the houses they passed. Compared with villages they had seen before, this one appeared to have escaped lightly, at any rate, as far as the buildings and their contents were concerned. Evidently it was a place which the German horde had passed before they realized the resistance which Belgium would make.

But even as Mr. Bunn commented on this they perceived that perhaps the barbarians from over the Rhine had not yet finished, with the little place, for a thick blue spiral of smoke suddenly went curling up through the roof of a house half way down the street—a place that was somewhat larger than the cottages near it.

"Ah! There's the German trademark!" said Mr. Bunn, in the tone of a man who has found what he has been looking for. They ran forward, into the house.

It was blazing inside, although through the smoke-billows they were able to see that the furniture was in considerable disorder.

"Is there anybody inside? Any kids, I wonder?" said Mr. Bunn, on the threshold. "Hey, Sweern, sing out in French and—what's the other—Flemish, ain't it? Do it in German, too."

Sweern called loudly, but there came no answer from behind the welter of smoke and increasing flame.

Then Sing Song who had been round to the back reported that there were people in a barn there.

It was a big barn and the doors were shut but not barred or bolted. The Bunn Brigade flung them back, and—looked upon that which the Uhlans had left behind them.

There were a dozen people, old men, women and children roped to the posts of the wall, and in the middle of the barn tied to a wooden cross shaped like an X was the body of a man—an old man, grey-bearded and bald.

His head hung forward, his chin resting on his chest, and the blood was trickling slowly from a ragged cut upon the skull. He appeared to have lost consciousness, for his body hung a dead weight upon his strained, outstretched arms, and his knees sagged out loosely.

But those that kept him company were not unconscious. A fierce clamour rose from these—all of the peasant class—as the Bunn Brigade burst in.

Mr. Bunn and Sing Song ignored them and went instantly to the crucified man, cut the ropes and lowered him gently to the ground.

Behind them Fortworth quieted the crowd of frightened women with a word and a black scowl.

The interpreter picked on the calmest of the women and spoke quickly. Her eyes lighted up and she answered, in rapid, but not panic-stricken, French.

She poured out her tale while Carey and Mirza released the others. Fortworth, watching the little Dutchman's face, broke in long before the woman had finished.

"She says that the Uhlans have gone but for a little moment and will quickly come again back to this place!" he said.

"Yes, to return! This situation of these poor people and that old man is for a little while only," explained Sweern. "The Uhlans have gone on to the house of a rich man outside end of the village for plundering it. But they will not be for many moments at that house because the owner of it has gone and his children and wife also long time ago into Holland—and taken also his money and useful things. So the Germans will find nothing to be of great value for them and will quickly come again to here. It is because of that old one."

"He is the richest man of this village, but his money and best goods he has buried and hidden away, and the Germans are angry for that. They are Uhlan patrol, and require to rob that money and goods. But the old man would not yield up the things to the Uhlans. And they beat him and kicked—but that was all the same at the end, for he refuses still to give up his store. So the Uhlans brought into this barn all these people and little childrens as you can see them and tied them up, and then they uttered the threat that they would shoot these poor ones all if the old man would still cling fast to his buried treasures. But there was no difference in that for the old man—he is, this woman says, a very iron and hard man. So the Germans nailed two woods across each and by that produced this large cross, and placed it up, and they hung this man upon it. They said to him that he must think this affair over during the space of time while they went out and robbed the big house where they are gone. Then they are coming back to this barn and they will order him for the last time to yield up his secret. If he will do it for them they have promised that all go free. But if he declines yet, then they swore oaths that they will burn down this barn and all in it—all these poor ones and little childrens, you understand, and the old man, too. Burn all. There is plenty of straw, you see that,—" Sweern waved a wild arm round indicating the contents of the barn, "straw by plenty, and the barn is made of wood also!".

"Yes. It would burn like paper," said Mr. Bunn. "If nothing happens to spoil their plans!" He turned to his Chinaman.

"Sing, my son, slip out and keep watch for these Uhlans. Don't let 'em spot you, and don't wait too long before warning us."

The Bunn Brigade grinned a little. They were accustomed to greater odds. As they had long ago discovered, these cavalry patrols varied considerably in strength.

"Seven, hey—that's the best news to-day. It might have been twenty. We'll make it a surprise for them. It's simpler and quicker and safer that way. Ask how far we are from the frontier, Sweern."

"We've almost done it!" said Mr. Bunn, quietly. "You'd better join Sing Song, Carey, old man—Mirza, too! We can't afford to make any mistakes."

"God help the man that gets between us, and the frontier now!" said Smiler, turned suddenly upon the greybeard, lying close by, bent down and looked at him narrowly.

Smiler studied the face of the local plutocrat, and, white though it was, and suffering though its owner was, Mr. Bunn saw that it was the face of a hard and dour and ruthless old man. Under the sparse grey beard was a strong, stubborn chin, and the grey hair did not completely ambush thin, straight inflexible lips. Little, sunken eyes, cunning even now, stared coldly up at Mr. Bunn, and Smiler, experienced in men as he was, realized that this was a money-fanatic—a miser—one of the icy, remorseless, obstinate ones whose grip upon his gold was like the grip of the Scythe-Bearer himself. Probably, he had been for years the local money-lender.

Mr. Bunn pondered a moment, then beckoned a little girl of perhaps five, who was holding on to the skirts of the young woman who had explained the situation to Sweern.

"Come along, my pretty, come along,—come along!" said Sweern, with an awkward fatherliness. It sounded rather as though he were trying to coax a cat or a pup or a goat. "Come along, then, my pretty!" Smiler Bunn was more at home with a well-cooked entrecôte Mirabeau than with babies.

But she was not afraid of him, and came readily enough. With a great arm round the little one, holding her gently, Mr. Bunn turned to the old man.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said through Sweern, "do you mean to tell me that you would have let those Prussian swine burn a little thing—a pretty little innocent thing like this little kid—and all her little pals, and the others,—sooner than part up with your dirty money, you thundering Shylock?"

"I am willing to give my own life defending my own property—the labour of years," he mumbled.

"And who the hell cares about your life, if that's the sort of man you are?" demanded Smiler, suddenly in an ugly and dangerous mood, unconsciously holding the little one in a tighter grip. "It's nearly over, anyway—you've pretty well had your whack—ten score years and three, ain't it? You want to read your Bible.... But you are going to dig up that cash—though it won't go to the Germans. It will go to me—me and my partner here!" He indicated Fortworth, who stared.

"And d'ye want to know what we're doing with it? We're going to split it up in shares—fair shares—between these people that you'd have let burn before you parted up. And if you refuse you are going back on that cross, and we'll leave the Germans to find you—and finish you! Now, make up your mind, and let's have the answer!"

The deepset cunning little eyes of the old man searched first the face of Mr. Bunn, then that of ex-Lord Fortworth.

"Listen to me," said Smiler—he was strangely moved, and in his voice was a note that seemed to his listening partner to reflect all the pain and grief and anger he had known since the beginning of their wanderings—"If you were one of the crowd—just an ordinary one without anything buried—we would have helped you as freely as we shall help these others—and the little ones. But you aren't. You've burned your soul with your damned money—and we're going to dig it up for you! Old? Of course you're old! What about it? What do you stand to lose if they kill you? One year of life—two years—as much as three years, perhaps. Three years of miserable ha'penny-snatching, gutter-scraping life! That's you, Fist-in-the-Grave! And what would these stand to lose—for sake of your buried money? These? This little girl here? One year—or sixty—or more? Look at her eyes, damn your soul—blue—blue little eyes—and pretty. Look at her—what's she worth? Price her, you vampire! Price her! You never had—you never will have her value in money! And she is only one of many. And these women, too! What have they done that makes them worth less than your hoard? And you'd have let them burn—suffer—"

"Easy, easy!" counselled the grim Fortworth, a little startled at the rage in Mr. Bunn's voice, and not quite realising the sudden unwonted emotion which the touch of the little nestling body in his arm had awakened in him.

"Easy—sure!" Mr. Bunn controlled himself to a calm that was deadlier even than his rage.

"Now—answer! Quick! Refuse and I'll nail you on to that cross with my own hands!"

The grey-beard cried out at something he saw in Smiler's eyes, and Sweern gabbled desperately to Mr. Bunn that the man agreed. "Good!" said Smiler. "Good!" He pulled the little one to him and kissed her clumsily with the pathetic clumsiness of a childless man.

"Now run along to your mamma, my dear," he said, and turned to his partner, bringing his big automatic pistol from his pocket as he turned.

He spoke over his shoulder from the barn door—"You wait here, Sweern, and keep 'em quiet!"

Outside the others were ready, staring from their cover down the road by which the Uhlans would return.

"We'll let them get well inside the yard," said Mr. Bunn. "And shoot them like the dogs they are!"

A strange hush settled down upon that place—the Bunn Brigade were there, waiting and ready, but there was no sign of them. From the barn no sound came—it was as if the huddling people inside held their breaths—waiting.

A faint stamping of hoofs, a far-off jingle, and a sound of voices came to the ambushed men, and a minute or so later the Uhlans, big, confident men, rode into the yard—seven of them.

They seemed furiously angry and very much in the humour for the things they had come to do.

They reined in with a clatter, and as they did so Carey's revolvers crashed out across the narrow yard.

There was a hoarse bellow of surprise, drowned instantly in the ragged volley of pistol-shots that followed. Through it, the slightly heavier reports of the South African's large-calibre Colts thudded with swift mechanical regularity.

The firing stopped abruptly, and the Bunn Brigade rushed out to the heads of the startled, rearing horses.

It was finished... but for sake of the children none of the people were permitted to leave the barn until the Bunn Brigade, having first secured the horses, had carried the dead into an outhouse close by.

"Right. Just see if any of these people want to cross the frontier with us?" (How he proposed to achieve that crossing, Mr. Bunn had, as yet, no idea.)

But Sweern, it seemed, had already questioned them. They were all going to cross the frontier into Holland now. There was an old secret way—something to do with smuggling, Sweern believed. Most of the villagers had already used it. These were just those old men, women and children who had remained there till the last, waiting till their sons or husbands and fathers came back from the fighting. If they ever came back.

"Well, Sweern, that's a load off my mind, anyway!" he said, and went on into the barn.

The greybeard had changed. No doubt the sound of the killing outside had opened his eyes—and mind—and heart. He had dug up a big parcel of gold coins and Mr. Bunn was amazed to discover that he was busily counting it out into little piles of about equal size.

"You must have been," said Mr. Bunn without cordiality. "And you can thank God we blew in when we did!" He hesitated. Then—"Well, forget it," he said. "Say no more about it—it's a good thing to forget."

He called Sweern and the money was divided among the people as he had said it should be.

"Tell them we wish 'em good luck, Sweern, and advise them to get over the frontier as soon as they can. It's dangerous now, this place—asking for trouble to stay here!"

Sweern did so, and, after a clamour of thanks, the people melted away, the old man with them, until only two remained—the little girl whom Smiler had held and her mother.

"Monsieur would like some one who knows the secret way over the frontier to guide him?" asked the woman.

They turned the horses loose again and buried the bodies of the Uhlans in a shallow grave hastily dug in the soft soil of a field just beyond the barn—giving themselves that labour not through any tenderness for Germans, dead or alive, but in order to save the village from being burnt, as it certainly would be if the bodies were found there.

Then, working swiftly, they threw earth upon the stains in the yard, and assured themselves that no trace of the killing save the burnt house, remained.

CHAPTER XII. — "GERMANY ALL OVER—DOWN AND OUT—"

THEY went quickly across the fields, guided by the Belgian woman. Presently Sweern, who had been conferring with her, darted back to Mr. Bunn, enthusiastically indicating a wood some way ahead. Half of that wood, he said, was in Belgium and half in Holland. Mr. Bunn listened, nodding.

"Good," he said. "Good. The only grouch I've got about it, Sweern, my son, is that we're the wrong side of the wrong half, and the sooner we ooze into the right half the better I shall be pleased. That's what. For I've had enough of Belgium under the Germans to last me a lifetime and longer. Give me the Holland side of the frontier these days, and I'll show you a picture of a gentleman streaking it for England at a forty mile an hour clip. Ain't that right, my dear?"

He was carrying in his arms the little five year-old girl of the Belgian woman. But the child was tired and only smiled drowsily.

"All right, my dear, don't worry about conversation if you don't want to," he said. "Go to sleep if you like. No German bogey-men are going to get you. Hey, Sing Song?"

"Not getting if mastel says not getting." He tapped the haft of a big sheath knife which he had stolen from somewhere. "Allee same getting knife slippee in libs, mastel!"

"That'll do them, old sword-swallower!" said Smiler, cheerfully—more cheerfully, indeed, than he had spoken for many days. They walked in silence for a few moments; then Mr. Bunn indicated Fortworth, who was walking in front with Carey and Mirza Khan.

"There goes a hungry man, Sing Song! Same as me!" he said, with an immense sigh and a shake of the head. "But we'll make all that good when we get back to England. D'you reckon you'll be up to turning out the class of cooking you used to, my lad? Or d'you reckon you've lost your delicate touch?"

"Ha! Good lad! Going to make up for lost time, hey? Well, so am I, Sing, so am I. Cook better than ever, hey? I'm not kicking if you can—but I'll be satisfied if you can't. After the ash-barrel, dust-heap stuff I've eaten the last few weeks, anything good will satisfy me. I'll tell you what, my lad—one of the first things we'll have shall be a good red mullet à la Niçoise. That'll be the friendly thing to the French—sort of a compliment—and it will be damned good after cart-horse à la cart! That's it. We'll remember that, Sing, my son. You manage that and your salary gets doubled. That's what. I'll look after you, my son, and don't you forget it! And we'll let a purée of game kind of lead the way for the mullet. Potâge St. Hubert—God bless him! That was a saint worth while—Hubert. Knew all about soup, Hubert did, hey, Sing? But we'll settle all that later on. We'll see what they can do for us in Holland, first."

Mr. Bunn knitted his brows, in an effort to remember something. Then his face cleared suddenly as he recalled it.

"We might as well pay the Dutch a bit of a compliment, too, while we're there. And so we'll try that Pôtage Reine Wilhelmine. D'ye know it, Sing? I don't remember that we ever had it in the old days, but I'd got it marked down for an early turn, when the war broke out—it's a chicken puree, thickened with a mixture of rice and egg-yolk and cream—and you use asparagus points and julienne strips of cooked carrots and truffles for your garnish. Nothing the matter with that, Sing Song. Make a good compliment to Queen Wilhelmina and Sweern, too, won't it?... What's up? What are they stopping for?"

"Thee kind lady-guide strongly advocates further procedure by means off single file," said Mirza Khan, beaming.

The Belgian woman looked at her little one, asleep in Smiler's arms, and asked Mr. Bunn to take the second place in the procession. But Carey swung to the front.

"She says that a patrol sometimes passes pretty close to the quarry where this tunnel is, and I think I'd better go first. She can guide from behind me. There's about half a dozen cartridges left—and it would do me good to meet that patrol," said the South African, his grey eyes ablaze. Now that they were so near the freedom that awaited them in neutral Holland they were all oddly quiet—but, as the everlasting hard glare in their sunken eyes showed, it was the tense quiet of immensely excited and keyed-up men, prepared to take Death by the beard rather than fall back an inch.

"Right. Get to it, then," said Smiler. "It's all right, my dear,—I'll mind baby," he added reassuringly to the Belgian woman. Then they entered the wood.

There was no pathway. Smiler learned from the woman, as they went quickly through the undergrowth, that it was an understood thing among those who used the tunnel—from both sides of the frontier—that even though it might involve a long detour from the mouth of the quarry, there must never be left any beaten track. Mr. Bunn did not know what questions of customs and taxation were involved in ordinary times to render this secret run-way so valuable to smugglers, nor did he care sufficiently to ask. It satisfied him to know that it was there and he wished the man who bored it all the luck in the world—and said so...

The woods were very still and the Bunn Brigade moved as quietly as they could—an art they had studied recently in a severe school. But the matter went smoothly enough. They neither saw nor heard any sign of the patrol of which the woman had spoken—indeed they encountered nothing but an occasional furtive bird, and presently they reached a place of dense undergrowths.

"Here!" said the woman, and pulled back a bush. Carey saw that by this bush the dead leaves were flattened and crushed.

"The last lot through here were in a hurry," he said, pointing. "A child could see that a good many people had trodden here."

The woman shrugged her shoulders, as she realized from his gesture what he meant, and signed to him to crawl into the low run-way through the shrubs, the mouth of which was hidden by the bush. Then she woke the child, and, telling her to follow, crawled after Carey, the child following her, and the remainder of the Bunn Brigade coming after one by one, with Sing Song acting as rear guard.

For about fifty yards they wormed their way along a well-worn passage like a fox-run under a dense tangle of growth, and then, at a word from the woman Carey stopped. It was dark, but the South African, groping, felt that he was at the slope of a gravel quarry, long disused and overgrown. Cautiously, they slid down this slope on hands and knees, and at the bottom of the slope, the mouth of the real tunnel awaited them, very small, suffocatingly low, and completely dark—a rat hole of a place, no more. This they entered.

"Lord!" said Smiler Bunn, gasping. "This is the tightest drain I ever remember crawling through. It's a lucky thing for me these Dutch gents have polished the sides smooth with their Dutch figures!"

They crawled terminably through the blackness—sometimes on an upward slope—sometimes on a steep downward slope. Once they felt themselves on solid stone, once on sand—here Mr. Bunn hit his head against wooden planks that supported the roof—and several times they slid through wet patches.

"Any smuggler that smuggles by this route earns his money," announced Mr. Bunn, several times. "And a man my size who corkscrews through deserves all the Pôtage Reine Wilhelmine he can get at the end of the trip." He breathed deep—"It tastes as though the air supply had run out!"

Then, after a long up slope, the inky dark lightened a little to a heavy greyness, and Carey gave an exclamation.

The Bunn Brigade emerged painfully from the tunnel to find themselves jammed close together at the bottom of a well with water up to their knees.

"The wire!" said the woman, reaching towards a thin strand of wire running down the bricked side of the well. She tugged hard at it and waited.

A few moments later a shadow darkened the circle of white light some thirty feet above them, which was the mouth of the well, as a man leaned over, looking down. Then, with a creaking of the windlass, a big pail on a rope that looked black and rotten with age came dangling down.

"Wait a minute," said Mr. Bunn who had been looking with rather anxious interest at the rope. "Wait a minute—I wouldn't trust a cat to that rope much less myself. It's rotten. I wouldn't trust even the child to it, light as she is."

The woman smiled, understanding Smiler's objection from the disgusted air with which he indicated the rope, and spoke quickly to Sweern, who grinned.

"It is of perfect safety, sir," said Sweern. "And in much use even by the heavy men and fat. There is strong wire rope inside the rope. The rotten rope—that is nothing but only for the gendarmes and customs guards and inspectors to inspect if they wish to. It is only little trick for misinformation of police if necessary," he explained.

"Oh, that's it, is it, my lad? Then go ahead. I thought you Dutch weren't so simple as that rope looked! Wind up!"

The pail with the child aboard went safely up, then the woman, and, one by one, the Bunn Brigade.

They found themselves in a corner of a little yard walled on two sides by sheds, on the third by the side of a house and by a hedge on the fourth side. It was an obvious place for a well, though beautifully concealed from the casual view.

A long-lipped Dutchman, with a hard, saturnine expression—the man who had wound them up—stared at the Bunn Brigade in astonishment, and grunted a question. Sweern was answering him volubly when Smiler, his voice high with excitement, broke in.

"Holland! Hear that! That's the only news we've had worth having for weeks!" The Bunn Brigade shook hands solemnly all round in silence.

"There is small fee payable to the proprietor of the well," said Sweern. "Usual charge for use of the exit."

"Sure," said Smiler. "Let him take for the party out of that and freeze on to the change." He handed a twenty-mark piece. "Ask the woman if she's got any plans," ordered Mr. Bunn, next. Sweern did so and elicited the information that she had relatives to go to not far away, as, indeed, had many of the refugees living on the frontier.

So between them, the Bunn Brigade who still possessed most of the German gold they had obtained from von Helling, the spy-tutor, pooled a present for her and the little one that made her richer than she had ever been. They said "Good-bye," and she went, half-laughing, half-crying but completely happy, off to her people, with the child, who clutched in her hand two bewildering but beautiful gold coins slipped there quietly by Mr. Bunn as he bid the little one good-bye.

Then they all went into the Dutchman's house to make their plans, the first of which, naturally, was to deal with a Dutch dinner, as elaborate as Sweern could persuade the wife of the well-owner to prepare. The Bunn Brigade perceived that they appeared to be by no means welcome to these people, though the pronounced hesitation of the woman was soon overcome by the generous recompense for her trouble paid freely in advance, in German gold, by the little company of adventurers.

This settled, they spent an hour in washing, shaving and so forth. The accommodation available for these matters was not too abundant nor convenient, but after what they had experienced it was more than satisfactory. They were not talkative, but they did not spare the box of cigars which Sweern, prowling happily about like a much travelled fly returned home to its own window pane at last, procured from somewhere, and it was not until some time later, when, comforted by what Mr. Bunn termed a "square but not overly-square" hot meal, and soothed by occasional visits to a stone jar of some alcoholic production resembling gin, they "gathered round" to discuss the immediate future.

"The only future for me is a quick train to the Hook of Holland, wherever that is, a quick boat to Harwich (that sounds good to me, Harridge, hey, my lads?), an express from Harwich to London, and: a quick taxi to the flat! That's all the future I want, hey, Fortworth? Hey, Sing Song?"

Mirza Khan, too, was all for London, where he expected to get into touch with his master, the Rajah of Jolapore. Carey wanted to get to London also, transact some business there, and then return to South Africa where—he foretold, grimly—there would be trouble before long, if it had not already materialized. Sweern, the guide, for his part, purposed first seeing them off, then returning to his home in Rotterdam and rest—and rest—and rest till the end of the war.

He recommended that they should postpone their departure until the morning, however. They were, at present, some three miles south of a little place called Gulpen, and considerably more from a railway station.

He advocated sleeping at the farmhouse that night—it was merely a matter of money to arrange that with the woman of the house—and, in the morning, getting along to Maastricht, refitting temporarily there, arranging, if necessary, the matter of passports with the authorities, then by train to Roermund and so across Holland for home.

"In that case," said Mr. Bunn, very deliberately helping himself to another cigar, "in that case, pass me that jar, Fortworth, and oblige me, Sweern, my lad, by putting 'A little drop more hot water, please,' into Dutch for the lady.... And, speaking of passports, what about these German things we've got? Take 'em all in all they've been pretty useful to us—but they might be a lot more useful to the authorities at home. There are those spy addresses somewhere among them, and it won't be a bad haul for the police or the military at home to get the addresses of the places where German spies report in London, and New York and Calcutta, and Cape Town—not to mention Pekin!"

"Sure! We keep those," said Fortworth emphatically. "We don't need to sho—" he stopped short as Mirza Khan rose and darted to the half-open door of the room, swung it wide and peered out.

"Iff my eyes have not played me dirty tricks there wass person standing att door listening attentively to all remarks we make. And my eyes are in peretty good state off vision. Oah, yess—and I am perfectlee unintoxicated also. There was undoubtedlee listener in thee establishment. I am off opinion there iss dam' snake in thee grasses!—"

"Remember we're in Holland, now, Sing Song. And go slow with that knife," called Smiler, sharply. "What was the man like, Mirza?"

"It was lady-listener. But her face, taking profile observation onlee, was peretty fair, I should say," said Mirza Khan.

"We can take it for granted that Holland is simply crawling with German spies!" suggested Carey.

"So we can—so we can! What Holland wants is a fine-tooth comb at work on her!" said Mr. Bunn, bluntly. "For her own sake as well as the fighting countries."

"Yes, and what we want to remember is that the spies won't be all Germans, either. And—another thing; these papers of ours are worth any spy's time and trouble to get back. There are the addresses. And if, when getting them back, they could manage to stick a knife into us, so much the better for them," said Fortworth.

"How about this farmer, here, for instance? This place is only just over the frontier anyway, and there's not much doubt he's a man who likes to turn a penny, honest or not," added Mr. Bunn. "For all we know he's probably in touch with the German frontier guard—or anyone else worth his while. It looks to me as though this house isn't going to be any Chancery Lane safe deposit for us to sleep in to-night!"

"I think it will be of reasonable safety, sir," he said. "We are to the number of six men. But if we were less number such as but two men only we should be wiser than to sleep here. If we share all one room and one shall watch for thieves it will be not bad, I think. There is not serious danger of any things except thieves. I have held little short conversation with the woman and she does not wish any trouble at all. She says the frontier is wired all along, with German troops on Belgian side and Dutch troops to face them on Dutch side. Certainly we are perfectly in safety from German troops by sleeping here. But I find myself suspicious that the farmer is in the contact with spies, and might be happy in earning money for helping them steal our papers, only he will be not willing for any fighting to be here at night to attract visiting by Dutch troops to inspect premises closely. And he will not be such of a fool to inform Germans of secret tunnel! The woman of this house says that friends of Germany—spies—have been warned to watch for our party. She says we were very lucky to make the escape from Belgium. She wished to know if it is true that we caused to vanish away a German general and destroyed also German Zeppelin?"

"Well, you look pretty comfortable, all of you, I must say," he remarked, toying with his own steaming glass, "and so am I. Personally speaking, I don't feel like turning out for an eight-mile walk or whatever it is to a decent town or station, for any German spy that ever crawled. What shall we do about it? We're on Dutch territory and the German troops on the frontier might as well be in America for all the harm they can do us."

The Bunn Brigade were unanimous. They had dined at the farm and, like Mr. Jorrocks, they purposed sleeping where they had dined, and further, breakfasting where they had slept.

"Well, that's all right then. Beat it out to Mrs. Farmer, Sweern, old man, and break the news to her. Tell her we'll pay hotel prices, and remind her that we shall be wanting some more hot water before long."

From all of which it would appear that Mr. Bunn and his company planned to hold a decidedly jovial, not to say alcoholic, séance that evening. But it was not so. Not only were they too tired to sit long over the contents of the stone jar, they were too shrewd. Although they were perfectly well aware that a German spy in neutral Holland was a vastly less dangerous person than the same spy in German-dominated Belgium, they did not propose to take any unnecessary risks by "stone-jarring," as Mr. Bunn put it, too freely. Besides, it was only a "form off gin" (to quote Mirza Khan) in the jar, anyway.

So that when, shortly after, the whole party of them settled down in one room for the first really safe sleep they had enjoyed for weeks, it was with the knowledge that Mirza Khan was on watch just inside the door and Sweern at the window. They had mapped out a scheme of three hours on watch and six off, worked in pairs, so that if any spy, lady, farmer, or otherwise, purposed practising the art of stealing papers that evening, it would not be wholly child's-play...

It was during the stilly hours of Mr. Bunn's watch, which he shared with Sing Song, that Smiler, sitting at the window and dreaming of the sumptuous menus he proposed to deal with after he reached home, suddenly realized that there were shadows moving about the head of the well which masked the exit from the frontier tunnel, and which the room overlooked. Even as he saw them he heard a low oath in guttural German from one of the shadows. He sprang up.

"Sing Song! Wake 'em!" he hissed and shook Fortworth who was nearest to him out of his dreams—if any—without mercy. Fortworth, growling and snarling, demanded, with oaths, to know why, and Mr. Bunn electrified him, and the rest of his Brigade with a whisper.

"Men—probably German troops coming through the tunnel. They've bought the farmer over! Got any cartridges left, Carey?"

They heard the grim chuckle of the South African, and the clink of the barrels of his ever-ready revolvers.

"Enough to choke the run-way with German bodies—if about eight full chambers will do it," he said. "Better use the butts, though," he counselled, "We don't want to attract any troops—unless this lot fire first!"

"Come on, then—you've got your knives, the rest of you!" (Those of them who had no cartridges had retained their supper knives—stiff, short-bladed implements useful for tough meat, and ugly things in a fight—on Smiler's advice, and greatly to the disgust of the woman of the farm.)

"Through the window—lucky it's low!" said Mr. Bunn. He swung the window back and one by one, very swiftly, they dropped to the ground, and charged en masse the group of shadows at the well-head. Some one of the shadows shouted hoarsely in German and then—

Sing Song's blade flashed out, and a man gasped, groaned and fell. The handle of the well-windlass, suddenly released, whirled sharply and a soft crash came up from the bottom of the well. Evidently the pail, carrying a "passenger," had smashed down upon the men waiting their turn at the tunnel mouth. Cries and curses issued from the well. The Bunn Brigade was fighting silently with the deadly intent of wolves. It was fortunate for them that they had set a watch at their window as well as at the door for, already there were five men—probably four Germans and the farmer—above ground. One staggered back under a smash full in the face from Carey's heavy revolver butt, hung a moment by the parapet of the well, then lost his balance and, with a howl, disappeared, pitching head-first down to the battered crowd at the bottom of the well.

The door of the farmhouse was flung open and a woman rushed out with a powerful electric glow lamp in one hand, and a pistol in the other. Mirza Khan wheeled just in time to beat the pistol from her grip to the ground, but was felled himself a second later by a rifle-butt hastily jabbed forward—not swung, luckily for Mirza. Mr. Bunn and Fortworth stabbed the man with the rifle at the same instant. Then one of the two men remaining ducked under Carey's arm as the South African swung his butt viciously for the head, and made off. But Sing Song leaped for him like a leopard, landing on his back. The stooping figure went down under the impact, Sing Song on top of him, as Sweern tripped the last man against Fortworth, who thrust him over the well-parapet with a burly shoulder; Mr. Bunn, his hand clamped round the wrist of the woman with the electric torch, the light of which shone full on the face of Sing Song's victim, recognised the Dutch farmer, and was just in time to catch the Chinaman's arm as he swung it back for his stroke.

"Not that one, Sing. It's the Dutchman! Only Germans in this act! Here, leave him to me. Take this woman into the house and keep her there till we come."

They exchanged victims, Smiler keeping the light. Sing Song took his prisoner away and Mr. Bunn swept the light round.

Except for the farmer and two men stabbed by Sing Song and Smiler and Fortworth, the others were gone—by the way they came. Carey was stooping over the first—Sing Song's. This one was dead—he had it clean through the heart, for Sing Song had been using the big knife he had found in the woodcutter's hut, days before. There was still a confusion of German oaths at the bottom of the well and Carey deliberately picked up the body and dropped it in upon that confusion.

"Good enough burial for a thing that came to help kill us in our sleep!" he said, harshly. "How about yours?"

This one had two nasty wounds, and was bleeding badly, but he had a chance of life for the partner's knives were not like the Chinaman's...

It had been quick work—quick but efficient. Mirza Khan was already sitting up, complaining bitterly of a fearful bruise on the back of the head. But he was able to cross to the farmhouse unaided.

Carey and Fortworth carried the body of the German who would live into the house and Smiler followed, gripping the cowed farmer.

Mr. Bunn proceeded to order Sing Song out to hack through the well-rope, wreck the windlass, and keep watch over the well-mouth and then, shutting and bolting the door, turned to deal with the farmer, his wife and the woman spy.

"You traitresses," he ordered through Sweern, "can get to work on that savage's wounds—unless you want a dead German littering up this kitchen."

They did so, and Mr. Bunn turned to the farmer. He stood before them, livid with terror, and trembling.

"Well, what shall we do with him?" asked Smiler. "He tried to sell us to those Prussian hyaenas that we've sent back to their hole!"

Smiler was right. At first he would have denied it, but his wife, staring anxiously over her shoulder from where she was dabbling at the German soldier's wounds, poured out a volley of swift Dutch which appeared to convince the quaking wretch that open confession was the one safe way out.

He said, with dry lips, stark fear glaring from his eyes, that the woman spy attracted by the appearance of the earlier refugees from the village of the crucified man, had entered the farmhouse, just as he had hauled the Bunn Brigade from the well.

She had kept carefully out of their way, except for the second when Mirza Khan had glimpsed her, and she had bribed him heavily to take her through the tunnel into the German lines, and bring back enough men to capture them. He had been tempted by the immense sums she had told him she would procure for him later when she would arrange for an unending chain of supplies to be smuggled from Holland to Germany through the tunnel. She had spoken of a great fortune awaiting him, if he did as she wished. And she had convinced him. He confessed it—and grovelled, whining for mercy.

"I think that certainly this is true which he says," said Sweern, a little anxiously. "And I think there is some wisdom by remembering that he is a Dutchman—on Dutch earth—territory, sir!"

They understood that to deal with this traitor as he deserved—and he deserved shooting—would be folly that might conceivably lead to serious complications. To kill German soldiers engaged in violating neutral territory was a very different matter from killing this man.

"All right, Sweern, we understand that! Tell him to hand over the blood money he was paid for us!" said Smiler. "We'll have that, anyway!"

Sweern spoke forcibly for a moment, and the farmer drew from his pocket a little bag of money, and handed it over with desperate reluctance. It contained a thousand marks in gold—about £50.

"Is that all we were worth?" he said. "Less than a tenner a head! What do you think of that, my lads? The Germans put a figure of a tenner on your hides! No flattery, that, hey?"

"There is many a German would pay ten thousand marks each for your severed heads!" she said, savagely, in perfect English. Her eyes were narrowed, like a cat's, and she was white and trembling with rage. Mr. Bunn's outraged pride was restored in an instant. "Ah, that's more like it, Frowline," he said. "Though if they'd got rid of us for that price a month or so ago, they'd have saved money! Hey, my lads? They'd have saved a Zeppelin, a howitzer, an aeroplane, three armoured cars, a few horses, a general and a long list of the half-witted hyaenas your maniac Kaiser uses for soldiers! Still—if you Germans are satisfied, we are!"

He smiled at her, with a maddening indulgence, and carelessly dropped the bag of blood-money in his pocket.

"Well, my dear, get on with your spying. Don't mind us. We're leaving! We're going into the—the—Ewigkeit!"

"D'you think you can travel with that bump on your head, Mirza, old man?" he asked. Mirza grinned.

"I am off opinion thatt I can sustain thee agonies until we arrive att England," he replied.

"Good," said Mr. Bunn, and glanced at the window. "It's getting on for dawn," he said. "And we may as well be moving nearer civilization."

"We're only waiting till you've finished your speeches," said Fortworth, pointedly.

"Oh, all right, then. As you wish!" replied Mr. Bunn, rather taken aback. "Come on, then. Right, Sweern? Lead on!—"

He called Sing Song and they all filed out of the door. On the threshold, Mr. Bunn turned to the farmer.

And so, with his "Brigade," turned his face, as he said, towards civilization and home.

As Sweern prophesied so things befell. They fitted out temporarily at Maastricht, took train to Roermund, and thence to the Hook without a hitch.

Sweern saw them aboard. He had grown to like them and to understand them, and they him. Besides, there was the smaller matter of fees... soon settled, for they unanimously bestowed upon the little Dutch guide a pooled fee that made him gasp.

"Forget it, old man!" he said. "It ain't our money. We got it from von Helling. Germany pays! Ain't that right, my lads?"

"You go and take a rest, Sweern, my son. Lay up—feed well—take care of yourself. If ever you come to town, look us up and tackle a menu or two. And, meantime, take it easy. Don't worry about war—and don't worry about the Deutschland über alles part of it! There's a few million out to alter the grammar of that—when they've finished it'll be a case of Deutschland alles über—Germany all over! See, Sweern? Joke! Down and out! All over! You make a note of that—and good luck to you, my lad! Here, have a cigar—and if we look alive, there's just time for one swift one with old Sweern down at the buffet!"

And so the Bunn Brigade, Sing Song and all, characteristically trooped down to moisten their farewell to as staunch and sporting a Dutchman as ever did his best under difficulties...

And there, as far as their journey from Germany was concerned, the strategies, shifts and devices of Smiler Bunn and Co. concluded—except, perhaps, just one more. But of that one at least half the credit was due to the chef at the Astoritz Hotel, who, when the Bunn Brigade foregathered there, to celebrate their return to London, turned out for them a "strategy" of about fifteen courses, which would take too long to describe. It took three hours merely to eat.

THE END