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-35-47.*.-?'

HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY

2-SS^^/. •'•-"

HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY

:■-• ■ ■■-■■'' - - -_f*^

GREENMANTLE

JOHN BUG HAN

GREENMANTLE

JOHN BUCHAN

AT7TH0S OF
"the THIKTy-NINE STEPS,"

"the power-house," etc.

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

. * j_

'^^'^''^l.H.^I

4^«V) couj

UiL 221919

< • «

f > I ^ ♦ < I ^

COPYSIGHT, I916,
BY GSOSGE H. DOSAN COMPANY

,\ "

( «

nOKTKD IN THE UNITED STATES 01 AHESICA

CAROLINE GROSVENOR

During the past year, in the intervals of an active Itfe, I have
amused myself with constructing this tale. It has been scribbled
in every kind of odd place and moment — in England and abroad^
during long journeys j in half-hours between graver tasks; and it
bears, I fear , the mark of its gipsy begetting. But it has amused
me to write, and I shall be weU repaid if it amuses you — and a
few others — to read.

Let no man or woman call its events improbable. The war has
driven that word from our vocabulary, and mdodrama has become
the prosiest realism. Things unimagined before happen daily to
our friends by sea and land. The one chance in a thousand is
habitually taken, and as often as not succeeds. Coincidence, like
some new Briareus, stretches a hundred long arms hourly across
the earth. Some day, when the full history is written — sober
history with ample documents — the poor romancer wHl give up
business and fall to reading Miss Austin in a hermitage.

The characters of the tale, if you think hard, you wUl recall.
Sandy you know well. That great spirit was last heard of at
Basra, where he occupies the post which once was Harry Bullivanfs.
Richard Hanruiy is where he longed to be, commanding his bat-
talion on the ugliest bit of front in the West. Mr. John 5.
Blenkiron, full of honour and wholly cured of dyspepsia, has\
relumed to the States, after vainly endeavouring to take Peter
with him. As for Peter, he has attained the height of his ambitions
He has shaved his beard and joined the Flying Corps.

J. B.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

(jONTENTS

PAQS

A Mission is Proposed ii

The Gathering of the Missionaries . 23

Peter Pienaar 42

Adventures of Two Dutchmen on the

Loose 57

Further Adventures of the Same . . 73

The Indiscretions of the Same ... 89

Christmastide 107

The Essen Barges 124

The Return of the Straggler . . . 137

The Garden-House of Suliman the Red 152

The Companions of the Rosy Hours . 164

Four Missionaries See Light in their

Mission 179

I Move in Good Society 192

The Lady of the Mantilla . . . ^ 207

An Embarrassed Toilet 221

The Battered Caravanserai .... 239

Trouble by the Waters of Babylon . 253

Sparrows on the Housetops .... 267

Greenmantle 280

Peter Pienaar Goes to the Wars . . 292

The Little Hill 311

The Guns of the North 331

GREENMANTLE

•vl

GREENMANTLE

{

CHAPTER I

A MISSION IS PROPOSED

I HAD just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe
when I got BuUivant's telegram. It was at Fur-
ling, the big country house in Hampshire where I had
come to convalesce after Loos, and Sandy, who was
in the same case, was hunting for the marmalade. I
flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down
on it, and he whistled.

"Hullo, Dick, you've got the battalion. Or maybe
it's a staff billet. You'll be a blighted brass-'hat,
coming it heavy over the hard-working regimental
oflicer. And to think of the language you've wasted
on brass-hats in your time I"

I sat and thought for a bit, for that name "BuUi-
vant" carried me back eighteen months to the hot
summer before the war. I had not seen the man
since, though I had read about him in the papers.
For more than a year I had been a busy battalion
oflicer, with no other thought tiian to hammer a lot
of raw stuff into good soldiers. I had succeeded
pretty well, and there was no prouder man on earth
than Richard Hannay when he took his Lennox
Highlanders over the parapets on that glorious and

GREENMANTLE

bloody 25th day of September. Loos was no picnic,
and we had had some ugly bits of scrapping before
that, but the worst bit of the campaign I had seen
was a tea-party to the show I had been in with Bulli-
vant before the war started.

The sight of that name on a telegf am form seemed
to change all my outlook on life. I had been hoping
for the command of the battalion, and looking for-
ward to being in at the finish with Brother Boche.
But this message jerked my thoughts on a new road.
There might be other things in the war than straight-
forward fighting. Why on earth should the Foreign
Ofiice want to see an obscure Major of the New Army,
and want to see him in double-quick time ?

"I'm going up to town by the ten train," I an-
nounced; "I'll be back in time for dinner."

"Try my tailor," said Sandy. "He's got a very
nice taste in red tabs. You can use my name."

An idea struck me. "You're pretty well all right
now. If I wire for you, will you padc your own kit
and mine and join me?"

"Right-ol I'll accept a job on your staff if they
give you a corps. If so be as you come down to-night,
be a good chap and bring a barrel of oysters from
Sweeting's."

I travelled up to London in a regular November
drizzle, which cleared up about Wimbledon to watery
sunshine. I never could stand London during the
war. It seemed to have lost its bearings and broken
out into all manner of badges and uniforms which
did not fit in with my notion of it. One felt the
war more in its streets than in the field, or rather one
felt the confusion of war without feeling the purpose,
I dare say it was all right; but since August 19 H I

^"1

A MISSION IS PROPOSED

never spent a day in town without coming home de-
pressed to my boots,

I took a taxi and drove straight to the Foreign
OflGice. Sir Walter did not keep me waiting long. But
when his secretary took me to his room I would not
have recognised thc^ man I had known eighteen months
before.

His big frame seemed to have dropped flesh and
there was a stoop in the square shoulders. His face
had lost its rosiness and was red in patches like a man
who gets too little fresh air. His hair was much
greyer and very thin about the temples, and there
were lines of overwork below the eyes. But the eyes
were the same as before, keen and kindly and shrewd,
and there was no change in the firm set of the jaw.

"We must on no account be disturbed for the next
hour," he told his secretary. When the young man
had gone he went across to both doors and turned
the key in them.

"Well, Major Hannay," he said, flinging himself
into a chair beside the fire. "How do you like
soldiering?'*

"Right enough," I said, "though this isn*t just
the kind of war I would have picked myself. It's a
comfortless, bloody business. But we've got the
measure of the old Boche now, and it's dogged as
does it. I count on getting back to the Front in a
week or two."

"Will you get the battalion?" he asked. He
seemed to have followed my doings pretty closely.

"I believe I've a good chance. I'm not in this show
for honour and glory, though. I want to do the best
I can, but I wish to Heaven it was over. All I think
of is coming out of it with a whole skin.'*

GREENMANTLE

He laughed. **You do yourself an injustice. What
about the forward observation post at the Lone Tree ?
You forgot about the whole skin then.'*

I felt myself getting red. "That was all rot," I
said, "and I can't think who told you about it. I hated
the job, but I had to do it to prevent my subalterns
going to glory. They were a lot of fire-eating young
lunatics. If I had sent one of them he'd have gone
on his knees to Providence and asked for trouble."

Sir Walter was still grinning.

"I'm not questioning your caution. You have the
rudiments of it, or our friends of the Black Stone
would have gathered you in at our last merry meeting.
I would question it as little as your courage. What
exercises niy mind is whether it is best employed in tne
trenches."

"Is the War Office dissatisfied with me?" I asked
sharply.

"They are profoundly satisfied. They propose to
give you command of your battalion. Presently, if
you escape a stray bullet, you will no doubt be a Briga-
dier. It is a wonderful war for youth and brains.
But ... I take it you are in this business to serve
your country, Hannay?"

"I reckon I am," I said. "I am certainly not in
it for my health,"

He looked at my leg, where the doctors had dug
out the shrapnel fragments, and smiled quizzically.
"Pretty fit again?" he asked.

"Tough as a sjambok. I thrive on the racket and
eat and sleep like a schoolboy."

He got up and stood with his back to the fire, his
eyes staring abstractedly out of the window at the
wintry park.

A MISSION IS PROPOSED

"It is a great game, and you are the man for it,
no doubt. But there are others who can play it, for
soldiering to-day asks for the average rather than the
exception in human nature. It is like a big machine
where the parts are standardised. You are fighting,
hot because you are short of a job, but because you
want to help England. How if you could help her
better than by commanding a battalion— or a brigade
—or, if it comes to that, a division ? How if there is
a thing which you alone can do ? Not some emhusque
business in an office, but a thing compared to which
your fight at Loos was a Sunday-school picnic. You
are not afraid of danger? Well, in this job you would
not be fighting with an army around you, but alone.
You are fond of tackling difficulties? Well, I can
give you a task which will try all your powers. Have
you anything to say?"

My heart was beginning to thump uncomfortably.
Sir Walter was not the man to pitch a case too high.

"I am a soldier,*' I said, "and under orders."

"True; but what I am about to propose does not
come by any conceivable stretch within the scope of
a soldier's duties. I shall perfectly understand if you
decline. You will be acting as I should act myself —
as any sane man would. I would not press you for
worlds. If you wish it, I will not even make the
proposal, but let you go here and now, and wish you
good luck with your battalion. I do not wish to per-
plex a good soldier with impossible decisions."

This piqued me and put me on my mettle.

"I am not going to run away before the guns fire.
Let me hear what you propose."

Sir Walter crossed to a cabinet, unlocked it with a
key from his chain, and took a piece of paper from a

GREENMANTLE

drawer. It looked like an ordinary half-sheet of note-
paper.

"I take it," he said, "that your travels have not
extended to the East."

"No," I said, "barring a shooting trip in East *
Africa."

"Have you by any chance been following the pres-
ent campaign there?"

"I've read the newspapers pretty regularly since
I went to hospital. I've got some pals in the Meso-
potamia show, and of course I'm keen to know what
is going to happen at Gallipoli and Salonika. I gather
that Egj^t is pretty safe."

"If you will give me your attention for ten minutes
I will supplement your newspaper reading."

Sir Walter lay back in an arm-chair and spoke to
the ceiling. It was the best story, the clearest and
the fullest, I had ever got of any bit of the war. He
told me just how and why and when Turkey had left
the rails. I heard about her grievances over our
seizure of her ironclads, of the mischief the coming of
the Goehen had wrought, of Enver and his precious
Committee and the way they had got a cinch on the
old Turk. When he had spoken for a bit, he began
to question me.

"You are an intelligent fellow, and you will ask how
a Polish adventurer, meaning Enver, and a collection
of Jews and gipsies, should have got control of a proud
race. The ordinary man will tell you that it was Ger-
man organisation backed up with German money and
German arms. You will inquire again how, since Tur-
key is primarily a religious power, Islam has played
so small a part in it all. The Sheikh-ul-Mam is neg-
lected, and though the Kaiser proclaims a Holy War

A MISSION IS PROPOSED

and calls himself Hadji Mahomet GuiUiamo, and says
the HohenzoUems are descended from the Prophet,
that seems to have fallen pretty flat. The ordinary
man again will answer that Islam in Turkey is becom-
ing a back number, and that Krupp guns are the new
gods. Yet — I don't know. I do not quite believe in
Islam becoming a back number.

"Look at it In another way," he went on. "If it
were Enver and Germany alone dragging Turkey into
a European war for purposes that no Turk cared a
rush about, we might expect to find the regular army
obedient, and Constantinople. But In the provinces,
where Islam Is strong, there would be trouble. Many
of us counted on that. But we have been disap-
pointed. The Syrian army Is as fanatical as the
hordes of the Mahdi. The Senussi have taken a hand
in the game. The Persian Moslems are threatening
trouble. There is a dry wind blowing through the
East, and the parched grasses wait the spark. And
the wind Is blowing towards the Indian border.
\Wiencc comes that wind, think you?'*

Sir Walter had lowered his voice and was speaking
very slow and distinct. I could hear the rain dripping
from the eaves of the window, and far off the hoot of
taxis !h Whitehall.

"Have you an explanation, Hannay?" he asked
again.

"It looks as if Islam had a bigger hand In the thing
than we thought," I said. "I fancy religion Is the only
thing to knit up such a scattered empire."

"You are right," he said. "You must be right. We
have laughed at the Holy War, the Jehad that old
Von der Goltz prophesied. But I believe that stupid

GREENMANTLE

old man with the big spectacles was right. There is a
Jehad preparing. The question is, How?"

"I'm hanged if I know," I said; "but Til bet it won't
be dohe by a pack of stout German officers in picket-
haubes. I fancy you can't manufacture Holy Wars out
of Krupp guns alone and a few staff officers and a
battle-cruiser with her boilers burst."

"Agreed. They are not fools, however much we
try to persuade ourselves of the contrary. But sup-
posing they had got some tremendous sacred sanction
— some holy thing, some book or gospel or some new
prophet from the desert, something which would cast
over the whole ugly mechanism of German war the
glamour of the old torrential raids which crumpled
the Byzantine Empire and shook the walls of Vienna ?
Islam is a fighting creed, and the mullah still stands in
the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn
sword in the other. Supposing there is some Ark of
the Covenant which will madden the remotest Moslem
peasant with dreams of Paradise? What then, my
friend?"

"Then there will be hell let loose in those parts
pretty soon."

"Hell which may spread. Beyond Persia, remem-
ber, lies India."

"You keep to suppositions. How much do you
know?" I asked.

"Very little, except the fact. But the fact is beyond
dispute. I have reports from agents everywhere —
pedlars in South Russia, Afghan horse-dealers, Tur-
coman merchants, pilgrims on the road to Mecca,
sheikhs in North Africa, sailors on the Black Sea coast-
ers, sharp-skinned Mongols, Hindu fakirs, Greek trad-
ers in the Gulf, as well as respectable Consuls who use

A MISSION IS PROPOSED

cyphers. They tell the same story. The East Is wait-
ing for a revelation. It has been promised one. Some
star — ^man, prophecy, or trinket — is coming out of the
West. The Germans know, and that is the card with
which they are going to astonish the world."

"And the mission you spoke of for me is to go and
find out?"

He nodded gravely. "That is the crazy and impos-
sible mission."

"Tell me one thing, Sir Walter," I said. "I know
it is the fashion in this country if a man has special
knowledge to set him to some job exactly the opposite.
I know all about Damaraland, but instead of being put
on Botha's staff, as I applied to be, I was kept in Hamp-
shire mud till the campaign in German South West
Africa was over. I know a man who could pass as an
Arab, but do you think they would send him to the
East ? . They left him in my battalion — a lucky thirjg
for me, for he saved my life at Loos. I know the
fashion, but isn't this just carrying it a bit too far?
There must be thousands of men who have spent years
in the East and talk any language. They're the fel-
lows for thrs job. I never saw a Turk in my life except
a chap who did wrestling turns in a show at Kimberley.
You've picked about the most useless man on earth."

"You've been a mining-engineer, Hannay," Sir
Walter said. "If you wanted a man to prospect for
gold in Barotseland you would of course like to get
one who knew the country and the people and the
language. But the first thing you would require in him
would be that he had a nose for finding gold and knew
his business. That is the position now. I believe that
you have a nose for finding out what our enemies try
to hide. I know that you are brave and cool and

GREENMANTLE

resourceful. That is why I tell you the story. Be-
sides . . ."

He unrolled a big map of Europe on the wall.

"I can't tell you where you'll get on the track of the
secret, but I can put a limit to the quest. You won't
find it east of the Bosphorus — not yet. It is still in
Europe. It may be in Constantinople, or in Thrace.
It may be farther west. But it is moving eastwards.
If you are in time you may cut into its march to Con-
stantinople. That much I can tell you. The secret is
known in Germany, too, to those whom it concerns. It
is in Europe that the seeker must search — ^at present."

"Tell me more," I said. "You can give me no
details and no instructions. Obviously you can give me
no help if I come to grief."

He nodded. "You would be beyond the pale."

"You give me a free hand."

"Absolutely. You can have what' money you like,
and you can get what help you like. You can follow
any plan you fancy, and go anywhere you think fruit-
ful. We can give no directions."

"One last question. You say it is important. Tell
me just how important."

"It is life and death," he said solemnly. "I can
put it no higher and no lower. Once we know what
is the menace we can meet it. As long as we are in
the dark it works unchecked and we may be too late.
The war must be woh or lost in Europe. Yes; but if
the East blazes up, our effort will be distracted from
Europe and the great coup may fail. The stakes are
no less than victory and defeat, Hannay."

I got out of my chair and walked to the window.
It was a difficult moment in my life. I was happy
in my soldiering; above all, happy in the company of

A MISSION IS PROPOSED

my brother officers. I was asked to go off into the
enemy's lands on a quest for which I believed I was
manifestly unfitted — a business of lonely days and
nights, of nerve-racking strain, of deadly peril shroud-
ing me like a garment. Looking out on the bleak
weather I shivered. It was too grim a business, too
inhuman for flesh and blood. But Sir Walter had
called it a matter of life and death, and I had told him
that I was out to serve my country. He could not give
me orders, but was I not under orders — higher orders
than my Brigadier's? I thought myself incompetent,
but cleverer men than me thought me competent, or
at least competent enough for a sporting chance. I
knew in my soul that if I declined I should never be
quite at peace in the world again. And yet Sir Walter
had called the scheme madness, and said that he him-
self would never have accepted.

How does one make a great decision? I swear that
when I turned roimd to speak I meant to, refuse. But
my answer was Yes, and I had crossed the rubicon.
My voice sounded cracked and far away.

Sir Walter shook hands with me and his eyes blinked
a little. "I may be sending you to your death, Han-
nay. — Good GckI, what a damned taskmistress duty
is! — If so, I shall be haunted with regrets, but you
will never repent. Have no fear of that. You have
chosen the roughest road, but it goes straight to the
hill-tops.''

He handed me the half-sheet of note-paper. On it
were written three words — "Kasredin/' "cancer/* and
"v. I."

"That is the only clue we possess,'' he said. "I
cannot construe it, but I can tell you the story. We
have had our agents working in Persia and Mesopo-

GREENMANTLE

tamia for years — ^mostly young officers of the Indian
Army. They carry their lives in their hand, and now
and then one disappears, and the sewers of Bagdad
might tell a tale. But they find out many things, and
they count the game worth the candle. They have
told us of the star rising in the West, but they could
give us no details. All but one — ^the best of them. He
had been working between Mosul and the Persian
frontier as a muleteer, and had been south into the
Bakhtiari hills. He found out soniething, but his ene-
mies knew that he knew and he was pursued. Three
months ago, just before Kut, he staggered into Dela-
main^s camp with ten bullet holes in him and a knife
slash on his forehead. He mumbled his name, but
beyond that and the fact that there was a Something
coming from the west he told them nothing. He died
in ten minutes. They found this paper on him, and
since he cried out the word "Kasredin" in his last
moments, it must have had something to do with his
quest. It is for you to find out If it has any meaning."

I folded it up and placed in it my pocket-book.

"What a great fellow 1 What was his name?" I
asked.

Sir Walter did not answer at once. He was look-
ing out of the window. "His name," he said at last,
'Vas Harry Bullivant. He was my son. God rest his
brave soul!"

CHAPTER 11

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

I WROTE out a wire to Sandy, asking him to come
up by die two-fifteen train and meet me at my flat.

"I have chosen my colleague," I said.

**Billy Arbuthnot's boy? His father was at Harrow
with me. I know the fellow — Harry used to bring
him down to fish — ^tallish, with a lean, high-boned face
and a pair of brown eyes like a pretty girl's. I know
his record, too. There's a good deal about him in
this office. He rode through Yemen, which no white
man ever did before. The Arabs let him pass, for
they thought him stark mad and argued that the hand
of Allah was heavy enough on him without their
efforts. He's blood-brother to every kind of Albanian
bandit. Also he used to take a hand in Turkish poli-
tics, and got a huge reputation. Some Englishman was
once complaining to old Mahmoud Shevkat about the
scarcity of statesmen in Western Europe, and Mah-
moud broke in with, 'Have you got the Honourable
Arbuthnot?' You say he's in your battalion. I was
wondering what had become of him, for we tried to
get hold of him here, but he had left no address.
Ludovick Arbuthnot — yes, that's the man. Buried
deep in the commissioned ranks of the New Army?
Well, we'll get him out pretty quick 1"

"I knew he had knocked about the East, but I didn't

GREENMANTLE

know he was that kind of swell. Sandy's not the chap
to buck about himself."

"He wouldn't," said Sir Walter. "He had always
a moje than Oriental reticence. I've got another col-
league for you, if you like him."

He looked at his watch. "You can get to the Savoy
Grill Room in five minutes in a taxi-cab. Go in from
the Strand, turn to your left, and you will see in the
alcove on the right-hand side a table with one large
American gentleman sitting at it. They know him
there, so he will have the table to himself. I want you
to go and sit down beside him. Say you come from
me. His name is Mr. John Scantlebury Blenkiron,
and a citizen of Boston, Mass., but bom in Carolina
and raised in Indiana. Put this envelope in your
pocket, but don't read its contents till you have talked
to him. I want you to form your own opinion about
Mr. Blenkiron."

I went out of the Foreign Office in as muddled a
frame of mind as any diplomatist who ever left its
portals. I was most desperately depressed. To begin
with, I was in a complete funk. I've always thought I
was about as brave as the average man, but diere's
courage and courage, and mine was certainly not the
impassive kind. Stick me down in a trench and I could
stand being shot at as well as most people, and my
blood could get hot if it were g^ven a chance. But I
think I had too much imagination. I couldn't shake off
the beastly forecasts that kept crowding my mind.

In about a fortnight I calculated I would be dead.
Shot as a spy — a rotten sort of ending! At the mo-
ment I was quite safe, looking for a taxi in the middle
of Whitehall, but the sweat broke on my forehead.
I felt as I had felt in my adventure before the war.

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

But this was far worse, for it was more cold-blooded
and premeditated, and I didn't seem to have even a
sporting chance. I watched the figures in khaki pass-
ing on the pavement, and thought what a nice safe
prospect they had compared to mine. Yes, even if next
week they were in the Hohenzollem, or the Hairpin
trench at the Quarries, or that ugly angle at Hooge.
I wondered why I had not been happier that morning
before I got that infernal wire. Suddenly all the trivi-
alities of English life seemed to me inexpressibly dear
and terribly far away. I was very angry with Bulli-
vant, till I remembered how fair he had been. My
fate was my own choosing.

When I was hunting the Black Stone the interest of
the problem had helped to keep me going. But now
I could see no problem. My mind had nothing to
work on but three words of gibberish on a sheet of
paper and a mystery of which Sir Walter had been
convinced, but to which he couldn't give a name. It
was like a story I had read of St. Theresa setting off
at the age of ten with her small brother to convert
the Moors. I sat huddled in the taxi with my chin on
my breast, wishing that I had lost a leg at Loos and
been comfortably tucked away for the rest of the war.

Sure enough I found my man in the Grill Room.
|There he was, feeding solemnly, with a napkin tucked
under his chin. He was a big fellow with a fat, sallow,
clean-shaven face. I disregarded the hovering waiter
and pulled up a chair beside the American at the little
table. He turned on me a pair of full sleepy eyes, like
a ruminating ox.

"Mr. Blenkiron?" I asked.

"You have my name, sir," he said. "Mr. John
Scantlebury Blenkiron. I would wish you good mom-

GREENMANTLE

ing if I saw anything good in this darned British
weather."

"I come from Sir Walter Bullivant," I said, speak-
ing low.

"So?" said he- "Sir Walter is a very good friend
of mine. Pleased to meet you, Mr. — or I guess it's
Colonel "

"Hannay," I said; "Major Hannay." 1 was won-
dering what this sleepy Yankee could do to help me.

"Allow me to offer you luncheon, Major. Here,
waiter, bring the carte. I regret that I cannot join
you in sampling the efforts of the management of this
ho-tel. I suffer, sir, from dyspepsia — duo-denal
dyspepsia. It gets me two hours after a meal and
g^ves me hell just below the breast-bone. So I am
obliged to adopt a diet. My nourishment is fishj sir,
and boiled milk and a little dry toast. It's a melan-
choly descent from the days when I could do justice
to a lunch at Sherry's and sup off oyster-crabs and
devilled bones." He sighed from the depths of his
capacious frame.

I ordered an omelette and a chop, and took another
look at him. The large eyes seemed to be gazing
steadily at me without seeing me. They were as va-
cant as an abstracted child's; but I had an uncom-
fortable feeling that they saw more than mine.

**You have seen fighting. Major? The Battle of
Loos? Well, I guess that must have been some battle.
We in America respect the fighting of the British
soldier, but we don't quite catch on to the de-vices of
the Britis^h Generals. We opine that there is more
bellicosity than science among your highbrows. That
is so? My father fought at Chattanooga, but these
eyes have seen nothing gorier than a Presidential elec-

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

tion. Say, is there any way I could be let Into a scene
of real bloodshed?"

His serious tone made me laugh. "There are plenty
of your countrymen in the present show," I said. "T^e
French Foreign Legion is full of young Americans,
and so is our Army Service Corps. Half the chauf-
feurs you strike in France seem to come from the
States."

He signed. "I did think of some belligerent stunt
a year back. But I reflected that the good God had
not given John S. Blenkiron the kind of martial figure
that would do credit to the tented field. Also I recol-
lected that we Americans were nootrals — ^benevolent
nootrals — and that it did not become me to be butting
into the struggles of the effete monarchies of Europe.
So I stopped at home. It was a big renunciation,
Major, for I was lying sick during the Philippines busi-
ness, and I have never seen the lawless passions of men
let loose on a battlefield. And, as a stoodent of
humanity, I hankered for the experience."

"What have you been doing?" I asked. The calm
gentleman had begun to interest me.

"Wall," he said, "I just waited. The Lord has
blessed me with money to bum, so I didn't need to
go scrambling like a wild cat for war contracts. But
I reckoned I would get let into the game somehow,
and I was. Being a nootral, I was in an advantageous
position to take a hand. I had a pretty hectic time for
a while, and^ then I reckoned I would leave God's
country and see what was doing in Europe. I have
counted myself out of the bloodshed business, but, as
your poet sings, peace has its victories not less re-
nowned than war, and I reckon that means that a

GREENMANTLE

nootral can have a share in a scrap as well as a beU
ligerent."

"That's the best kind of neutrality I've ever heard
of," I said.

"It's the right kind," he replied solemnly. "Say,
Major, what are your lot fighting for? For your own
skins and your Empire and the peace of Europe.
Wall, those ideals don't concern us one cent. We're
not Europeans, and there aren't any German trenches
on Long Island yet. You've made the ring in Europe,
and if we came butting in it wouldn't be the rules of
the game. You wouldn't welcome us, and I guess
you'd be right. We're that delicate-minded we can't
interfere, and that was what my friend, President Wil-
son, meant when he opined that America was too proud
to fight. So we're nootrals. But likewise we're benev-
olent nootrals. As I follow events, there's a skunk
been let loose in the world, and the odour of it is going
to make life none too sweet till it is cleared away. It
wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to
take a hand in disinfecting this planet. See? We
can't fight, but, by God I some of us are going to sweat
blood to sweep the mess up. Officially we do nothing
except give off Notes as a leaky boiler gives off steam.
But as individooal citizens we're in it up to the neck.
So, in the spirit of Jefferson Davis and Woodrow
Wilson, I'm going to be the nootralist kind of nootral
till Kaiser will wish to God he had declared war on
America at the beginning."

I was completely recovering my temper. This
fellow was a perfect jewel, and his spirit put purpose
into me.

"I guess you British were the same kind of nootral
when your Admiral warned off the German fleet from

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

interfering with Dewey in Manila Bay in '98." Mr.
Blenkiron drank up the last drop of the boiled milk,
and lit a thin 'black cigar.

I leaned forward. "Have you talked to Sir Wal-
ter?" I asked.

''I have talked to him, and he has given me to under-
stand that there's a deal ahead which you're going to
boss. There are no flies on that big man, and if he
says it's good business then you can count me in.^'

*'You know that it's uncommonly dangerous?"

"I judged so. But it don't do to begin counting
risks. I believe in an all-wise and beneficent Provi-
dence, but you have got to trust Him and give Him a
chance. What's life anyhow? For me, it's living
on a strict diet and having frequent pains in my stom-
ach. It isn't such an almighty lot to give up, provided
you get a good price in the deal. Besides, how big is
the risk? About one o'clock in the morning, when you
can't sleep, it will be the size of Mount Everest, but
if you run out to meet it, it will be a hillock you can
jump over. The grizzly looks very fierce when you're
taking your ticket for the Rockies and wondering if
you'll come back, but he's just an ordinary bear when
you've got the sight of your rifle on him. I won't think
about risks till I'm up to my neck in them and don't see
the road out."

I scribbled my address on a piece of paper and
handed it to the stout philosopher. "Come to dinner
to-night at eight," I said.

"I thank you. Major. A little fish, please, plain-
boiled, and some hot milk. You will forgive me if I
borrow your couch after the meal and spend the eve-
ning on my back. That is the advice of my noo
doctor."

GREENMANTLE

I got a taxi and drove to my club. On the way I
opened the envelope Sir Walter had given me. It
contained a number of jottings, the dossier of Mr.
Blenkiron. He had done wonders for the Allies in
the States. He had nosed out the Dumba plot, and
had been instrumental in getting the portfolio of Dr.
Albert. Von Papen's spies had tried to murder him,
after he had defeated an attempt to blow up one of
the big guii factories. Sir Walter had written at the
end: *'The best man we ever had. Better than
Scudder. He would go through hell with a box of
bismuth tablets and a pack of Patience cards/'

I went into the little back smoking-room, borrowed
an atlas from the library, poked up the fire, and sat
down to think. Mr. Blenkiron had given me the fillip
I needed. My mind was beginning to work now, and
was running wide over the whole business. Not that
I hoped to find anything by my cogitations. It wasn't
thinking in an arm-chair that would solve the mystery.
But I was getting a sort of grip on a plan of opera-
tions. And to my relief I had stopped thinking about
the risks. Blenkiron had shamed me out of that. If a
sedentary dyspeptic could show that kind of nerve, I
wasn't going to be behind him.

I went back to my flat about five o'clock. My man
Paddock had gone to the wars long ago, so I had
shifted to one of these new blocks in Park Lane where
they provide food and service. I kept the place on
to have a home to go to when I got leave. It's a
miserable business holidaying in a hotel.

Sandy was devouring tea-cakes with the serious reso-
lution of a convalescent.

"Well, Dick, what's the news? Is it a brass hat or
the boot?"

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

"Neither," I said. "But. you and I are going to
disappear from His Majesty's forces. Seconded for
special service."

"O my sainted auntl" said Sandy. "What is it?
For Heaven's sake put me out of pain. Have we to
tout deputations of suspicious neutrals over munition
works or take the shivering journalist in a motor-car
where he can imagine he sees a Boche?"

"The news will keep. But I can tell you this much.
It's about as safe and easy as to go through the Ger*
man lines with a walking-stick."

"Come, that's not so dusty," said Sandy, and began
cheerfully on the muffins.

I must spare a moment to introduce Sandy to the
reader, for he cannot be allowed to slip into this tale
by a side-door. If you will consult the Peerage you
will find that to Edward Cospatrick, fifteenth Baron
Clanroyden, there was born in the year 1882, as his
second son, Ludovick Gustavus Arbuthnot, commonly
called the Honourable etc. The said son was educated
at Eton and New College, Oxford, was a. captain in
the Tweeddale Yeomanry, and served for some years
as honorary attache at various embassies. The Peer-
age will stop short at this point, but that is by no means
the end of the story. For the rest you must consult
very different authorities. Lean brown men from the
ends of the earth may be seen on the London pave-
ments now and then in creased clothes, walking with
the light outland step, slinking into clubs as if they
could not remember whether or not they belonged to
them. From them you may get news of Sandy. Better
still, you will hear of him at little forgotten fishing
ports where the Albanian mountains dip to the Adri-
atic. If you struck a Mecca pilgrimage the odds are

GREENMANTLE

you would meet a dozen of Sandy's friends in it. In
shepherds' huts in the Caucasus you will find bits of
his cast-oS clothing, for he has a knack of shedding
garments as he goes. In the caravanserais of Bokhara
and Samarkand he is known, and there are shikaris in
the Pamirs who still speak of him round their fires.
If you were going to visit Petrograd or Rome or Cairo
it would be no use asking him for introductions; if
he gave them, they would lead you into strange haunts.
But if Fate compelled you to go to Llasa or Yarkand
or Seistan he could map out your road for you and pass
the word to potent friends. We call ourselves insular,
but the truth is that we are the only race on earth that
can produce men capable of getting inside the skin of
remote peoples. Perhaps the Scotch are better than
the English, but we're all a thousand per cent, better
than anybody else. Sandy was the wandering Scot
carried to the pitch of genius. In old days he would "
have led a crusade or discovered a new road to the
Indies. To-day he merely roamed as the spirit moved
him, till the war swept him up and dumped him down
in my battalion.

I got out Sir Walter's half-sheet of note-paper. It
was not the original — ^naturally he wanted to keep
that — but it was a careful tracing. I took it that
Harry Bullivant had not written down the words as
a memo, for his own use. People who follow his
career have good memories. He must have written
them in order that, if he perished and his body was
found, his friends might get a clue. Wherefore, I
argued, the words must be intelligible to somebody
or other of our persuasion, and likewise they must be
pretty well gibberish to any Turk or German that
found them.

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

The first, "Kasredin/^ I could make nothing of.

I asked Sandy.

"You mean Nasr-ed-din," he said, still munching
crumpets.

"What's that?" I asked sharply. *

"He's the General 'believed to be commanding .
against us in Mesopotamia. I remember him years
ago in Aleppo. He talked bad French and drank the
sweetest of sweet champagne."

I looked closely at the paper. The "K" was unmis^
takable.

"Kasredin is nothing. It means in Arabic the House
of Faith, and might cover anything from Hag^a Sofia
to a suburban villa. What's your next puzzle, Dick?
Have you entered for a prize competition in a weekly
paper?"

''Cancer/' I read out.

"It is the Latin for a crab. Likewise it is the name
of a painful disease. It is also a sign of the Zodiac."

''v. I," I read.

"There you have me. It soxmds like the number
of a motor-car. The police would find out for you.
1 call this rather a difficult competition. What's the
prize ?"

I passed him the paper. "Who wrote it? It looks
as if he had been in a hurry."

"Harry BuUivant," I said.

Sandy's face grew solemn. "Old Harry. He was
at my tutor's. The best fellow God ever made. I
saw his name in the casualty list before Kut . . •
Harry didn't do things without a purpose. What's
the' story of this paper?"

"Wait till after dinner," I said. "I'm going to

GREENMANTLE

change and have a bath. There's an American coming

t '^^^ ^' * P^"^ <^^ *l»e business." ^

Mr. Blenkiron arrived punctual to the minute in a

^"n'hU filh* Russian prince's. Now that I saw him

?L K f * ^ ^'""^^ J"**S« h^™ b<=«er. He had a fat

•SlS wruTrr' '°° Pj"'"P in figure, and very mus-

S^lf ;7?lf '^"^^^ ^*^°^ ^» shirt<uffs. I fancied

nilS'^L*?-'^ i *^^^*^*«y "»eal. but the American
a a rim^ h>^boiIed fish and ^pped his milk a drop
at a time. When the servant had cleared away, he
was as good as his word and laid himself out on my
sota I offered him a good cigar, but he preferred one
of his own lean black abominations. Sandy stretched
ms length m an easy chair and lit his pipe. "Now
for your story, Dick," he said.

:ni*J*^^*"l*' ^/ ^^^^^"^ ^^^ ^egun with me, by teU-
ing them about the puzzle in the Near East. I pitched
a pretty good yam, for I had been thinking a lot about
ir, and tiic mystery of the business had caught my
tanqr. Sandy got very keen.

,V i* '" Po«S'Wc enough. Indeed, I've been expecting
Jt, though I'm hanged if I can imagine what card the
Germans have got up their sleeve. It might be any
one of twenty things. Thirty years ago there was a
bogus prophecy that played the devil in Yemen. Or it
might be a flag such as Ali Wad Helu had, or a jewel
- iiitc Solomon's necklace in Abyssinia. You never know

What wiU start off a Jehad I But I rather think it's a
man.

'.'Where could he get his purchase ?" I asked.

15t u ^"^J° f^y- If it were merely wild tribesmen
"Kc the Bcdawm he might have got a reputation a«

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES^

a saint and mirade-worker. Or he might be a fello^, ^
that preached a pure religion, like the chap that
founded the Senussi. But I'm inclined to think he must
be something extra special if he can put a spell on the
whole Moslem world. The Turk and the Persian
wouldn't follow the ordinary new theology game. He
must be of the Blood. Your Mahdis and Mullahs
and Imams were nobodies, but they had only a local
prestige. To capture all Islam — and I gather that is
what we fear — the man must be of the Koreish, the
tribe of the Prophet himself."

"But how could any impostor prove that? for I
suppose he's an impostor."

"He would have to combine a lot of claims. His
descent must be pretty good to begin with, and there
are families, remember, that claim the Koreish blood.
Then he'd have to be rather a wonder on his own
account — saintly, eloquent, and that sort of thing.
And I expect he'd have to show a sign, though what
that could be I haven't a notion."

"You know the East about as well as any living
man. Do you think that kind of thing is possible?"
I asked.

"Perfectly," said Sandy, with a grave face.

"Well, there's the ground cleared to begin with.
Then there's the evidence of pretty well every secret
agent we possess. That all seems to prove the fact.
But we have no details and no clues except that bit of
paper." I told them the story of it.

Sandy studied it with wrinkled brows. "It beats
me. But it may be the key for all that. A clue may
be dumb in London and shout aloud at Bagdad."

"That's just the point I was coming to. Sir Walter
says this thing is about as important for our cause as

GREENMANTLE

big guns. He can't give me orders, but he offers the
job of going out to find what the mischief is. Once he
knows that, he says he can checkmate it. But it's
got to be found out ^on, for the mine may be sprung
at any moment. I've taken on the job. Will you
help?"

Sandy was studying the ceiling.

*^I should add that it's about as safe as playing
chuck-farthing at the Loos Cross-roads, the day you
and I went in. And if we fail nobody can help us."

*'0h, of course, of course," said Sandy in an ab-
stracted voice.

Mr. Blenkiron, having finished his after-dinner re-
cumbency, had sat up and pulled a small table towards
him. From his pocket he had taken a pack of Patience
cards and had begun to play the game called the
Double Napoleon. He seemed to be oblivious of the
conversation.

Suddenly I had a feeling that the whole affair was
stark lunacy. Here were we three simpletons sitting
in a London flat and projecting a mission into the
enemy's citadel without an idea what we were to do
or how we were to do it. And one of the three was
looking at the ceiling, and whistling softly through his
jteeth, and another was playing Patience. The farce of
/the thing struck me so keenly that I laughed

Sandy looked at me sharply.

"You feel like that? Same with me. It's idiocy,
but all war is idiotic, and the most whole-hearted idiot
is apt to win. We're to go on this mad trail wherever
we think we can hit it. Well, I'm with you. But I
don't mind admitting that I'm in a blue funk. I had
got myself adjusted to this trench business and was

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

quite happy. And now you have hoicked me out, and
my feet are cold."

"I don't believe you know what fear is," I said.

"There you're wrong, Dick," he said earnestly.
"Every man who isn't a maniac knows fear. I have
done some daft things, but I never started on them
without wishing they were over. Once I'm in the
show I get easier, and by the time I'm coming out
I'm sorry to leave it. But at the start my feet are
icy.

"Then I take it you're coming?"

"Rather," he said. "You didn't imagine I would
go back on you?"

"And you, sir?" I addressed Blenkiron.

His game of Patience seemed to be coming out. He
was completing eight little heaps of cards with a con-
tented grunt. As I spoke, he raised his sleepy eyes
and nodded.

"Why, yes," he said. "You gentlemen mustn't think
that I haven't been following your most engrossing
conversation. I guess I haven't missed a syllable. I
find diat a game of Patience stimulates the digestion
after meals and conduces to quiet reflection. John Sr
Blenkiron is with you all the time."

He shuflled the cards and dealt for a new game.

I don't think I ever expected a refusal, but this ready
assent cheered me wonderfully. I couldn't have faced
the thing alone.

• "Well, that's settled. Now for ways and means.
We three have got to put ourselves in the way of
finding out Germany's secret, and we have to go where
it is known. Somehow or other we have to get to
Constantinople, and to beat the biggest area of country
we must go by different roads. Sandy, my lad, you've

GREENMANTLE

got to get into Turkey. YouVe the only one of us
that knows that engaging people. You can't get in
by Europe very easily, so you must try Asia. What
about the coast of Asia Minor?"

"It could be done," he said. "YouM better leave
that entirely to me. Til find out the best way. I
suppose the Foreign OflSice will help me to get to the
jumping-ofl[ place?"

"Remember," I said, "it*s no good getting too far
east. The secret, so far as concerns us, is still wefst of
Constantinople."

"I see that. Fll blow in on the Bosporus by a short
tack."

**For you, Mr. Blenkiron, I would suggest a straight
journey. You're an American, and can travel through
Germany direct. But I wonder how far your activities
in New York will allow you to pass as a neutral?"

"I have considered that, sir," he said. **I have
given some thought to the pecooliar psychology of the
great German nation. As I read them they're as
cunning as cats, and if you play the feline game they
will outwit you every time. Yes, sir, they are no
slouches at sleuth-work. If I were to buy a pair of
false whiskers and dye my hair and dress like a Baptist
parson and go into Germany on the peace racket, I
guess they'd be on my trail like a knife, and I should
be shot as a spy inside of a week or doing solitary in
the Moabit prison. But they lack the larger vision.
They can be bluffed, sir. With your approval I shall
visit the Fatherland as John S. Blenkiron, once a thorn
in the side of their brightest boys on the other side.
But it will be a different John S. I guess he will have
experienced a change of heart. He will have come
to appreciate the great, pure, noble soul of Germany,

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

and he will be sorrowing for his past like a converted
gun-man at a camp meeting. He will be a victim of
the meanness and perfidy of the British Government.
I am going to have a first-class row with your Foreign
Office about my passport, and I am going to speak
harsh words about theih up and down this Metropolis.
I am going to be shadowed by your sleuths at my port
of embarkation, and I guess I shall run up hard against
the British Le-gations in Scandinavia. By that time
our Teutonic friends will have begun to wonder what
has happened to John S., and to think that maybe they
have been mistaken in that child. So, when I get to
Germany they wiU be waiting for me with an open
mind. Then I reckon my conduct will surprise and
encourage them. I will confide to them valuable secret
information about British preparations, and I will
show up the British lion ai the meanest kind of cur.
You may trust me to make a good impression. Then
I guess I shall move eastwards, to see the de-molition
of the British Empire in those parts. By the way,
where is the rendezvousf'^

"This is the 17th day of November. If we can't
find out what we want in two months we may chuck
the job. On the 17th of January we should fore-
gather in Constantinople. Whoever gets there first
waits for the others. If by that date we're not all,
present, it will be considered that the missing manf
has got into trouble and must be given up. If ever
we get there we'll be coming from different points and
in different characters, so we want a rendezvous where
all kinds of odd folk assemble. Sandy, you know Con-
stantinople. You fix the meeting-place."

''I've already thought of that, he said, and going
to the writing-table he drew a little plan on a sheet

GREENMANTLE

of paper. "That lane runs down from the Kurdish
Bazaar in Galata to the ferry of Ratohik. Half-way-
down on the left-hand side is a cafe kept by a Greek
called Kuprasso. Behind the cafe is a garden, sur-
rounded by high walls which were parts of the old
Byzantine Theatre. At the end of the garden is a
shanty called the Garden-house of Suliman the Red.
It has been in its time a dancing-hall and a gambling
hell, and God knows what else. It's not a place for
respectable people, but the ends of the earth converge
there and no questions are asked. That's the best
spot I can think of for a meeting-place."

The kettle was simmering by the fire, the night was
raw, and it seemed the hour for whisky-punch. I
made a brew for Sandy and myself and boiled some
milk for Blenkiron.

"What about language?" I asked. "You're all
right, Sandy?"

"I know German fairly well; and I can pass any-
where as a Turk. The first will do for eavesdropping
and the second for ordinary business."
''And you?" I asked Blenkiron.
I was left out at Pentecost," he said. "I regret to
confess I have no gift of tongues. But the part I
have chosen for myself don't require the polyglot.
/Never forget I'm plain John S. Blenkiron, a citizen
^ «fv^ great American Republic."

. ,^^" haven't told us your own line, Dick," Sandy
said.

A am gping to the Bosporus through Germany,
and, not being a neutral, it won't be a very cushioned
journey.'*

Sandy looked grave.

THE GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES

"That sounds pretty desperate. Is your German
good enough?"

"Pretty fair; quite good enough to pass as a native.
But officially I shall not understand one word. I shall
be a Boer from Western Cape Colony: one of Maritz's
old lot who after a bit of trouble has got through
Angola and reached Europe. I shall talk Dutch and
nothing else. And, my hat! I shall be pretty bitter
about the British. There's a powerful lot of good
swear-words in the TaaL I shall know all about
Africa, and be panting to get another whack at the
verdommt rooinek. With luck they may send me to
the Uganda show or to Egypt, and/ 1 shall take care
to go by Constantinople. If Fm to deal with Moham-
medan natives they're bound to show me what hand
they hold. At least, liiat's the way I look at it."

We filled our glasses — ^two of punch and one of milk
— and drank to our next merry meeting. Then Sandy
began to laugh, and I joined in. The sense of hopeless
folly again descended on me. The best plans we could
make were like a few buckets of water to ease the
drought of the Sahara or the old lady who would have
stopped the Atlantic with a broom. I thought with
sympathy of little Saint Theresa.

CHAPTER III

PETER PIENAAR

OUR various departures were unassuming, all but
the American's. Sandy spent a busy fortnight
in his subterranean fashion, now in the British Mu-
seum, now running about the country to see old explor-
ing companions, how at the War Office, now at the
Foreign Office, but mostly in my flat, sunk in an arm-
chair and meditating. He left finally on December i
as a King^s Messenger for Cairo. Once there I knew
the King's Messenger would disappear, and some
queer Oriental ruffian take his place. It would have
been impudence in me to inquire into his plans. He
was the real professional, and I was only tjie dabbler.
Blenkiron was a different matter. Sir Walter told
me to look out for squalls, and the twinkle in his eye
gave me a notion of what was coming. The first thing
the sportsman did was to write a letter to the papers
signed with his name. There had been a debate in
the House of Commons on foreign policy, and the
speech of some idiot there gave him his cue. He de-
clared that he had been heart and soid with the British
at the start, but that he was reluctantly compelled to
change his views. He said our blockade of Germany
had broken all the laws of God and humanity, and
he reckoned that Britain was now the worst exponent
of Prussianism going. That letter made a fine racket,

PETER PIENAAR

and the paper that printed it had a row with the
Censor.

But tha.t was only the beginning of Mr. Blenkiron's
campaign. He got mixed up with some moimtebanks
called the League of Democrats against Aggression,
gentlemen who thought, that Germany was all right if
we would only keep from hurting her feelings. He
addressed a meeting under their auspices, which was
broken up by the crowd, but not before John S. had
got off his chest a lot of amazing stuff. 1 wasn't there,
but a man who was told me that he never heard such
a speech. He said that Germany was right in wanting
the freedom of the seas, and that America would back
her up, and that the British Navy was a bigger menace
to the peace of the world than the Kaiser's army. He
admitted that he had once thought differently, but he
was an honest man and not afraid to face facts. The
oration closed suddenly, when he got a bru^sels-sprout
in the eye, at which my friend said he swore in a very
unpacifist style.

After that he wrote other letters to the press, say-
ing that there was no more liberty of speech in Eng-
land, and a lot of scallywags backed him up. Some
Americans wanted to tar and feather him, and he got
kicked out of the Savoy. There was an agitation to
gtt him deported, and questions were asked in Parlia-
ment, and the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs
said his department had the matter in hand. I was
beginning to think that Blenkiron was carrying his
tomfoolery too far, so I went to see Sir Walter, but
he told me to keep my mind easy. "Our friend's
motto is Thorough,' " he said, "and he knows very
well what he is about. We have officially requested
him to leave, and he sails from Newcastle on Monday.

GREENMANTLE

He will be shadowed wherever he goes, and we hope
to provoke more outbreaks. He is a very capable
fellow."

The last I saw of him was on the Saturday after-
noon when I met him in St. James's Street and offered
to shake hands. He told me that my uniform was a
pollution, and made a speech to a small crowd about
it. They hissed him and he had to get into a taxi.
As he departed there was just the suspicion of a wink
in his left eye. On Monday I read that he had gone
off, and the papers observed that our shores were well
quit of him.

I sailed on December 3 from Liverpool in a boat
bound for the Argentine that was due to put in at
Lisbon. I had of course to get a Foreign Office
passport to leave England, but after that my con-
nection with the Government ceased. All the details
of my journey were carefully thought out. Lisbon
would be a good jumping-off place, for it was the
rendezvous of scallywags from most parts of Africa.
My kit was an old Gladstone bag, and my clothes
were the relics of my South African wardrobe. I let
my beard grow for some days before I sailed, and,
since it grows fast, I went on board with the kind of
hairy chin you will see on the young Boer. My name
was now Brandt, Cornelis Brandt — at least so my pass-|
port said, and the Foreign Office does not lie.

There were just two other passengers on that beastly
boat, and they never appeared till we were out of the
Bay. I was pretty bad myself, but managed to move
about all the time, for the frowst in my cabin would
have sickened a hippo. The old tub took two days
and a night to waddle from* Ushant to Finisterre.
Then the weather changed and we came out of snow-

PETER PIENAAR

squalls into something very like summer. The hills
of Portugal were all blue and yellow like the Kalahari,
and before we made the Tagus I was beginning to
forget I had ever left Rhodesia. There was a Dutch-
man among the sailors with whom I used to patter
the taal, and but for "Good morning*' and "Good
evening'* in broken English to the captain, that was
about all the talking I did on the cruise.

We dropped anchor off the quays of Lisbon on a
sUny blue morning, pretty near warm enough to wear
flannels. I had now got to be very wary. I did not
leave the ship with the shore-going boat, but made a
leisurely breakfast. Then I strolled on deck, and
there, just casting anchor in the middle of the stream,
was another ship with the blue and white funnel I
knew so well. I calculated that a month before she
had been smelling the mangrove swamps of Angola.
Nothing better could answer my purpose. I proposed
to board her, pretending I was looking for a friend,
and come on shore from her, so that any one in Lisbon
who chose to be curious would think I had landed
straight from Portuguese Africa.

I hailed one of the adjacent ruffians, and got into
his row-boat, with my kit. We reached the vessel —
they called her the Henry the Navigator — ^just as the
first shore-boat was leaving. The crowd in it were all
Portuguese, which suited my book.

But when I went up the ladder the first man I met
was old Peter Pienaar.

Here was a piece of sheer monumental luck. Peter
had opened his eyes and his mouth, and had got as
far as "AUemachtig,** wHen I shut him up.

"Brandt," I said, "Cornelis Brandt. That's my

GREENMANTLE

name now, and don't you forget it. Who is die cap-
tain here? Is it still old Sloggett?"

"3a" said Peter, pulling himself together. "He
was speaking about you yesterday."

This was better and better. I sent Peter below to
get hold of Sloggett, and presently I had a few words
with that gentleman in his cabin with the door shut.

"You've got to enter my name on the ship's books.
I came aboard at Mossamedes. And my name's Cor-
nelis Brandt."

At first Sloggett was for objecting. He said it was
a felony. I told him that I dared say it was, but he
had got to do it, for reasons which I couldn't give, but
which were highly creditable to all parties. In the end
he agreed and I saw it done. I had a pull on old
Sloggett, for I had known him ever since he owned a
dissolute tug-boat at Delagoa Bay.

Then Peter and I went ashore and swaggered into
Lisbon as if we owned De Beers. We put up at the
big hotel opposite the railway station, and looked and
behaved like a pair of low-bred South Africans home
for a spree. It was a fine bright day, so I hired a
motor-car and said I would drive it myself. We asked
the name of some beauty-spot to visit, and were told
Cintra and shown the road to it. I wanted a quiet
place to talk, for I had a good deal to say to Peter
Pienaar.

I christened that car the Lusitantan Terror, and it
was a marvel that we did not smash ourselves up.
There was something immortally wrong with its steer-
iiig-gear. Half a dozen times we slewed across the
road, inviting destruction. But we got there in the
end, and had luncheon in an hotel opposite the Moorish
palace. There we left the car and wandered up the

PETER PIENAAR

slopes of a hill, where, sitting among scrub very like
the veld, I told Peter the situation of aifairs.

But first a word must be said about Peter. He was
the man that taught me all I ever knew of veld-craft,
and a good deal about human nature besides. He
was out of the Old Colony — Burgersdorp, I think —
but he had come to the Transvaal when the Lydenburg
goldfields started. He was prospector, transport-
rider, and hunter In turns, but principally hunter. In
those early days he was none too good a citizen. He
was in Swaziland with Bob Macnab, and you know
what that means. Then he took to working off bogus
gold propositions on Kimberley and Johannesburg
magnates, and what he didn't know about salting a
mine wasn't knowledge. After that he was in the
Kalahari, where he and Scotty Smith were familiar
names. An era of comparative respectability dawned
for him with the Matabele War, when he did uncom-
mon good scouting and transport work. Cecil Rhodes
wanted to establish him on a stock farm down Salis-
bury way, but Peter was an independent devil and
would call no man master. He took to big-game hunt-
ing, which was what God intended him for, for he
could track a tsessebe in thick bush, and was far the
finest shot I have seen in my life. He took parties to
the Pungwe flats, and Barotseland, and up to Tan-
ganyika. Then he made a specialty of the Ngami
region, where I once hunted with him, and he was
with me when I went prospecting in Damaraland.

When the Boer War started, Peter, like many of the
very great hunters, took the British side and did most
of our intelligence work in the North Transvaal.
Beyers would have hanged him if he could have caught
him, and there was no love lost between Peter and his

GREENMANTLE

own people for many a day. When it was all over
and things had calmed down a bit, he settled in Bula-
wayo and used to go with me when I went on trek.
At the time when I left Africa two years before, I had
lost sight of him for months, and heard that he was
somewhere on the Congo poaching elephants. He had
always a great idea of making things hum so loud in
Angola that the Union Government would have to
step in and annex it. After Rhodes Peter had the
biggest notions south of the Line.

He was a man of about five foot ten, very thin and
active, and as strong as a buffalo. He had pale blue
eyes, a face as gentle as a girl's, and a soft sleepy voice.
From his present appearance it looked as if he had
been living hard lately. His clothes were of the cut
you might expect to get at Lobito Bay, he was as lean
as a rake, deeply browned with the sun, and there was
a lot of grey in his beard. He was fifty-six years old,
and used to be taken for forty. Now he looked about
his age.

I first asked him what he had been up to since the
war began. He spat, in the Kaffir way he had, and
said he had been having hell's time.

"I got hung up on the Kafue," he said. "When I
heard from old Letsitela that the white men were
fighting I had a bright idea that I might get into
German South West from the north. You see I knew
that Botha couldn't long keep out of the war. Well,
I got into German territory all light, and then a
skeUum of an officer came along, and commandeered
all my mules, and wanted to commandeer me with
them for his fpol army. He was a very ugly man with
a yellow face." Prter filled a deep pipe from a koo-
doo*skin poucfa.

PETER PIENAAR

"Were you commandeered?" I asked

"No. I shot him — ^not so as to kill, but to wound
badly. It was all right, for he fired first on me. Got
me too ja the left shoulder. But that was the begin-
ning of bad trouble. I trekked east pretty fast, and
got over the border among the Ovamba. I have made
many journeys, but that was the worst. Four days I
went without water, and six without food. Then by
bad luck I fell in with 'Nkitla — you remember, the
half-caste chief • He said I owed him money for
cattle which I bought when I came there with Caro-
wab. It was a lie, but he held to it, and would ^ve
me no transport. So I crossed the Kalahari on my
feet. Ugh, it was as slow as a vrouw coming from
nachtmaal. It took weeks and weeks, and when I came
to Lechwe's kraal, I heard that the fighting was over
and diat Botha had conquered the Gerhians. That,
too, was a lie, but it deceived me, and I went north into
Rhodesia, where I learned the truth. But by then I
judged the war had gone too far for me to get any
profit out of it, so I went into Angola to look for
German refugees. By that time I was hating Ger-
mans worse than hell."

"But what did you propose to do with them?" I
asked^

*^r had a notion they would make trouble with the
Government in those parts. I don't specially love the
Portugoose, but I'm for him against the Germans
every day. Well, there was trouble, and I had a merry
time for a month or two. But by and by it petered
out, and I thought I had better dear for Europe, for
South Africa was settling down just as the big show
was getting really interesting. So here I am, Cornelis,

GREENMANTLE

my old friend If I shave my beard, will they let me
join the Flying Corps?'*

I looked at Peter sitting there smoking, as imper-
turbable as if he had been growing mealies in Natal
all his life and had run home for a month's holiday
with his people in Peckham.

"You're coming with me, my lad," I said. "We're
going into Germany."

Peter showed no surprise. "Keep in mind that I
don't like the Germans," was all he said. "I'm a quiet
Christian man, but I've the devil of a temper."

Then I told him the story of our mission.

"You and I have got to be Maritz's men. We got
into Angola, and now we're trekking for the Father-
land to get a bit of our own back from the infernal
English. Neither of us knows a syllable of German —
publicly. We'd better plan out the fighting we were
in — Kakamas will do for one, and Schuit Drift. You
were a Ngamiland hunter before the war. They won't
have your dossier, so you can tell any lie you like. I'd
better be an educated Afrikander, one of Beyers's
bright lads, and a pal of old Hertzog. We can let our
imagination loose about that part, but we must stick
to the same yarn about the fighting."

'7«, Cornelis," said Peter. (He had called me
Cornelis ever since I had told him my new name. He
was a wonderful chap for catching on to any game.)
"But after we get into Germany, what then? There
can't be much difficulty about the beginning. But
once we're among the bcer-swillers I don't quite see
our line. We're to find out about something that's
going on in Turkey? When I was a boy the predikant
used to preach about Turkey. I wish I was better

k--^

PETER PIENAAR

educated and remembered whereabouts in the map tt
was.*^

"You leave that to me/' I said; "I'll explain it all to
you before we get there. We haven't got much of a
spoor, but we'll cast about, and with luck will pick it
up. I've seen you do it often enough when we hunted
koodoo on the Kafue."

Peter nodded. "Do we sit still in a German town?"
he asked anxiously. "I shouldn't like that, Cornelis."

"We move gently eastward to Constantinople," I
said.

Peter grinned. "We should cover a lot of new
country. You can reckon on me, friend Cornelis. I've
always had a hankering to see Europe."

He rose to his feet and stretched his long arms.

"We'd better begin at once. God, I wonder what's
happened to old Solly Maritz, with his bottle face?
Yon was a fine battle at the drift when I was sitting
up to my neck in the Orange praying that Brits' lads
would take my head for a stone."

Peter was as thorough a mountebank, when he got
started, as Blenkiron himself. All the way back to
Lisbon he yarned about Maritz and his adventures
in German South West till I half believed they were
true. He made a very good story of our doings, and
by his constant harping on it I pretty soon got it into
my memory. That was always Peter's way. He said
if you were going to play* a part, you must think your-
self into it, convince yourself that you were it, till you
really were it and didn't act but behaved naturally. The
two men who had started that morning from the hotel
door had been bogus enough, but the two that re-
turned were genuine desperadoes, itching to get a
shot at England.

GREENMANTLE

We spent that evening piling up evidence in our
favour. Some kind of republic had been started in
Portugal, and ordinarily the cafes would have been
full of politicians, but the war had quieted all these
local squabbles, and the talk was of nothing but what
was doing in France and Russia. The place we went
to was a big, well-lighted show on a main street, and
there were a lot of sharp-eyed fellows wandering about
that I guessed were spies and police agents. I knew
that Britain was the one country that doesn't bother
about this kind of game, and tliat it would be safe
enough to let ourselves go.

I talked Portuguese fairly well, and Peter spoke it
like a Loureng Marques bar-keeper, with a lot of
Shangaan words to fill up. He started on coragoa,
which I reckoned was a new drink to him, and pres-
ently his tongue ran freely. Several neighbours
pridced up their ears, and soon we had a small crowd
round our table.

We talked to each other of Maritz and our doings.
It didn't seem to be a popular subject in that cafe.
One big blue-black fellow said that Maritz was a dirty
swine who would soon be hanged. Peter quickly caught
his knife-wrist with one hand and his throat with the
other, and demanded an apology. He got it. The
Lisbon boulevardiers have not lost any lions.

After that there was a bit of a squash in our corner.
Those near us were very quiet and polite, but the outer
fringe made remarks. When Peter said that if Portu-
gal, which he admitted he loved, was going to stick
to England she was backing the wrong horse, there was
a murmur of disapproval. One decent-looking old fel-
low, who had the air of a ship's captain, flushed all
over his honest face, and stood up looking straight at

PETER PIENAAR

Peter. I saw that we had struck an Englishman, and
mentioned it to Peter in Dutch.

Peter played his part perfectly. He suddenly shut
up, and, with furtive looks around him, began to jabber
to me in a low voice. He was the very picture of the
stage conspirator.

The old fellow stood staring at us. "I don't very
well understand this damned lingo," he said; ''but if
so be you dirty Dutchmen are sayin* anything against
England, FU ask you to repeat it. And if so be as you
repeats it TU take dther of you on and knock the face
off him."

He was a chap after my own heart, but I had to
keep the game up. I said in Dutch to Peter that we
mustn't get brawling in a public house. "Remember
the big thing," I said darkly. Peter nodded, and the
old fellow, after staring at us for a bit, spat scorn-
fully, and walked out.

"The time is coming when the Englander will sing
small," I observed to the crowd. We stood drinks to
one or two, and then swaggered into the street. At
the door a hand touched my arm, and looking down,
I saw a little scrap of a man in a fur coat.

"Will the gentlemen walk a step with me and drink
a glass of beer?'* he said in very stiff Dutch.

"Who the devil are you?" I asked.

^^Gott strafe EnglandP* was his answer, and, turn-
ing back the lapel of his coat, he showed some kind
of ribbon in his bottonhole.

"Amen," said Peter. "Lead on, friend. We don't
mind if we do."

He led us to a back street and then up two pairs
of stairs to a very snug little flat. The place was full
of fine red lacquer, and I guessed that art-dealing was

GREENMANTLE

his nominal business. Portugal, since the republic
broke up the convents and sold up the big royalist
grandees, was full of bargains in the lacquer and curio
line.

He filled us two long tankards of very good Munich
beer.

''Prosit^' he said, raising his glass. "You are from
South Africa. What make you in Europe?"

We both looked sullen and secretive.

"That's our own business," I answered. "You don't
expect to buy our confidence with a glass of beer."

"So?" he said. ^ "Then I will put it differently.
From your speech in the cafe I judge you do not love
the English."

Peter said something about stamping on their grand-
mothers, a Kaffir phrase which sounded gruesome in
Dutch.

The man laughed. "That is all I want to know.
You are on the German side?"

"That remains to be seen," I said. "If they treat
me fair I'll fight for them, or for anybody else that
makes war on England. England has stolen my coun-
try and corrupted my people and made me an exile.
We Afrikanders do not forget. We may be slow but
we win in the end. We two are men worth a great
price. Germany fights England in East Africa. We
know the natives as no Englishmen can ever know
them. They are too soft and easy and the Kaffirs
laugh at them. But we can handle the blacks so that
they will fight like devils for fear of us. What is the
reward, little man, for our services? I will tell you.
There will be no reward. We ask none. We fight for
hate of England."

Peter grunted a deep approval.

PETER PIENAAR

'^That is good talk," said our entertainer, and his
close-set eyes flashed. "There is room in Germany
for such men as you. Where are you going now, I
beg to know."

"To Holland," I said. "Then maybe we will go
to Germany. We are tired with travel and may rest
a bit. This war will last long and our chance will
come."

"But you may miss your market," he said signifi-
cantly. "A ship sails to-morrow for Rotterdam. If
you take my advice, you will go with her."

This was what I wanted, for if we stayed in Lisbon
some real soldier of Maritz might drop in any day
and blow the gaff.

"I recommend you to sail in the Machadoy^^ he re-
peated. "There is work for you in Germany — oh,
yes, much work; but if you delay the chance may pass.
I will arrange your journey. It is my business to help
the allies of my fatherland."

He wrote down our names and an epitome of our
doings contributed by Peter, who required two mugs
of beer tb help him through. He was a Bavarian,
it seemed, and we drank to the health of Prince Rup-
precht, the same blighter I was trying to do in at Loos.
That was an irony which Peter unfortunately could
not appreciate. If he could he would have enjoyed it.

The little chap saw us back to our hotel, and was
with us next morning after breakfast, bringing the
steamer tickets. We got on board about two in the
afternoon, but on my advice he did not see us off. I
told him that, being British subjects, and rebels at
that, we did not want to run any risks on board, assum-
ing a British cruiser caught us up and searched us.
But Peter took twenty pounds off him for travelling

GREENMANTLE

expenses, it being his rule never to miss ah opportunity
of spoiling the Egyptians.

As we were dropping down the Tagus we passed
the old Henry the Navigator.

"I met Sloggett in the street this morning," said
Peter, "and he told me a little German man had been
oif in a boat at daybreak looking up the passenger list.
Yon was a right notion of yours, Cornelis. I am glad
we are going among Germans. They are careful peo-
ple whom it is a pleasure to meet."

s«

CHAPTER IV

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOS

THE Germans, as Peter said, are a careful peo-
ple, A man met us on the quay at Rotterdam.
I was a bit afraid that something might have turned up
in Lisbon to discredit us, and that our little friend
might have warned his pals by telegram. But appar-
ently all was serene.

Peter and I had made our plans pretty carefully
on the voyage. We had talked nothing but Dutch, and
had kept up between ourselves the role of Maritz's
men, which Peter said was the only way to play a part
well. Upon my soul, before we got to Holland I was
not very clear in my own mind what my past had been.
Indeed the danger was that the other side of my mind,
which should be busy with the great problem, would get
atrophied, and that I should soon be mentally on a par
with the ordinary backveld desperado. We had agreed
that it would be best to get into Germany at once, and
when the agent on the quay told us of a train at mid-
day we decided to take it. ^

I had another fit of cold feet before we got over
the frontier. At the station there was a King's mes-
senger whom I had seen in France, and a war corre-
spondent who had been trotting round our part of the
front before Loos. I heard a woman speaking pretty
clean-cut English, which amid the hoarse Dutch jabber

GREENMANTLE

sounded like a lark among crows. There were copies
of the English papers for sale, and English cheap edi-
tions. I felt pretty bad about the whole business, and
wondered if I should ever see these homely sights
again.

But the mood passed when the train started. It was
a clear blowing day, and as we crawled through the
flat pastures of Holland my time was taken up an-
swering Peter's questions. He had never been in
Europe before, and formed a high opinion of the
farming. He said he reckoned that such land would
carry four sheep a morgen. We were thick in talk
when we reached the frontier station and jolted over
a canal bridge into Germany. ^

I had expected a big barricade with barbed wire
and entrenchments. But there was nothing to see on
the German side but half a dozen sentries in the field-
grey I had hunted at Loos. , An under-ofEcer with
the black-and-gold button of the Landsturm, hoicked
us out of the train, and we were all shepherded in a
big bare waiting-room, where a large stove burned.
They took us two at a time into an inner room for
examination. I had explained to Peter all about this
formality, but I was glad we went in together, for
they made us strip to the skin, and I had to curse him
pretty seriously to make him keep quiet. The men
who did the job were fairly civil, but they were mighty
thorough. They took down a list of all we had in our
pockets and bags, and all the details from the pass-
ports the Rotterdam agent had given us.

We were dressing when a man in a lieutenant's uni-
form came in with a paper in his hand. He was a
fresh-faced lad of about twenty, with short-sighted
spectacled eyes.

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

"Herr Brandt," he called out.

I nodded.

"And this is Herr Pienaar?'* he asked in Dutch.

He saluted. "Gentlemen, I apologise. I am late
because of the slowness of the Herr Commandant's
motor-car. Had I been in time you would not have
been required to go through this ceremony. We have
been advised of your coming, and I am instructed to
attend you on your journey. The train for Berlin
leaves in half an hour. Pray do me the honour to
join me in a bock."

With a feeling of distinction we stalked out of the
ordinary ruck of passengers and followed the lieu-
tenant to the station restaurant. He plunged at once
into conversation, talking the Dutch of Holland, which
Peter, who had forgotten his schooldays, found a bit
hard to follow. He was unfit for active service, be-
cause of his eyes and a weak heart, but he was a des-
perate fire-eater in that stuffy restaurant. By his way
of it Germany could gobble up the French and the
Russians whenever she cared, but she was aiming at
getting all the Middle East in her hands first, so that
she could come out conqueror with the practical con-
trol of half the world. "Your friends the English,"
he said grinning, "will come last. When we have
starved them and destroyed their commerce with our
under-sea boats we will show them what our navy can
do. For a year they have been wasting their time in
brag and politics, and we have been buildmg great

ships— oh, so many I My cousin at Kiel '* and he

looked over his shoulder.

But we never heard about that cousin at Kiel. A
short, sunburnt man came in and our friend sprang
up and saluted, clicking his heels like a pair of tongs.

GREENMANTLE

"These are the South African Dutch, Herr Cap-
tain/' he said.

'The new-comer looked us over with bright intelli-
gent eyes, and started questioning Peter in the taaL
It was well that we had taken some pains with our
story, for this man had been years in German South
West, and knew every mile of the borders. Zorn was
his name, and both Peter and I thought we remembered
hearing him spoken of.

I am thankful to say that we both showed up pretty
well. Peter told his story to perfection, not pitching
it too high, and asking me now and then for a name
or to verify some detail. Captain Zorn looked sat-
isfied. ^

"You seem the right kind of fellows," he said.
"But remember" — and he bent his brows on us—
"we do not understand slimness in this land. If you
are honest you will be rewarded, but if you dare to
play a double game you *will be shot Ijke dogs. Your
race has produced over many traitors for my taste."

"I ask no reward," I said grufily. "We are not
Germans or Germany's slaves. But so long as she
fights against England we will fight for her."

"Bold words," he said; "but you must bow your
stiff necks to discipline first. Discipline has been the
weak point of you Boers, and you have suffered for it.
You are no more a nation. In Germany we put disci-
pline first and last, and therefore we will conquer the
world. Off with you now. Your train starts in three
minutes. We will sec what von Stumm will make of
you."

That fellow gave me the best "feel" of any Ger-
man I had yet met. He was a white man and I could

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

have worked with him. I liked his stiff chin and steady
blue eyes.

My chief recollection of our journey to Berlin was
Its commonplaceness. The spectacled lieutenant fell
asleep, and for the most part we had the carriage to
ourselves. Now and again a soldier on leave would
drop in, most of them tired men with heavy eyes. No
wonder, poor devils, for they were coming back from
the Yser or the Ypres salient. I would have liked to
talk to them, but officially of course I knew no Ger-
man, and the conversation I overheard did not signify
much. It was mostly about regimental details, though
one chap, who was in better spirits than the rest, ob-
served ^at this was the last Christmas of misery, and
that next year he would be holidaying at home with full
pockets. The others assented, but without much con-
viction.

The winter day was short, and most of the journey
was made in the dark. I could see from the window
the lights of little villages, and now and then the blaze
of ironworks and forges. We stopped at a town for
dinner, where the platform was crowded with drafts
waiting to go westwards. We saw no signs of any
scarcity of food, such as the English newspapers wrote
about. We had an excellent dinner at the station
restaurant, which, with a bottle of white wine, cost
just three shillings apiece. The bread, to be sure,
was poor, but I can put up with the absence of bread
if I get a .juicy fillet of beef and as good vegetables
as you will see in the Savoy.

I was a little afraid of our giving ourselves away in
our sleep, but I need have had no fear, for our escort
slumbered like a hog with his mouth wide open. As
we roared through the darkness I kept pindiing my-

GREENMANTLE

self to make me feel that I was in the enemy's land
on a wild mission. The rain came on, and we passed
through dripping towns, with the lights shining from
the wet streets. As we went eastward the lighting
seemed to grow more generous. After the murk of
London it was queer to slip through garish stations
with a hundred arc lights glowing, and to see long
lines of lamps running to the horizon. Peter dropped
off early, but I kept awake till midnight, trying to focus
thoughts that persistently strayed. Then I too dozed,
and did not awake till about five in the morning, when
we ran into a great busy terminus as bright as midday.
It was the easiest and most unsuspicious journey I ever
made.

The lieutenant stretched himself and smoothed his
rumpled uniform. We carried our scanty luggage to
a droschke, for there seemed to be no porters. Our
escort gave the address of some hotel and we rum-
bled out into brightly lit empty streets.

"A mighty dorp," said Peter. "Of a truth the
Germans are a great people."

The lieutenant nodded good-humouredly.

"The greatest people on earth," he said, "as their
enemies will soon bear witness."

I would have given a lot for a bath, but I felt that
it would be outside my part, and Peter was not of the
washing persuasion. But we had a very good break-
fast of coffee and eggs, and then the lieutenant started
on the telephone. He began by being dictatorial, then
he seemed to be switched on to higher authorities, for
he grew more polite, and at the end he fairly crawled.
He made some arrangements, for he informed us that
in the afternoon we would see some fellow whose title
he could not translate into Dutch. I judged he waa

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

a great swell, for his voice became reverential at the
mention of him.

He took us for a walk that morning after Peter and
I had attended to our toilets. We were an odd pair
of scallywags to look at, but as South African as a
wait-a-bit bush. Both of us had ready-made tweed
suits, grey flannel shirts with flannel collars, and felt
hats with broader brims than .they like in Europe.
I had strong nailed brown boots, Peter a pair of those
mustard-coloured abominations which the Portuguese
affect and which made him hobble like a Chinese lady.
He had a scarlet satin tie which you could hear a mile
off. My beard had grown to quite a respectable lengthy
and I trimmed it like General Smuts'. Peter's was
the kind of loose flapping thing the taakhaar loves,
which has scarcely ever been shaved, and is combed
once in a blue moon. I must say we made a pretty
solid pair. Any South African would have set us down
as a Boer from the back-veld who had bought a suit
of clothes in the nearest store, and his cousin from
some one-horse dorp who had been to school and
thought himself the devil of a fellow. We fairly
reeked of the sub-continent, as the papers call it.

It was a fine morning after the rain, and we wan-
dered about in the streets for a couple of hours. They
were busy enough, and the shops looked rich and
bright with their Christmas goods, and one big store
where I went to buy a pocket-knife was packed with
customers. One didn't see very many young men,
and most of the women wore mourning. Uniforms
were everywhere, but their wearers generally looked
like dug-outs or office fellows. We had a look at the
squat building which housed the General Staff and took
off our hats to it. Then we stared at the Marinamt, and

*<;

GREENMANTLE

I wondered what plots were hatching there behind old
Tirpitz's whiskers. The capital gave one an impres-
sion of ugly cleanness and a sort of dreary effective-
ness. And yet I found it depressing — ^more depressing
than London. I don't know how to put it, but the
whole big concern seemed to have no soul in it, to be
like a big factory instead of a city. You won't make a
factory look like a house, though you decorate its front
and plant rose-bushes all round it. The place depressed
and yet cheered me. It somehow made the German
people seem smaller.

At three o'clock the lieutenant took us to a plain
white building in a side street with sentries at the door.
A young Staff officer met us and made us wait for
five minutes in an ante-room. Then we were ushered
into a big room with a polished floor on which Peter
nearly sat down. There was a log fire burning, and
seated at a table was a little man in spectacles with his
hair brushed back from his brow like a popular violin-
ist. He was the boss, for the lieutenant saluted him
and announced our names. Then he disappeared, and
the man at the table motioned us to sit down in two
chairs, before him.

"Herr Brandt and Herr Pienaar?" he asked, look-
ing over his glasses.

But it was the other man that caught my eye. He
stood with his back to the fire leaning his elbows on
the mantelpiece. He was a perfect mountain of a
fellow, six and a half feet if he was an inch, with
shoulders on him like a shorthorn bull. He was in
uniform, and the black-and-white ribbon of the Iron
Cross showed at a buttonhole. His tunic was all
wrinkled and strained as if it could scarcely contain
his huge chest, and mighty hands were clasped over

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

his stomach. That man must have had the length of
reach of a gorilla. He had a great, lazy, smiling face,
with a square cleft chin which stuck out beyond the
rest. His brow* retreated and the stubbly back of
his head ran forward to meet it, while his neck below
bulged out over his collar. His head was exactly the
shape of a pear with the sharp end topmost.

He stared at me with his small bright eyes and I
stared back. I had struck something I had been look*
ing for for a long time, and till that moment I wasn't
sure that it existed. Here was the German of carica-
ture, the real German, the fellow we were up against.
He was as hideous as a hippopotamus, but effective.
Every bristle on his odd head was effective.

The man at the ,table was speaking. I took him
to be a civilian official of sorts, pretty high up, from
his surroundings, perhaps an Under-Secretary. His
Dutch was slow and careful, but good — too good for
Peter. He had a paper before him and was asking
us questions from it. They did not amount to much,
being pretty well a repetition of those Zom had asked
us at the frontier. I answered fluently, for I had all
our lies by heart.

Then the man on the hearthrug broke in. "PU
talk to them. Excellency," he said in German. "You
are too academic for these outland swine."

He began in the taal, with the thick guttural accent
that you get in German South West. "You have heard
of me," he said. "I am the Colonel von Stumm who
fought the Heraros."

Peter pricked up his ears, "/a, Baas, you cut off
the chief Baviaan's head and sent it in pickle about
the country. I have seen it."

The big man laughed. "You see I am not forgot-

GREENMANTLE

ten,'* he said to his friend, and then to us: "So I
treat my enemies, and so will Germany treat hers.
You, too, if you fail me by a fraction of ^n inch."
And he laughed loud again. '

There was something horrible in that boisterousness.
Peter was watching him from below his eyelids, as I
have seen him watch a lion about to charge.

He flung himself on a chair, put his elbows on the
table, and thrust his face forward.

"You have come from a damned muddled show. If
I had Maritz in my power I would have him*flogged
at a wagon's end. Fools and pig-dogs, they had the
game in their hands and they flung it away. We could
have raised a fire that would have burned the English
into the sea, and for lack of fuel they let it die down.
Then they try to fan it when the ashes are cold." He
rolled a paper pellet and flicked it into the air. "That
Is what I think of your idiot general," he said, "and
of all you Dutch. As slow as a fat vrouw and as
greedy as an aasvogel."

We looked very glum and sullen.

"A pair of dumb dogs," he cried. "A thousand
Brandenburgers would have won in a fortnight. Seitz
hadn't much to boast of, mostly clerks and farmers
and half<astes, and no soldier worth the name to lead
them, but it took Botha and Smuts and a dozen gen-
erals to hunt him down. But Maritz 1" His scorn
came like a gust of wind.

"Maritz did all the fighting there was," said Peter
sulkily. "At any rate he wasn't afraid of the sight
of khaki like your lot."

"Maybe he wasn't," said the giant in a cooing voice;
"maybe he had his reasons for that. You Dutchmen
have always a feather-bed to fall on. You can al-

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

ways turn traitor. Maritz now calls himself Robinson,
and has a pension from his friend Botha.'*

"That," said Peter, "is a very damned lie."

"I asked for information," said Stumm with a sud-
den politeness. "But that is all past and done with.
Maritz matters no more than your old Cronjes and
Krugers. The show is over, and you are loolung for
safety. For a new master perhaps? But, man, what
can you bring? What can you offer? You and your
Dutch are lying in the dust with the yoke on your
necks. ^The Pretoria lawyers have talked you round.
You see that map," and he pointed to a big one on the
wall. "South Africa is coloured green. Not red
for the English, or yellow for the Germans. Some
day it will be yellow, but for a little it will be green
— ^the colour of neutrals, of nothings, of boys and
young ladies and chicken-hearts."

I kept wondering what he was playing at.

Then he fixed his eyes on Peter. "What do you
come here for? The game's up in your own country.
What can you offer us Germans? If we gave you
ten million marks and sent you back you could do
nothing. Stir up a village row, perhaps, and shoot a
policeman. South Africa is counted out in this war.
Botha is a cleverish man and has beaten you calves'-
heads of rebels. Can you deny it?"

Peter couldn't. He was terribly honest in some
things, and these were for certain his opinions.

"No," he said, "that is true. Baas." •

"Then what in God's name can you do?" shouted
Stumm.

Peter mumbled some foolishness about nobbling
Angola for Germany and starting a revolution among

GREENMANTLE

the natives. Stumm flung up his arms and cursed, and
the Under-Secretary laughed.

It was high time for me to chip in. I was beginning
to see the kind of fellow this Stumm was, and as he
talked I thought of my mission, which had got overlaid
by my Boer past. It looked as if he might be useful.

"Let me speak," I said. "My friend is a great
hunter, but he fights better than he talks. He is no
politician. You speak truth. South Africa is a closed
door for the present, and the key to it is elsewhere.
Here in Europe, and in the East, and in other parts
of Africa. We have come to help you to find the
key."

Stumm was listening. "Go on, my little Boer. It
will be a new thing to hear a taakhaar on world-
politics."

"You are fighting," I said, "ifl East Africa; and
soon you may fight in Egypt. All the east coast north
of the Zambesi will be your battle-ground. The Eng-
lish run about the world with little expeditions. I do
not know where the places, are, though I read of them
in the papers. But I know my Africa. You want to
beat them here in Europe and on the seas. Therefore,
like wise generals, you try to divide them and have
them scattered throughout the globe while you stick
at home. That is your plan?"

"A second Falkenhayn," said Stumm, laughing.

"Well, England will not let East Africa go. She
fears for Egypt and she fears too for India. If you
press her there she will send armies and more armies
till she is so weak in Europe that a child can crush
her. That is England's way. She cares more for her
Empire than for what may happen to her allies. So
I say press and still press there, destroy the railway

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

to the Lakes, bum her capital, pen up every English-
man in Mombasa island. At this moment it is worth
for you a thousand Damaralands."

The man was really interested and the Under-
Secretary too pricked up his ears.

"We can keep our territory," said the former; "but
as for pressing, how the devil are we to press? The
accursed English hold the sea. We cannot ship men
or guns there. South are the Portuguese and west
the Belgians. You cannot move a mass without a
lever."

"The lever is there, ready for you," I said.

"Then for God's sake show it me," he cried.

I looked at the door to see that it was shut, as if
what I had to say was very secret.

"You need men, and the men are waiting. They
are black, but they are the stuff of warriors. All
round your borders you have the remains of great
fighting tribes, the Angoni, the Masai, the Manyum-
wezi, and above all the Somalis of the north, and the
dwellers on the Upper Nile. The British recruit their
black regiments there, and so do you. But to get re-
cruits is not enough. You must set whole nations
moving, as the Zulu under Tchaka flowed over South
Africa;"

"It cannot be done," said the Under-Secretary.

"It can be done," I said quietly. "We two are here
to do it."

This kind of talk was jolly difficult for me, chiefly
because of Stumm's asides in German to the official.
I had above all things to get the credit of knowing
no German, and, if you understand a language well, it
is not very easy when you are interrupted not to show
that you know it, either by a direct answer, or by re-

GREENMANTLE

ferring to the interruption In what you say next. I
had to be always on my guard, and yet it was up to
me to be very persuasive and convince these fellows
that I would be useful. Somehow or other I had to get
into their confidence.

"I have been for years up and down in Africa-
Uganda and the Congo and the Upper Nile. I know
the ways of the Kaffir as no Englishman does. We
Afrikanders see into the black man's heart, and though
he may hate us he does our will. You Germans are
like the English; you are too big folk to understand
plain men. *Civilise,* ,you cry. 'Educate,' say the
English. The black man obeys and puts away his
gods, but he worships them all the time in his souL
We must get his gods on our side, and then he will
move mountains. We must do as John Laputa did with
Sheba's necklace."

"That's all in the air," said Stumm, but he did not
laugh.

"It is sober common sense," I said. "But you must
begin at the right end. First find the race that fears
its priests. It is waiting for you — ^the Mussulmans of
Somaliland and the Abyssinian border and the Blue
and White Nile. They would be like dried grasses
to catch fire if you used the flint and steel of their reli«
gion. Look what the English suffered from a crazy
Mullah who ruled only a dozen villages. Once get
the flames going and they will lick up the pagans of
the west and south. That is the way of Africa. How
many thousands, think you, were in the Mahdi's army
who never heard of the Prophet till they saw the black
flags of the Emirs going into battle?"

Stumm was smiling. He turned his face to the of-
ficial and spoke with his hand over his mouth, but I

ADVENTURES OF TWO DUTCHMEN

caught his words. They were : "This is the man for
Hilda." The other pursed his lips and looked a little
scared.

Stunun rang a bell and the lieutenant came in and
clicked his heels. He nodded towards Peter. "Take
this man away with you. We have done with him.
The other fellow will follow presently."

Peter went out with a puzzled face and Stumni
turned to me.

"You are a dreamer, Brandt," he said. "But I do
not reject you on that account. Dreams sometimes
come true, when an army follows the visionary. But
who is going to kindle the flame?"

"You," I said.

"What the devil do you mean?" he asked.

"That is your part. You are the cleverest people
in the world. You have already half the Mussulman
lands in your power. It is for you to show us how
to kindle a holy war, for clearly you have the secret
of it. Never fear, but we will carry out your order."

"We have no secret," he said shortly, and glanced
at the official, who stared out of the window.

I dropped my jaw and looked the picture of dis-
appointment. "I do not believe yQu," I said slowly.
"You play a game with me. I have not come six thou-
sand miles to be made a fool of."

"Disdpline, by God," Stumm cried. "This is none
of your ragged commandos." In two strides he was
above me and had lifted me out of my seat. His great
hands clutched my shoulder, and his thumbs gouged
ray armpits. I felt as if I were in the grip of a big
ape. Then very slowly he shook me so that my teeth
seemed loosened and my head swam. He let me go
and I dropped limply back in the chair.

GREENMANTLE

"Now, go! Futsackl And remember that I am
your master. I, Ulric von Stumm, who owns you as
a Kaffir owns his mongrel. Germany may have some
use for you, my friend, when you fear me as you
never feared your Gpd."

As I walked dizzily away the big man was smiling
in his horrible way, and that little official was blinking
and smiling too. I had struck a dashed queer coun-
try, so queer that I had had no time to remember that
for the first time in my Jife I had been bullied without
hitting back. When I realised it I nearly choked with
anger. But I thanked Heaven I had shown no temper,
for I remembered my mission. Luck seemed to have
brought me into useful company.

CHAPTER V

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

NEXT morning there was a touch of frost and a
nip in the air which stirred my blood and put me
in buoyant spirits. I forgot my precarious position and
the long road I had still to travel. I came down to
breakfast in great form, to find Peter's even temper
badly ruffled. He had remembered Stumm in the night
and disliked the memory; this he muttered to me as we
rubbed shoulders at the dining-room door. Peter and
I got no opportunity for private talk. The lieutenant
was with us all the time, and at night we were locked in
our rooms. Peter discovered this through trying to
get out to find matches, for he had the bad habit of
smoking in bed.

Our guide started on the telephone, and announced
that we were to be taken to see a prisoners' camp.
In the afternoon I was to go somewhere with Stumm,
but the morning was for sightseeing. "You will see,"
he told us, "how merciful is a great people. You will
also see some of the hated English in our power. That
will delight you. They are the forerunners of all their
nation."

We drove in a taxi through the suburbs and then
over a stretch of flat market-garden-like country to a
low rise of wooded hills. After an hour's ride we en-
tered the gate of what looked like a big reformatory

GREENMANTLE

or hospital, I believe It had been a home for desti-
tute children. There were sentries at the gate and
massive concentric circles of barbed wire through whidi
we passed under an arch which was let down like a
portcullis at nightfall. The lieutenant showed his per-
mit, and we ran the car into a brick-paved yard and
marched through a lot more sentries to the office of
the commandant.

He was away from home, and we were welcomed
by his deputy, a pale young man with a head nearly
bald. There were introductions in German which our
guide translated into Dutch, and a lot of elegant
speeches about how Germany was foremost in hu-
manity as well as martial valour. Then they stood us
sandwiches and beer, and we formed a procession for
a tour of inspection. There were two doctors, both
mild-looking men in spectacles, and a couple of ward-
ers — ^under-officers of the good old burly, bullying sort
I knew well. That is the cement which has kept the
German Army together. Her men were nothing to
boast of on the average; no more ^ere the officers,
even in crack corps like the Guards and the Branden-
burgers ; but they seemed to have an inexhaustible sup-
ply of hard, competent N.C.O.*s.

We marched round the wash-houses, the recreation-
ground, the kitchens, the hospital — ^with nobody in it
save one chap with the "flu." It didn't seem to be
badly done. This place was entirely for officers, and
I expect it was the show place where American visitors
were taken. If half the stories one heard were true
there were some pretty ghastly prisons away in South
and East Germany.

I didn't half like the business. To be a prisoner
has always seemed to me about the worst thing that

(

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

could happen to a man. The sight of German pris-
oners used to give me a bad feeling inside, whereas I
looked at dead Boches with nothing but satisfaction.
Besides, there was the off-chance that I might be rec-
ognised. So I kept very much in the shadow whenever
we passed anybody in the corridors.

The few we met passed us incuriously. They saluted
the deputy-commandant, but scarcely wasted a glance
on us. No doubt they thought we were inquisitive
Germans come to gloat over them. They looked fairly
fit, a little puffy about the eyes, like men who get too
little exercise. They seemed thin, too. I expect the
food, for all the commandant's talk, was nothing to
boast of. In one room people were writing letters. It
was d big place with only a tiny stove to warm it,
and the windows were shut so that the atmosphere
was a cold frowst. In another room a fellow was lec-
turing on something to a dozen hearers and drawing
figures on a blackboard. Some were in ordinary khaki,
others in any old thing they could pick up, and most
wore greatcoats. Your blood gets thin when you have
nothing to do but hope against hope and think of your
pals and the old days.

I was moving along, listening with half an ear to
the lieutenant's prattle and the loud explanations of
the deputy commandant, when I pitchforked into what
might have been the end of my business. We were
going through a sort of convalescent room, where
people were sitting who had been in hospital. It was
a big place, a little warmer than the rest of the build-
ing, but still abominably fuggy. There were about
half a dozen men in the room, reading and playing
games. They looked at us with lack-lustre eyes for a
moment, and then returned to their occupations. Be-

GREENMANTLE

ing convalescents I suppose they were not expected to
get up and salute.

All but one, who was playing Patience at a little
table by which we passed. I was feeling very bad
about the thing, for I hated to see these good fellows
locked away in this infernal German hole when they
might have been giving the Boche his deserts at the
front. The commandant went first with Peter, who
had developed a great interest in prisons. Then came
our lieutenant with one of the doctors; then a couple
of warders ; and then the second doctor and myself. I
was absent-minded at the moment and was last in the
queue.

The Patience-player suddenly looked up and I saw
his face; I'm hanged if it wasn't Dolly Riddell, who
was our brigade machine-gun officer at Loos. I had
heard that the Germans had got him when they blew
up a mine at the Quarries.

I had to act pretty quick, for his mouth was agape,
and I saw he was going to speak. The doctor was a
yard ahead of me.

I stumbled and spilt his cards on the floor. Then
I kneeled to pick them up and gripped his knee. His
head bent to help me and I spoke low in his ear. "I'm
Hannay all right. For God's sake don't wink an eye ;
I'm here on a secret job.'* |

The doctor had turned to see what was the matter.
I got a few more words in. "Cheer up, old man.
We're winning hands down."

Then I began to talk excited Dutch and finished
the collection of the cards. Dolly was playing his part
well, smiling as if he were amused by the antics of a
monkey. The others were coming back, the deputy-
commandant with an angry light in his dull eye.

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

"Speaking to the prisoners is forbidden," he shouted.

I looked blankly at him till the lieutenant translated.

"What kind of fellow is he?" said Dolly in Eng-
lish to the doctor. "He spoils my game and then
jabbers High-Dutch at me."

Officially I knew English, and that speech of Dolly's
gave me my cue. I pretended to be very angry with
the very damned Englishman, and went out of the
room close by the deputy-commandant, grumbling like
a sick jackal. After that I had to act a bit. The last
place we visited was the close-confinement part where
prisoners were kept as a punishment for some breach
of the rules. They looked cheerless enough, but I
pretended to gloat over the sight, and said so to the
lieutenant, who passed it on to the others. I have
rarely in my life felt such a cad.

On the way home the lieutenant discoursed a lot
about prisoners and detention-camps, for at one time he
had been on duty at Ruhleben. Peter, who had been
in quod more than once in his life, was deeply inter-
ested and kept on questioning him. Among other
things he told us was that they often put bogus prison-
ers among the rest, who acted as spies. If any plot to
escape was hatched these fellows got into it and en-
couraged it. They never interfered till the attempt
iwas actually made and then they had them on toast.
There was nothing the Boche liked so much as an ex-
cuse for sending a poor devil to "solitary."

That afternoon Peter and I separated. He was left
behind with the lieutenant and I was sent off to the
station with my bag in the company of a Landsturm
sergeant. Peter was very cross, and I didn't care for
the look of things ; but I brightened up when I heard I
was going somewhere with Stumm. If he wanted to

GREENMANTLE

see me again he must think me of some use, and if
he was going to use me he was bound to let me into
his game. I liked Stumm about as much as a dog
likes a scorpion, but I hankered for his society.

At the station platform, where the ornament of
the Landsturm saved me all trouble about tickets,
I could not see my companion. I stood waiting, while
a great crowd, mostly of soldiers, swayed past me and
filled all the front carriages. An officer spoke to me
gruffly and told me to stand aside behind a wooden
rail. I ' obeyed, and suddenly found Stumm's eyes
looking down at me.

"You know German?" he asked sharply.

"A dozen words," I said carelessly. "I've been to
Windhuk and learned enough to ask for my dinner.
Peter — ^my friend — speaks it a bit."

"So," said Stumm. "Well, get into the carriage.
Not that one! There, thickhead 1"

I did as I was bid, he followed, and the door was
locked behind us. The precaution was needless, for
the sight of Stumm*s profile at the platform end would
have kept out the most brazen. I wondered if I had
woke up his suspicions. I must be on my guard
to show no signs of intelligence if he suddenly tried me
in German, and that wouldn't be easy, for I knew it as
well as I knew Dutch.

We moved into the country, but the windows were
blurred with frost, and I saw nothing of the land*
scape. Stumm was busy with papers and let me alone.
I read on a notice that one was forbidden to smoke,
so to show my ignorance of German I pulled out my
pipe. Stumm raised his head, saw what I was doing,
and gruffly bade me put it away, as if he were an old
lady that disliked the smell of tobacco.

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

In half an hour I got very bored, for I had nothing
to read and my pipe was verboten. People passed now
and then in the corridors, but no one offered to enter.
No doubt they saw the big figure in uniform and
thought he was the deuce of a Staff swell who wanted
solitude. I thought of stretching my legs in the cor-
ridor, and was just getting up to do it when somebody
slid the door open and a big figure blocked the light.

He was wearing a heavy ulster and a green felt hat.
He saluted Stumm, who looked up angrily, and smiled
pleasantly on us both.

"Say, gentlemen," he said, "have you room in here
for a little one? I guess I'm about smoked out of
my car by your brave soldiers. IVe gotten a delicate
stomach. . . ."

Stumm had risen with a brow of wrath, and looked
as if he were going to pitch the intruder off the train.
Then he seemed to halt and collect himself, and the
other's face broke into a friendly grin.

"Why, it's Colonel Stumm," he cried. (He pro-
nounced it like the first syllable in "stomach"). "Very
pleasedto meet you again, Colonel. I had the honour
of making your acquaintance at our Embassy. I reckon
Ambassador Gerard didn't cotton to our conversation
that night." And the new-comer plumped himself
down in the corner opposite me.

I had been pretty certain I would run across Blen-
kiron somewhere in Germany, but I didn't think it
would be so soon. There he sat staring at me with his
full unseeing eyes, rolling out platitudes to Stumm,
who was nearly bursting in his effort to keep civil. I
looked moody and suspicious, which I took to be the
right line.

•jt

GREENMANTLE

^^Thlngs are getting a bit dead at Salonika/' said
Mr. Blenkiron by way of a conversational opening.

Stumm pointed to a notice which warned officers to
, refrain from discussing military operations with mixed

company in a railway carriage.

"Sorry," said Blenkiron, "I can't read that tomb-
stone language of yours. But I reckon that that
notice to trespassers, whatever it signifies, don't apply
to you and me. I take it this gentleman is iti your
party."

I sat and scowled, fixing the American with sus-
s, piciouis eyes.

y "He is a Dutchman,", said Stumm; "South African

Dutch, and he is not happy, for he doesn't like to hear
English spoken."

"We'll shake on that," said Blenkiron cordially.
"But who said I spoke English? It's good American.
Cheer up, friend, for it isn't the call that makes the
big wapiti, as they say out west in my country. I
hate John Bull worse than a poison rattle. The
Cojonel can tell you that."

I dare say he could, but at that moment we slowed
down at a station and Stumm got up to go out.
"Good-day to you, Herr Blenkiron," he cried over his
shoulder. "If you consider your comfort, don't talk
English to strange travellers. They don't distinguish
between the different brands."

I followed him in a hurry, but was recalled by
Blenkiron'^ voice.

■N.

"Say, friend," he cried, "you've left your grip,"
and he handed mef my bag from the luggage rack. But
he showed no sign of recognition, and the last I saw
of him was sitting sunk in a comer with his head on

4
I

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

his chest as if he were going to sleep. He was a man
who kept up his parts well.

There was a motor-car waiting—one of the grey
military kind — and we started at a terrific pace over
bad forest roads. Stumm had put away his papers in
a portfolio, and flung me a few sentences on the
journey.

"I haven't made up my mind about you, Brandt,"
he announced. '^You may be a fool or a knave or a
good man. If you are a knave, we will shoot you."

"And if I am a fool?" I asked

"Send you to the Yser or the Dvina. You ^11 be
respectable cannon-fodder."

"You cannot do that unless I consent," I said.

"Can't we?" he said, smiling wickedly. "Remem-
ber you are a citizen of nowhere. Technically you are
a rebel, and the British, if you go to them, will hang
you, supposing they have any sense. You are in our
power, my friend, to do precisely what we like with
you."

He was silent for a second, and then he said medi-
tatively :

"But I don't think you are a fool. You may be a
scoundrel. Some kinds of scoundrel are useful enough.
Other kinds are strung up with a rope. Of that we
shall know more soon."

^And if I am a good man?"

'You will be given a chance to serve Germany, the
proudest privilege a mortal can have." The strange
man said this with a ringing sincerity in his voice that
impressed me.

The car swung out from the trees into a park lined
with saplings, and in the twilight I saw before me a
biggish house like an overgrown Swiss chalet There

GREENMANTLE

was a kind of archway, with a sham portcullis, and a
terrace with battlements which looked as if they were
made of stucco. We drew up at a Gothic front door,

I where a thin middle-aged man in a shooting jacket

was waiting.

As we moved into the lighted hall I got a good look
at our host. He was very lean and brown, with the
stoop in the shoulder that a man gets from being con-
stantly on horseback. He had untidy grizzled hair
and a ragged beard, and a pair of pleasant, short-
sighted brown eyes.

v\ "Welcome, my Colonel," he said. "Is this the friend

J you spoke of?"

"This is the Dutchman," said Stumm. "His name

I is Brandt. Brandt, you see before you Herr Gaudian."

I knew the name of course; there weren't many in
my profession that didn't. He was one of the biggest
railway engineers in the world, the man who had built
the Bagdad and Syrian railways, and the new lines
in German East. I suppose he was about the greatest
living authority on tropical construction. He knew
the East and he knew Africa; clearly I had been
brought down for him to^put me through my paces.

A blonde maidservant took me to my room, which
had a bare polished floor, a stove, and windows that,
unlike most of the German kind I had sampled, seemed
made to open. When I had washed I descended to
the hall, which was hung round with trophies of travel,
like Dervish jibbahs and Masai shields and one or two
good buffalo heads. Presently a bell was rung. Stumm
appeared with his host, and we went in to supper.
I was jolly hungry and would have made a good

i meal if I hadn't constantly had to keep jogging my

; wits. The other two talked in German, and when a

}

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

question was put to me Stumm translated. The first
thing I had to do was to pretend I didn't know Ger-
man and look listlessly round the room while they
were talking. The second was to miss not a word,
for there lay my chance. The third was to be ready to
answer questions at any moment, and to show in the
answering that I had not followed the previous con-
versation. Likewise I must not prove myself a fool
in these answers, for I had to convince them that I
was useful. It took some doing, and I felt like a wit-
ness in the box under a stiff cross-examination, or a man
trying to play three games of chess at once.

I heard Stumm telling Gaudian the gist of my plan.
The engineer shook his head.

"Too late," he said. "It should have been done at
the beginning. We neglected Africa. You know the
reason why."

Stumm laughed. "The von Einem! Perhaps, but
her charm works well enough."

Gaudian glanced towards me while I was busy with
an orange salad. "I have much to tell you of that.
But it can wait. Your friend is right in one thing.
Uganda is a vital spot for the English, and a blow
there will make their whole fabric shiver. But how
can we strike? They have still the coast, and our
supplies grow daily smaller."

"We can send no reinforcements, but have We used
all the local resources ? That is what I cannot satisfy
myself about. Zimmerman says we have, but Tressler
thinks differently, and now we have this fellow coming
out of the void with a story which confirms my doubt.
He seems to know his job. You try him." ^

Thereupon Gaudian set about questioning me, and
his questions were very thorough. I knew just enough

.JL

/ GREENMANTLE

and no more to get through, but I think I came out
with credit. You see I have a capacious memory, and
in my time I had met scores of hunters and pioneers
and listened to their yarns, so I could pretend to knowl-
edge of a place even when I hadn't been there. Be-
sides, I had once been on the point of undertaking a job
up Tanganyika way, and I had got up that country-
side pretty accurately.

"You say that with our help you can make trouble
for the British on the three borders?" Gaudian asked
at length.

"I can spread the fire if some one else will kindle
i it," I said.

"But there are thousands of tribes with no affini-
ties."

"They are all African. You can bear me out. All
African peoples are alike in one thing — they can go
mad, and the madness of one infects the others. The
English know this well enough."

"Where would you start the fire?" he asked.

"Where the fuel is dryest. Up in the North among
the Mussulman peoples. But there you must help
me. I know nothing about Islam, and I gather that
you do."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because of what you have done already," I an-
swered.

Stumm had translated all this time, and had given

the sense of my words very fairly. But with my last

^ answer he took liberties. What he gave was: "Be-

H cause the Dutchman thinks that we have some big

H card in dealing with the Moslem world." Then, low-

1 ering his voice, and raising his eyebrows he said some

i word like "Uhnmantl."

i 84

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME

The other looked with a quick glance of apprehen-
sion at me. "We had better continue our talk in
private, Herr Colonel," he said. "If Herr Brandt
will forpve us, we will leave him for a little to enter-
tain himself." He pushed the oigar-box towards me
and the two got up and left the room.

I pulled my chair up to the stove, and would have
liked to drop off to sleep. The tensfin of the talk at
supper had made me very tired. I was accepted by
these men for exactly what I professed to be. Stumm
might suspect me of being a rascal, but it was a Dutch
rascal. But all the same I was skating on thin ice.
I could not sink myself utterly in the part, for if I
did I would get no good out of being there. I had
to keep my wits going all the time, and join the appear-
ance and manners of a back-veld Boer with the men-
tality of a British intelligence-officer. Any moment
the two parts might clash and I would be faced with
the most alert and deadly suspicion.

There would be no mercy from Stumm. That large
man was beginning to fascinate me, even though I
hated him. Gaudian was clearly a good fellow, a
white man and a gentleman. I could have worked with
him, for he belonged to my own totem. But the other
was an incarnation of all that makes Germany de-
tested, and yet he wasn't altogether the ordinary Ger-
man, and I couldn't help admiring him. I noticed he
neither smoked nor drank. His grossness was appar-
ently not in the way of fleshly appetites. Cruelty, from
all I had heard of him in German South West, was his
hobby; but there were other things in him, some of
them good, and he had that kind of crazy patriotism
which becomes a religion. I wondered why he had
not somi; high command in the field, for he had had

GREENMANTLE

the name of a good soldier. But propably he was a
big man in his own line, whatever it was, for the Un-
der-Secretary fellow had talked small in his presence,
and so great a man as Gaudian clearly respected him.
There must be no lack of brains inside that funny
pyramidal head.

As I sat beside the stove I was casting back to
think if I had got the slightest clue to my real job.
There seemed to be nothing so far. Stumm had talked
of a von Einem woman who was interested in his de-
partment, perhaps the same woman as the Hilda he had
mentioned the day before to the Under-Secretary.
There was not much In that. She was probably some
minister's or ambassador's wife who had a finger in
high politics. If I could have caught the word Stumm
had whispered to Gaudian which made him start and
look askance at me I But I had only heard a gurgle
of something like "Unmantl," which wasn't any Ger-
man word that I knew.

The heat put me into a half-doze and I began dream-
ily to wonder what other people were doing. Where
had Blenkiron been posting to in that train, and what
was he up to at this moment? He had been hobnob-
bing with ambassadors and swells — I wondered if he
had found out anything. What was Peter doing? I
fervently hoped he was behaving himself, for I doubted
if Peter had really tumbled to the delicacy of our
job. Where was Sandy, too? As like as not bucket-
ing in the hold of some Greek coaster in the iEgean.
Then I thought of my battalion somewhere on the line
between HuUuch and La Bassee, hammering at the
Boche, while I was five hundred miles or so inside the
Boche frontier.

It was a comic reflection, so comic that it woke me

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME '

up. After trying in vain to find a way of stoking that
stove, for it was a cold night, I got up and walked
about the room. There were portraits of two decent
old fellows, probably Gaudian's parents. There were
enlarged photographs, too, of engineering works, and
a good picture of Bismardc. And close to the stove
there was a case of maps mounted on rollers.

I pulled out one at random. It was a geological
map of Germany, and with some trouble I found out
where I was. I was an enormous distance from my
goal, and moreover I was clean off the road to the
East. To go there I must first go to Bavaria and then
into Austria. I noticed the Danube flowing eastwards
and remembered that that was one way to Constanti-
nople. \

Then I tried another map. This one covered a big
area, all Europe from the Rhine and as far east as
Persia. I guessed that it was meant to show the Bag-
dad railway and the through routes from Germany to
Mesopotamia. There were markings on it; and, as
I looked closer, I saw that there were dates scribbled
in blue pencil, as if to denote the stages of a journey.
The dates began in Europe, and continued right on into
Asia Minor and then south to Syria.

For a moment my heart jumped, for I thought I
had fallen by accident on the clue I wanted. But I
never got that map examined. I heard footsteps in
the corridor, and very gently I let the map roll up and
turned away. When the door opened I was bending
over the stove trying to get a light for my pipe.

It was Gaudian, to bid me join him and Stumm in
his study.

On our way there he put a kindly hand on my
shoulder. I think he thought I was bullied by Stumm

GREENMANTLE

and wanted to tell me that he was my friend, and he
had no other language than a pat on the back.

The soldier was in his old position with his elbows
on the mantelpiece and his formidable great jaw stuck
out.

"Listen to me,'* he said. "Herr Gaudian and I are
inclined to make use of you. You may be a charlatan,
in which case you will be in the devil of a mess and
have yourself to thank for it. If you are a rogue you
will have little scope for roguery. We will see to that.
If you are a fool, you will yourself suffer for it. But
if you are a good man, you will have a fair chance, and
if you succeed we will not forget it. To-morrow I go
home and you will come with me and get your orders.'*

I made shift to stand at attention and salute.

Gaudian spoke in a pleasant voice, as if he wanted
to atone for Stumm's imperiousness. "We are men
who love our Fatherland, Herr Brandt," he said.
"You are not of that Fatherland, but at least you hate
its enemies. Therefore we are allies, and trust each
other like allies. Our victory is ordained by God, and
we are none of us more than His instruments."

Stumm translated in a sentence, and his voice was
quite solemn. He held up his right hand and so did
Gaudian, like a man taking an oath or a parson blessing
his congregation.

Then I realised something of the might of Germany.
She produced good and bad, cads and gentlemen, but
she could put a bit of the fanatic into them all.

CHAPTER VI

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

I WAS standing stark naked next morning in that
icy bedroom, trying to bathe in about a quart of
water, when Stumm entered. He strode up to me and
stared me in the face. I was half a head shorter than
he to begin with, and a man does not feel his stoutest
when he has no clothes, so he had the pull of me every
way. I

"I have reason to believe that you are a liar,'* he
growled.

I pulled the bed-cover round me, for I was shivering
with cold, and the German idea of a towel is a pocket-
handkerchief. I own I was in a pretty blue funk.

"A liarl" he repeated. "You and that swine Pie-
naar.*'

With my best effort at surliness I asked what we
had done.

"You lied, because you said you knew no German.
Apparently your friend knows enough to talk treason
and blasphemy."

This gave me back some heart

"I told you I knew a dozen words. But I told you
Peter could talk it a bit. I told you that yesterday at
the station." Fervently I blessed my luck for that
casual remark.

He evidently remembered, for his tone became a
trifle more civil.

'/^'

GREENMANTLE

"You are a precious pain If one of you is a scoun-
drel, why not the other?"

"I take no responsibility for Peter," I said. I felt
I was a cad in saying it but that was the bargain we
had made at the start. "I have known him for years
as a great hunter and a brave man. I know he fought
well against the English. But more I cannot tell you.
You have to judge him for yourself. What has he
done?"

I was told, for Stumm had got it that morning on
the telephone. While telling it he was kind enough
to allow me to put on my trousers.
4 It was just the sort of thing I might have foreseen.

^ Peter, left alone, had become fi it bored and then reck-

/ less. He had persuaded the lieutenant to take him out

to supper at a big Berlin restaurant. There, inspired
by the lights and music — ^novel things for a backveld
hunter — and no doubt bored stiff by his company, he
had proceeded to get drunk. That had happened in
my experience with Peter about once in three years, and
it always happened for the same reason. Peter, bored
and solitary in a town, went on the spree. He had a
head like a rock, but he got to the required condition
by wild mixing. He was quite a gentleman in his cups,
and not in the least violent, but he was apt to be very
free with his tongue. And that was what occurred at
the Franciscana.

He had begun by insulting the Emperor, it seemed.
He drank his health, but said he reminded him of a
wart-hog, and thereby scarified the lieutenant's soul.
Then an officer — some tremendous swell — at an ad-
joining table had objected to his talking so loud, and
Peter had replied insolently in respectable German.
After that things became mixed. There was some kind

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

of a fight, during which Peter calumniated the German
army and' all its female ancestry. How he wasn't shot
or run through I can't imagine, except that the lieu-
tenant loudly proclaimed that he was a crazy Boer.
Anyhow the upshot was that Peter was marched off to
gaol, and I was left in a pretty pickle.

"I don't believe a word of It," I said firmly. I had
most of my clothes on now and felt more courageous.
"It is all a plot to get him into disgrace and draft him
off to the front."

Stumm did not storm as I expected, but smiled.

"That was always his destiny," he said, "ever since
I saw him. He was no use to us except as a man with
a rifle. Cannon-fodder, nothing else. Do you imagine,
you fool, that this great Empire in the thick of a
world-war is going to trouble its head to lay snares for
an ignorant traakhaarV^

"I wash my hands of him," I said. "If what you
say of his folly is true I have no part in it. But he
was my companion and I wish him well. What do
you propose to do with him?"

"We shall keep him under our eye," he said, with a
wicked twist of the mouth. "I have a notion that
there is more at the back of this than appears. We
will investigate the antecedents of Herr Pienaar. And
you, too, my friend. On you also we have our eye."

I did the best thing I could have done, for what
with anxiety and disgust I lost my temper.

"Look here, sir," I cried, "I've had about enough
of this. I came to Germany abominating the English
and burning to strike a blow for you. But you haven't
given me much cause to love you. For the last two
days I've had nothing from you but suspicion and in-
sult. The only decent man I've met is Herr Gaudian.

GREENMANTLE

It's because I believe that there are many in Germany
like him that I'm prepared to go on with this business
and do the best I can. But, by God, I wouldn't raise
my little finger for your sake."

He looked at me very steadily for a minute. "That
sounds like honesty," he said at last in a civil voice.
"You had better come down and get your coffee."

I was safe for the moment but in very low spirits.
What on earth would happen to poor old Peter? I
could do nothing even if I wanted, and, besides, my
first duty was to my mission. I had made this very
clear to him at Lisbon and he had agreed, but all the
same it was a beastly reflection. Here was that ancient
worthy left to the tender mercies of the people he most
detested on earth. My only comfort was that they
couldn't do very much with him. If they sent him to
the front, which was the worst they could do, he would
escape, for I would have backed him to get through
any mortal lines. It wasn't much fun for me either.
Only when I was to be deprived of it did I realise how
much his company had meant to me. I ^as absolutely
alone now, and I didn't like it. I seemed to have
about as much chance of joining Blenkiron and Sandy
as of flying to the moon.

After breakfast I was told to get ready. When I
asked where I was going Stumin advised me to mind
my own business, but I remembered that last night'
he had talked of taking me home with him and giving
me my orders. I wondered where his home was.

Gaudian patted me on the back when we started and
wrung my hand. He was a capital good fellow, and
it made me feel sick to think that I was humbugging
him. We got into the same big grey car, with Stumm's
servant sitting beside the chauffeur. It was a mom*

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

ing of hard frost, the bare fields were white with rime,
and the fir-trees powdered like a wedding-cake. We
took a different road from the night before, and after
a run of half a dozen miles came to a little town with
a big railway station. It was a junction on some main
line, and after five minutes' waiting we found our
train.

Once again we were alone in the carriage. Stumm
must have had some colossal graft,, for the train was
crowded.

I had another three hours of complete boredom.
I dared not smoke, and could do nothing but stare out
of the window. We soon got into hilly country, where
a good deal of snow was lying. It was the 23rd day
of December, and even in war time one had a sort of
feel of Christmas. You could see girls carrying ever-
greens, and when we stopped at a station the soldiers
on leave had all the air of holiday making. The mid-
dle of Germany was a cheerier place than Berlin or
the western parts. I liked the look of the old peasants,
and the women in their neat Sunday best, but I noticed,
too, how pinched they were. Here in the country,
where no neutral tourists came, there was not the same
stage-management as in the capital.

Stumm made an attempt to talk to me on the jour-
ney. I could see his aim. Before this he had cross-
examined me, but now he wanted to draw me into
ordinary conversation. He had no notion how to do
it He was either peremptory and provocative, like
a drill-sergeant, or so obviously diplomatic that any
fool would have been put on his guard. That is the
weakness of the German. He has no gift for laying
himself alongside different types of men. He is such
a hard-shell being that he cannot put out feelers to

GREENMANTLE '

•

his kind. He may have plenty of brains, as Stumm
had, but he has the poorest notion of psychology of
any of God's creatures. In Germany only the Jew can
get outside himself, and that is why, if you look into
the matter, you will find that the Jew is at the back
of most German enterprises.

After midday we stopped at a station for luncheon.
We had a very good meal in the restaurant, and when
we were finishing two officers entered. Stumm got up
and saluted and went aside to talk to them. Then
he came back and made me follow him to a waiting-
room, where he told me to stay till he fetched me. I
noticed that he called a porter and had the door locked
when he went out.

It was a chilly place with no fire, and I kicked my
heels there for twenty minutes. I was living by the
hour now, and did not trouble to worry about this
strange behaviour. There was a volume of time-
tables on a shelf, and I turned the pages idly till I
struck a big railway map. Then it occurred to me to
find out where we were going. I had heard Stumm
take my ticket for a place called Schwandorf, and after
a lot of searching I found it. It was away south in
Bavaria, and so far as I could make out less than fifty
miles from the Danube. That cheered me enormously.
If Stumm lived there he would most likely start me
off on my travels by the railway which I saw running
to Vienna and then on to the East. It looked as if I
might get to Constantinople after all. But I feared
it would be a useless achievement, for what could I
do when I got there? I was being hustled out of Ger-
many without picking up the slenderest clue.

The door opened and Stumm entered. He seemed

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

to have got bigger in the interval and to carry his head
higher. There was a proud light, too, in his eye.

"Brandt," he said, "you are about to receive the
greatest privilege which ever fell to one of your race.
His Imperial Majesty is passing through here, and
has halted for a few minutes. He has done me the
honour to receive me, and when he heard my story he
expressed a wish to see you. You will follow me to
his presence. Do not be afraid. The All-Highest
is merciful and gracious. Answer his questions like
a man.

I followed him with a quickened pulse. Here was
a bit of luck I had never dreamed of. At the far side
of the station a train had drawn up, a train consisting
of three big coaches, chocolate-coloured and picked out
with gold. On the platform beside it stood a small
group of officers, tall men in long grey-blue cloaks.
They seemed to be mostly elderly, and one or two of
tile faces I thought I remembered from photographs
in the picture papers.^ As we approached they drew
apart, and left us face to face with one man. He was
a little below middle height, and all muffled in a thick
coat with a fur collar. He wore a silver helmet with
an eagle atop of it, and kept his left hand resting on
his sword. Below the helmet was a face the colour
of grey paper, from which shone curious sombre rest-
less eyes with dark pouches beneath them. There was
no fear of my mistaking him. These were the fea-
tures which, since Napoleon, have been best known to
die world.

I stood as stiff as a ramrod and saluted. I was per-
fectly cool and most desperately interested. For such
a moment I would have gone through fire and water.

'95

GREENM.\NTLE

"Majesty, this is the Dutchman I spoke of," I heard
Stumm say.

"What language does he speak?" the Emperor
asked.

"Dutch," was the reply; "but being a South African
he also talks English."

A spasm of pain seemed to flit over the face before
me. Then he addressed me in English.

"You have come from a land which will yet be
ours to offer your sword to our service? I accept the
gift and hail it as a good omen. I would have given
your race its freedom, but there were fools and
traitors among you who misjudged me. But that free-
dom I shall yet give you in spite of yourselves. Arc
there many like you in your country?"

"There are thousands, sire," I said, lying cheerfully.
"I am one of many who think that my race's life lies
in your victory. And I think that that victory must
ibe won not in Europe alone. In South Africa for the
moment there is no chance, so we look to other parts
of the continent. You will win in Europe. You have
won in the East, and it now remains to strike the Eng-
lish where they cannot fend the blow. If we take
Uganda, Egypt will fall. By your permission I go
there to make trouble for your enemies."

A flicker of a smile passed over the worn face. It
was the face of one who slept little and whose thoughts
rode him like a nightmare.

"That is well," he said. "Some Englishman once
said that he would call in the New World to redress
the balance of the Old. We Germans will summon
the whole earth to suppress the infamies of England.
Serve us well, and you will not be forgotten."

"^1

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

■

Then he suddenly asked : "Did you fight in the last
South African War?'*

"Yes, sire," I said. "I was in the commando of
that Smuts who has now been bought by England."

"What were your countrymen's losses?" he asked
eagerly.

I did not know, but I hazarded a guess. "In the
field some twenty thousand. But many more by sick-
ness and in the accursed prison-camps of the English."

Again a spasm of pain crossed his face.

"Twenty thousand," he repeated huskily. "A mere
handful. To-day we lose as many in a skirmish in the
Polish marshes."

Then he broke out fiercely.

"I did not seek the war. ... It was forced on me.
... I laboured for peace. . . . The blood of millions
is on the heads of England and Russia, but England
most of all. God will yet avenge it. He that takes
the sword will perish by the sword. Mine was forced
from the scabbard in self-defence, and I am guiltless.
Do they know that among your people?"

"All the world knows it, sire," I said.

He gave his hand to Stumm and turned away. The
last I saw of him was a figure moving like a sleep-
walker, with no spring in his step, amid his tall suite.
I felt that I was looking on at a far bigger tragedy
than any I had seen in action. Here was one that
had losed Hell, and the furies of Hell had got hold
of him. He was no common man, for in his presence
I felt an attraction which was not merely the mastery
of one used to command. That would not have im-
pressed me, for I had never owned a master. But
here was a human being who, unlike Stumm and his
kind, had the power of laying himself alongside other

GREENMANTLE

men. That was the irony of it. Stumm would not
have cared a tinker's curse for all the massacres in
history. But this man, the chief of a nation of Stumms,
paid the price in war for the gifts that had made him
successful in peace. He had imagination and nerves,
and the one was white hot and the others were quiver-
ing. I would not have been in his shoes for the throne
of the Universe. ...

All afternoon we sped southward, mostly in a coun-
try of hills and wooded valleys. Stumm, for him, was
very pleasant. His Imperial master must have been
gracious to him, and he passed a bit of it on to me.
But he was anxious to see that I had got the right im-
pression.

"The All-Highest is merciful, as I told you," he said.

I agreed with him.

"Mercy is the prerogative of kings," he said sen-
tentiously, "but for us lesser folks it is a trimming we
can well do without."

I nodded my approval.

"I am not merciful," he went on, as if I needed
telling that. "If any man stands in my way I trample
the life out of him. That is the German fashion. That
is what has made us great. We do not make war
with lavender gloves and fine phrases, but with hard
steel and hard brains. We Germans will cure the
green-sickness of the world. The nations rise against
us. Pouf 1 They are soft flesh, and flesh cannot resist
iron. The shining ploughshare will cut its way through
acres of mud."

I hastened to add that these were also my opinions.

"What the hell do your opinions matter? You are
a thick-headed boor of the veld. . . . Not but v/hat,"

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

he added, "there is metal in you slow Dutchmen once
we Germans have had the forging of itl"

The winter evening closed in, and I saw that we
had come out of the hills and were in a flat country.
Sometimes a big sweep of river showed, and, looking
out at one station, I saw a funny church with a thing
like an onion on the top of its spire. It might almost
have been a mosque, judging from the pictures I re-
membered of mosques. I wished to heaven I had
given geography more attention in my time.

Presently we stopped, and Stumm led the way out.
The train must have been specially halted for him,
for it was a one-horse little place whose name I could
not make out. The station-master was waiting, bow-
ing and saluting, and outside was a motor-car with big
head-lights. Next minute we were sliding through dark
woods where the snow lay far deeper than in the north.
There was a mild frost in the air, and the tyres slipped
and skidded at the corners.

We hadn't far to go. We climbed a little hill and
on the top of it stopped at the door of a big black
castle. It looked enormous in the winter night, with
not a light showing anywhere on its front. The door
was opened by an old fellow who took a long time
about it and got well cursed for his slowness. Inside
the place looked very noble and ancient. Stumm
switched on the electric light, and there was a great
hall with black tarnished portraits of men and women
in old-fashioned clothes, and mighty horns of deer on
the walls.

There seemed to be no superfluity of servants. The
old fellow said that food was ready, and without more
ado we went into the dining-room — another vast cham-
ber with rough stone walls above the paneling — and

GREENMANTLE

found some cold meats on a table beside a big fire.
The servant presently brought in a ham omelette, and
on that and the cold stuff we dined. I remember
there was nothing to drink but water. It puzzled me
how Stumm kept his great body going on the very
moderate amount of food he ate. He was the type
you expect to swill beer by the bucket and put away
a pie at a sitting.

When we had finished, he rang for the old man and
told him that we should be in the study for the rest
of the evening. "You can lock up and go to bed when
you like," he said, "but see you have coffee ready at
seven sharp in the morning."

Ever since I entered that house I had the uncom-
fortable feeling of being in a prison. Here was I
alone in this great place with a fellow who would, and
could, wring my neck if he wanted. Berlin and all the
rest of it had seemed comparatively open country;
I had felt that I could move freely and at the worst
make a bolt for it. But here I was trapped, and I
had to tell myself every minute that I was there as
a friend and colleague. The fact is, I was afraid of
Stumm, and I don't mind admitting it. He was a
new thing in my experience and I didn't like it. If
only he had drunk and guzzled a bit I should have
been happier.

We went up a staircase to a room at iht end of a
long corridor. Stumm locked the door behind him
and laid the key on a table. That room took my
breath away, it was so unexpected. In place of the
grim bareness of downstairs here was a place all
luxury and colour and light. It was very large, but
low in the ceiling, and the walls were full of little
recesses with statues in them. A thick grey carpet

ICO

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

of velvet pile covered the floor, and the chairs were low
and soft and upholstered like a lady's boudoir. A
pleasant fire burned on the hearth and there was a
flavour of scent in the air, something like incense or
burnt sandalwood. A French clock on the mantel-
piece told me that it was ten minutes past eight.
Everywhere on little tables and in cabinets was a
profusion of nicknacks, and there was some beautiful
embroidery framed on screens. At first sight you
would have said it was a woman's drawing-room.

But it wasn't. I soon saw the difference. There
had never been a woman's hand in that place. It
was the room of a man who had a passion for frippery,
who had a perverted taste for soft delicate things.
It was the complement to his bluff brutality. I began
to see the queer other side to my host, that evil side
which gossip had spoken of as not unknown in the
German army. The room seemed a horribly un-
wholesome place, and I was more than ever afraid of
Stumm.

The hearthrug was a wonderful old Persian thing,
all faint greens and pinks. As he stood on it he
looked uncommonly like a bull in a china-shop. He
seemed to bask in the comfort of it, and sniffed like<
a satisfied animal. Then he sat down at an escritoire,
unlocked a drawer and took out some papers.

**Wc will now settle your business, friend Brandt,"
he said. "You will go to Egypt and there take your
orders from one whose name and address are in this
envelope. This card," and he lifted a square piece of
grey pasteboard with a big stamp at the comer and
some code words stencilled on it, "will be your
passport. You will show it to the man you seek.
Keep it jealously, and never use it save under orders

lOI

{

GREENMANTLE

or in the last necessity. It is your badge as an
accredited agent of the German Crown."

I took the card and the envelope and put them in
my pocket-book.

"Where do I go after Egypt?" I asked.

"That remains to be seen. Probably you will go
up the Blue Nile. Riza, the man you will meet, will
direct you. Egypt is a nest of our agents who work
peacefully under the nose of the English Secret
Service."

"I am willing," I said "But how do I reach
Egypt?" ^

"You will travel by Holla^d and London. Here is
your route," and he took a paper from his pocket.
"Your passports are ready and will be given you at
the frontier."

This was a pretty kettle of fish. I was to be
packed off to Cairo by sea, which would take weeks,
and God knows how I would get from Egypt to
Constantinople. I saw all my plans falling in pieces
about my ears, and just when I thought they were
shaping nicely.

Stumm must have interpreted the look on my face
as fear.

"You Jiave no cause to be afraid," he said. "We
have passed the word to the English police to look
out for a suspicious South African named Brandt,
one of Maritz's rebels. It is not difficult to have
that kind of hint conveyed to the proper quarter.
But the description will not be yours. Your name
will be Van der Linden, a respectable Java merchant
going home to his plantations after a visit to his
native shores. You had better get your dossier by

102

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

heart, but I guarantee you will be asked no questions.
We manage these things well in Germany."

I kept my eyes on the fire, while I did some savage
thinking. I knew they would not let me out of
their sight till they saw me in Holland, and, once
there, there would be no possibility of getting back.
When I left this house I would have no chance of
giving them the slip. And yet I was well on my way
to the East, the Danube could not be fifty miles off,
and that way ran the road to Constantinople. It was
a fairly desperate position. If I tried to get away
Stumm would prevent me, and the odds were that I
would go to join Peter in some infernal prison-camp.

Those moments were some of the worst I ever
spent. I was absolutely and utterly baffled, like a rat
in a trap. There seemed nothing for it but to go
back to London and tell Sir Walter the game was up.
And that was about as bitter as death.

He saw my face and laughed.

"Does your heart fail you, my little Dutchman?
You funk the English? I will tell you one thing for
your comfort. There is nothing in the world to be
feared except me. Fail, and you have cause to shiver.
Play me false and you had far better never have
been bom."

His ugly sneering face was close above mine. Then
he put out his hands and gripped my shoulders as he
had done the first afternoon.

I forget if I mentioned that part of the damage
I got at Loos was a shrapnel bullet low down at the
back of my neck. The wound had healed well enough,
but I had pains there on a cold day. His fingers found
the place and it hurt like hell.

There is a very narrow line between despair and

103

GREENMANTLE

black rage. I had about given up the game, but the
sudden ache of my shoulder gave me purpose again.
He must have seen the rage in my eyes, for his own
became cruel.

"The weasel would like to bite," he said, "but the
poor weasel has found its master. Stand still, vermin.
Smile, look pleasant, or I will make pulp of you. Do
you dare to frown at me?"

I shut my teeth and said never a word. I was chok-
ing in my throat and could not have uttered a syllable
if I had tried.

Then he let me go, grinning like an ape.

I stepped back a pace and gave him my left between
the eyes.

For a second he did not realise what had happened,
for I don't suppose any one had dared to lift a hand
to him since he was a child. He blinked at me mildly.
Then his face grew red as fire.

"God in Heaven," he said quietly. "I am going to
kill you," and he flung himself on me like a mountain.

I was expecting him and dodged the attack. I was
quite calm now, but pretty hopeless. The man had
a gorilla's reach and could give me at least a couple
of stone. He wasn't soft either, but looked as hard
as granite. I was only just from hospital and absurdly
out of training. He would certainly kill me if he
could, and I saw nothing to prevent him.

My only chance was to keep him from getting to
grips, for he could have squeezed in my ribs in two
seconds. I fancied I was lighter on my legs than he,
and I had a good eye. Black Monty at Kimberley
had taught me to fight a bit, but there is no art on
earth which can prevent a big man in a narrow space

104

THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME

from sooner or later cornering a lesser one. That
was the danger.

Backwards and forwards we padded on the soft
carpet. He had no notion of guarding himself, and
I got in a good few blows. Then I saw a queer thing.
Every time I hit him he blinked and seemed to pause.
I guessed the reason for that. He had gone through
life keeping the crown of the causeway, and nobody
had ever stood up to him. He wasn't a coward by
a long chalk, but he was a bully, and had never been
struck in his life. He was getting struck now in real
earnest, and he didn't like it. He had lost his bear-
ings and was growing as mad as a hatter.

I kept half an eye on the clock. I was hopeful now,
and was looking for the right kind of chance. The
risk was that I might tire sooner than he and be at his
mercy.

Then I learned a truth I have never forgotten. If
you are fighting a man who means to kill you, he will
be apt to down you unless you mean to kill him too.
Stumm did not know any rules to this game, and I
forgot to allow for that. Suddenly, when I was watch-
ing his eyes, he launched a mighty kick at my stoAiach.
If he had got me, this yarn would have had an abrupt
ending. But by the mercy of God I was moving side-
ways when he let out, and his heavy boot just grazed
my left thigh.

It was the place where most of the shrapnel had
lodged, and for a second I was sick with pain, and
stumbled. Then I was on my feet again but with a new
feeling in my blood. I had to smash Stirnim or never
sleep in my bed again.

I got a wonderful power from this new cold rage
of mine. I felt I couldn't tire, and I danced round and

105

GREENMANTLE

dotted his face till it was streaming with blood. His
bulky padded chest was no good to me, so I couldn't
try for the mark.

He began to snort now and his breath came heavily.
"You infernal cad," I said in good round English,
"Fm going to knock the stuffing out of you," but he
didn't know what I was saying.

Then at last he gave me my chance. He half
tripped over a little table and his face stuck forward.
I got him on the point of the chin, and put every
ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow* He
crumpled up in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a
lamp and knocking a big China jar in two. His head,
I remember, lay under the escritoire from which he
had taken my passport.

I picked up the key and unlocked the door. In
one of the gilded mirrors I smoothed my hair and
tidied up my clothes. My anger had completely gone
and I had no particular ill-will left against Stumm.
He was a man of remarkable qualities, which would
have brought him to the highest distinction in the
Stone Age. But for all that he and his kind were
back numbers.

I stepped out of the room, locked the door behind
me, and started out on the second stage of my travels.

io6

CHAPTER VII

CHRISTMASTIDE

EVERYTHING depended on whether the servant
was in the hall. I had put Stumm to sleep for
a bit, but I couldn't flatter myself he would long be
quiet, and when he came to he would kick the locked
door to matchwood. I must get out of the house with-
out a minute's delay, and if the door was shut and
the old man gone to bed I was done.

I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a
candle.

^Tour master wants me to send off an important
telegram. Where is the nearest oflice ? There's one
in the village, isn't there?" I spoke in my best Ger-
man, the first time I had used the tongue since I crossed
the frontier.

"The village is five minutes off at the foot of the
avenue," he said. "Will you be long, sir?'*

"I'll be back in a quarter of an hour," I said.
"Don't lock up till I get in."

I put on my ulster and walked out into a clear
starry night. My bag I left lying on a settle in the
hall. There was nothing in it to compromise me, but
I wished I could have got a toothbrush and some to-
bacco out of it.

So began one of the craziest escapades you can well
imagine. I couldn't stop to think of the future yet,

107

GREENMANTLE

but must take one step at a time. So I ran down the
avenue, my feet crackling on the hard snow, planning
hard my programme for the next hour.

I found the village — ^half a dozen houses with one
biggish place that looked like an inn. The moon was
rising, and as I approached I saw that it was some
kind of a store. A funny little two-seated car was
purring before the door, and I guessed this was also
the telegraph office.

I marched in and told my story to a stout woman
with spectacles on her nose who was talking to a young
man.

"It is too late,*' she shook her head. "The Herr
Burgrave knows that well. There is no connection
from here after eight o'clock. If the matter is urgent
you must go to Schwandorf."

"How far is that?" I asked, looking for some excuse
to get decently out of the shop.

"Seven miles," she said, "but here is Franz and the
post-wagon. Franz, you will be glad to give the gen-
tleman a seat beside you."

The sheepish-looking youth muttered something
which I took to be assent, and finished off a glass of
beer. From his eyes and manner he looked as if he
were half drunk.

I thanked the woman, and went out to the car, for
I was in a fever to take advantage of this unexpected
bit of luck. I could hear the postmistress enjoining
Franz not to keep the gentleman waiting, and pres-
ently he came out and flopped into the driver's seat.
We started in a series of voluptuous curves, till his
eyes got accustomed to the darkness.

At first we made good going along the straight,
broad highway lined with woods on one side and on

io8

-w^

CHRISTMASTIDE

the other snowy fields melting into haze. Then he
began to talk, and, as he talked, he slowed down.
This by no means suited my book, and I seriously won-
dered whether I should pitch him out and take charge
of the thing. He was obviously a weakling, left be-
hind in the conscription, and I could have done it
with one hand. But by a fortunate chance I left him
alone.

"That is a fine hat of yours, mein Herr," he said.
He took off his own blue peaked cap, the uniform,
I suppose, of the driver of the post-wagon, and laid
it on his knee. The night air ruffled a shock of tow-
coloured hair.

Then he calmly took my hat and dapped it on his
head.

"With this thing I should be a gentleman,'' he said

I said nothing, but put on his cap and waited.

"That is a noble overcoat, mein Herr," he went
on. "It goes well with the hat. It is the kind of
garment I have always desired to own. In two days
it will be the holy Christmas, when gifts are given.
Would that the good God sent me such a coat as
yours 1"

"You can try it on to see how it looks," I said good-
humouredly.

He stopped the car with a jerk, and pulled off his
blue coat. The exchange was soon effected. He was
about my height, and my ulster fitted not so badly.
I put on his overcoat, which had a big collar that
buttoned round the neck.

The idiot preened himself like a girl. Drink and
vanity had primed him for any folly. He drove so
carelessly for a bit that he nearly put us into a ditch.

109

GREENMANTLE

We passed several cottages and at the last he slowed
down.

"A friend of mine lives here," he announced. "Ger-
trud would like to see me in the fine clothes which
the most amiable Herr has given me. Wait for me,
I will not be long." And he scrambled out of the
car and lurched into the little garden.

I took his place and moved very slowly forward. I
heard the door open and the sound of laughing and
loud voices. Then it shut, and looking back I saw
that my idiot had been absorbed into the dwelling of
his Gertrud. I waited no longer, but sent the car
forward at its best speed

Five minutes later the infernal thing began to give
trouble — a nut loose in the antiquated steering-gear.
I unhooked a lamp, examined it, and put the mis-
chief right, but I was a quarter of an hour doing it.
The highway ran now in a thick forest and I noticed
branches going off every now and then to the right.
I was just thinking of turning up one of them, for
I had no anxiety to visit Schwandorf, when I heard
behind me the sound of a great car driven furiously.

I drew in to the right side — thank goodness I re-
membered the rule of the road — and proceeded deco-.
rously, wondering what was going to happen. I could
hear the brakes being clapped on and the car slowing
down. Suddenly a big grey bonnet slipped past me
and as I turned my head I heard a familiar voice.

It was Stumm, looking like something that has been
run over. He had his jaw in a sling, so that I won-
dered if I had broken it, and his eyes were beautifully
bunged up. It was that that saved me, that and his
raging temper. The collar of the postman's coat was
round my chin, hiding my beard, and I had his cap

CHRISTMASTIDE

pulled well down on my brow. I remembered what
Blenkiron had said — ^that the only way to deal with
the Germans was naked bluff. Mine was naked
enough, and it was all that was left to me.

"Where is the man you brought from Andersbach?'*
he roared, as well as his jaw would allow him.

I pretended to be mortally scared, and spoke in the
best imitation I could manage of the postman's high
cracked voice.

"He got out a mile back, Herr Burgrave," I
quavered. "He was a rude fellow who wanted to go
to Schwandorf, and then changed his mind."

"Where, you fool? Say exactly where he got down
or I will wring your neck."

"In the wood this side of Gertrud's cottage ... on
the left hand. ... I left him running among the
trees." I put all the terror I knew into my pipe, and
it wasn't all acting.

"He means the Heinrichs' cottage, Herr Colonel,"
said the chauffeur. "This man is courting the
daughter."

Stumm gave an order and the great car backed,
and, as I looked round, I saw it turning. Then as it
gathered speed it shot forward, and presently was
lost in the shadows. I had got over the first hurdle.

But there was no time to be lost. Stumm would
meet the postman and would be tearing after me any
minute. I took the first turning, and bucketed along
a narrow woodland road. The hard ground would
show very few tracks, I thought, and I hoped the pur-
suit would think I had gone on to Schwandorf. But
it wouldn't do to risk it, and I was determined very
soon to get the car off the road, leave it, and take

III

GREENMANTLE

to the forest. I took out my watch and calculated I
could give myself ten minutes.

I was very nearly caught. Presently I came on a
bit of rough heath, with a slope away from the road
and here and there a patch of shade which I took to be
a sandpit. Opposite one of these I slewed the car to
the edge, got out, started it again and saw it pitch
head-foremost into the darkness. There was a splash
of water and then silence. Craning over I could see
nothing but murk, and the marks at the lip where the
wheels had passed. They would find my tracks in day-
light but scarcely at this time of night.

Then I ran across the road to the forest. I was
only just in time, for 'the echoes of the splash had
hardly died away when I heard the sound of another
car. I lay flat in a hollow below a tangle of snow-
laden brambles and looked between the pine-trees at
the moonlit road. It was Stumm's car again and to my
consternation it stopped just a little short of the
sandpit.

I saw an electric torch flashed, and Stumm himself
got out and examined the tracks on the highway.
Thank God, they would be still there for him to find,
but had he tried half a dozen yards on he would have
seen them turn towards the sandpit. If that had hap-
pened he would have beaten the adjacent woods and
most certainly found me. There was a third man in
the car, with my hat and coat on him. That poor
devil of a postman had paid dear for his vanity.

They took a long time before they started again,
and I was jolly relieved when they went scouring down
the road. I ran deeper into the woods till I struck
a track which — as I judged from the sky which I saw
in a clearing — ^took me pretty well due west. That

112

CHRISTMASTIDE

wasn't the direction I wanted, so I bore off at right
angles, and presently struck another road which I
crossed in a hurry. After that I got entangled in some
confounded kind of enclosure and had to climb paling
after paling of rough stakes plaited with osiers. Then
came a rise in the ground and I was on a low hill
of pines which seemed to last for miles. All the time
I was going at a good pace, and before I stopped to
rest I calculated I had put six miles between me and
the sandpit.

My mind was getting a little more active now ; for
the first part of the journey I had simply staggered
from impulse to impulse. These impulses had been
uncommon lucky, but I couldn't go on like that for
ever. Ek sal '« plan maak, says the old Boer when he
gets into trouble, and it was up to me now to make a
plan.

As soon as I began to think I saw the desperate
business I was in for. Here was I, with nothing ex-
cept what I stood up in — including a coat and cap that
weren't mine — alone in mid-winter in the heart of
South Germany. There was a man behind me look-
ing for my blood, and soon there would be a hue-and-
cry for me up and down the land. I had heard that
the German police were pretty efficient, and I couldn't
see that I stood the slimmest chance. If they caught
me they would shoot me beyond doubt. I asked my-
self on what charge, and answered, "For knocking
about a German officer." They couldn't have mc up
for espionage, for as far as I knew they had no evi-
dence. I was simply a Dutchman that had got riled
and had run amok. But if they cut down a cobbler for
laughing at a second lieutenant — ^which is what hap-
pened at Zabern — I calculated th^ hanging would be

113

GREENMANTLE

too good for a man that had broken a colonel's jaw.

To make things worse my job was not to escape —
though that would have been hard enough — but to get
to Constantinople, more than a thousand miles off,
and I reckoned I couldn't get there as a tramp. I had
to be sent there, and now I had flung away my chance.
If I had been a Catholic I would have said a prayer
to St. Theresa, for she would have understood my
troubles.

My mother used to say that when you felt down on
your luck it was a good cure to count your mercies.
So;/I set about counting mine. The first was that I
was well started on my journey, for I couldn't be above
two score miles from the Danube. The second was
that I hiad Stumm's pass. I didn't see how I could
use it, but there it was. Lastly I had plenty of money
-^fifty-three English sovereigns and the equivalent of
three pounds ii) German paper which I had changed
at the hotel. Also I had squared accounts with old
Stumm. That was the biggest mercy of all.

I thought I'd better get some sleep, so I found a
dryish hole below an oak root and squeezed myself
into it. The snow lay deep in these woods and I was
sopping wet up to the knees. All the same I managed
to sleep for some hours, and got up and shook myself
just as the winter's dawn was breaking through the
tree tops. Breakfast was the next thing, and I must
find some sort of dwelling.

Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway run-
ning north and south. I trotted along in that bitter
morning to get my circulation started, and presently
I began to feel a little better. In a little I saw a
church spire, which meant a village. Stumm wouldn't
be likely to have got on my tracks yet, I calculated,

114

CHRISTMASTIDE

but there was always the chance that he had warned
all the villages round by telephone and that they might
be on the look-out for me. But that risk had to be
taken, for I must have food.

It was the day before Christmas, I remembered, and
people would be holidaying. The village was quite
a big place, but at this hour — ^just after eight o'clock
— ^there was nobody in the street except a wandering
dog. I chose the most unassuming shop I could find,
where a little boy was taking down the shutters — one
of those general stores where they sell everything.
The boy fetched a very old woman, who hobbled in
from the back, fitting on her spectacles.

"Griiss Gott," she said in a friendly voice, and I
took ofif my cap. I saw from my reflection in a sauce-
pan that I looked moderately respectable in spite of
my night in the woods.

I told her a story of how I was walking from
Schwandorf to see my mother at an imaginary place
called Judenf eld, banking on the ignorance of villagers
about any place five miles from their homes. I said
my luggage had gone astray, and I hadn't time to wait
for it, since my leavfc was short. The old lady was
sympathetic and unsuspecting. She sold me a pound
of chocolate, a box of biscuits, the better part of a
ham, two tins of sardines and a rucksack to carry
them. I also bought some soap, a comb and a cheap
razor, and a small Tourists' Guide, published by a
Leipsic Arm. As I was leaving I saw what looked like
garments hanging up in the back shop, and turned to
have a look at them. They were the kind of thing
that Geraians wear on their summer walking-tours —
long shooting capes made of a green stufif they call
loden. I bought one, and a green felt hat and an

IIS

•r.

GREENMANTLE

alpenstock to keep it company. Then wishing the
old woman and her l)elongings a merry Christmas, I
departed and took the shortest cut out of the village.
There were one or two people about now, but they did
not seem to notice me.

I went into the woods again and walked for two
miles till I halted for breakfast. I was not feeling
quite so fit now, and I did not make much of my
provisions, beyond eating a biscuit and some choco-
late. I felt very thirsty and longed for hot tea. In
an icy pool I washed and with infinite agony shaved
my beard. That razor was the worst of its species,
and my eyes were running all the time with the .pain
of the operation. Then I took off the postman's coat
and cap, and buried them below some bushes. I was
now a clean-shaven German pedestrian with a green
cape and hat, and an absurd walking-stidc with an
iron-shod end— the sort of person who roams in thou-
sands over the Fatherland in summer, but is a rarish
bird in mid-winter. ^

The Tourists' Guide was a fortunate purchase, for
it contained a big map of Bavaria which gave me my
bearings. I was certainly not forty miles from the
Danube — ^more like thirty. The road through the vil-
lage I had left would have taken me to it. I had only
to walk due south and I would reach it before night.
So far as I could make out there were long tongues
of forest running down to the river, and I resolved
to keep to the woodlands. At the worst I would
meet a forester or two, and I had a good enough story
for them. On the highroad there might be awkward
questions.

When I started out again I felt very stiff and the
cold seemed to be growing intense. This puzzled me,

ii6

CHRISTMASTIDE

for I had not minded it much up to now, and, being
warm-blooded by nature, it never used to worry me.
A sharp winter night on the high-veld was a long
sight chillier than anything I had struck so far in
Europe. But now my teeth were chattering and the
marrow seemed to be freezing in my bones. The day
had started bright and clear, but a wrack of grey
clouds soon covered the sky, and a wind from the
east began to whistle. As I stumbled along through
the snowy undergrowth I kept longing for bright
warm places. I thought of those long days in the veld
when the earth was like a great yellow bowl with
white roads running to the horizon and a tiny white
farm basking in the heart of it, with its blue dam
and patches of bright green lucerne. I thought of
those baking days on the east coast when the sea was
like mother-of-pearl and the sky one burning turquoise.
But most of all I thought of warm scented noons on
trek, when one dozed in the shadow of the wagon
and sniffed the wood-smoke from the fire where the
boys were cooking dinner.

From these pleasant pictures I returned to the
beastly present — ^the thick snowy woods,* the lowering
sky, wet clothes, a hunted present, and a dismal fu-
ture. I felt miserably depressed, and I couldn't think
of any mercies to count. It struck me that I might
be falling sick.

About midday I awoke with a start to the belief
that I was being pursued. I cannot explain how or
why the feeling came, except that it is a kind of instinct
that men get who have lived much in wild countries.
My senses, which had been numbed, suddenly grew
keen, and my brain began to work double quick.

I asked myself what I would do if I were Stumm,

117

GREENMANTLE

with hatred in my heart, a broken jaw to avenge, and
pretty well limitless powers. He must have found the
car in the sandpit and seen my tracks in the wood op-
posite. I didn't know how good he and his men might
be at following a spoor, but I knew that any ordinary
Kaffir could have nosed it out easily. But he didn't
need to do that. This was a civilised country full
of roads and railways. I must some time and some-
where come out of the woods. He could have all
the roads watched, and the telephone would set every
one on my track within a radius of fifty miles. Be-
sides, he would soon pick up my trail in the village
I had visited that morning. From the map I learned
that it was called Greif, and it was likely to live up
to that name with me.

Presently I came to a rocky knoll which rose out
of the forest. Keeping well in shelter I climbed to
the top and cautiously looked around me. Away to
the east I saw the vale of a river with broad fields
and church-spires. Wjst and south the forest rolled
unbroken in a wilderness of snowy tree-tops. There
was no sign of life anywhere, not even a bird, but I
knew very well that behind me in the woods were men
moving swiftly on my track, and that it was pretty
well impossible for me to get away.

There was nothing for it but to go on till I dropped
or was taken. I shaped my course south with a shade
of west m \tj for the map showed me that in that
direction I would soonest strike the Danube. What
I was going to do when I got there I didn't trouble
to think. I had fixed the river as my immediate goal
and the future must take care of itself.

I was now pretty certain that I had fever on me.
It was still in my bones, as a legacy from Africa, and

ii8

CHRISTMASTIDE

had come out once or twice when I was with the
battalion in Hampshire. The bouts had been short,
for I had known of their coming and dosed myself.
But now I had no quinine, and it looked as if I were
in for a heavy go. It made me feel desperately
wretched and stupid, and I all but blundered into
capture.

For suddenly I came on a road and was going to
cross it blindly, when a man rode slowly past on a
bicycle. Luckily I was in the shade of a clump of
hollies and he was not looking my way, though he
was not three yards off. I crawled forward to recon-
noitre. I saw about half a mile of road pinning
straight through the forest and every two hundred
yards was a bicyclist. They wore uniform and ap-
peared to be acting as sentries.

This could only have one meaning. Stumm had
picketed all the roads and cut me off in an angle of
the woods. There was no chance of getting across
unobserved. As I lay there with my heart sinking, I
had the horrjble feeling that the pursuit might be
following me from behind, and that at any moment I
would be enclosed between two fires.

For more than an hour I stayed there with my chin
in the snow. I didn't see any way out, and I was feel-
ing so ill that I didn't seem to care. Then my chance
came suddenly out of the skies.

The wind rose, and a great gust of snow blew from
the east. In five minutes it was so thick that I couldn't
see across the road. At first I thought it a new
addition to my troubles, and then very slowly I saw
the opportuni^. I slipped down the bank and made
ready to cross.

I almost blundered into one of the bicyclists. He

119

GREENMANTLE

cried out and fell off his machine, but I didn't wait
to investigate. A sudden access of strength came to
me and I darted into the woods on the farther side.
I knew I would be soon swallowed from sight in the
drift, and I knew that the falling snow would hide my
tracks. So I put my best foot forward.

I must have run miles before the hot fit passed, and

I stopped from sheer bodily weakness. There was no

sound except the crunch of falling snow, the wind

seemed to have gone, and the place was very solemn

and quiet. But HeavensI how the snow fell! It was

partly screened by the branches, but all the same it

was piling itself up deep everywhere. My legs seemed

. _ made of lead, my head burned, and there were fiery

f pains over all my body. I stumbled on blindly, with-

I J out a notion of any direction, determined only to keep

!• going to the last. For I knew that if I once lay down

1 would never rise again.

When I was a boy I was fond of fairy tales, and
most of the stories I remembered had been about
great German forests and snow and charcoal burners
and woodmen's huts. Once I had longed to see these
things; and now I was fairly tn the thick of them.
There had been wolves too, and I wondered idly if I
should fall in with a pack. I felt myself getting light-
headed. I fell repeatedly and laughed sillily every
time. Once I dropped into a hole and lay for some
time at the bottom giggling. If any one had found
me then he would have taken me for a madman.

The twilight of the forest grew dimmer, but I
scarcely noticed it. Evening was falling, and soon It
would be night, a night without morning for me. My
body was going on without the direction of my brain,
for my mind was filled with craziness. I was like a
1 20

CHRISTMASTIDE

drunk man who keeps running, for he knows that if
he stops he will fall, and I had a sort of bet with my-
self not to lie down — not at any rate just yet. If I
lay down I should feel the pain in my head worse.
Once I had ridden for five days down country with
fever on me and the flat bush trees had seemed to melt
into one big mirage and dance quadrilles before my
eyes. But then I had more or less kept my wits. Now
I was fairly daft, and every minute growing dafter.

Then the trees seemed to stop and I was walking
on flat ground. It was a clearing, and before me
twinkled a little light. The change restored me to
consciousness, and suddenly I felt with horrid in-
tensity the fire in my head and bones and the weakness
of my limbs. I longed to sleep, and I had a notion
that a place to sleep was before me. I moved to-
wards the light and presently saw through a screen of
snow the outline of a cottage.

I had no fear, only an intolerable longing to lie
down. Very slowly I made my way to the door and
knocked. My weakness was so great that I could
hardly lift my hand for the purpose.

There were voices within, and a comer of the cur-
tain was lifted from the window. Then the door
opened and a woman stood before me, a woman with
a thin, kindly face.

"Griiss Gott," she said, while children peeped from
behind her skirts*

"Griiss Gott," I replied. I leaned against the door-
post, and speech forsook me.

She saw my condition. "Come in, sir," she said.
"You are sick and it is no weather for a sick man."

I stumbled after her and stood dripping in the cen-
tre of the little kitchen, while three wondering children

121

GREENMANTLE

stared at me. It was a poor place, scantily furnished,
but a good iog"fire burned on the hearth/ The shock
of wamith gave me one of those minutes of self-
possession which come sometimes in the middle of a
fever.

^*I am sick, modier, and I have walked far in the
storm and lost my way. I am from Africa, where the
climate is hot, and your cold brings me fever. It will
pass in a day or two if you can ^ve me a bed."

"You are welcome,** she said; "but first I will make
you coffee.'*

I took off my dripping cloak, and crouched close to
the hearth. She gave me coffee — ^poor washy stuff,
but blessedly hot. Poverty was spelled large in
everything I saw. I felt the tides of fever beginning
to overflow my brain again, and I made a great
attempt to set my affairs straight before I was over-
taken. With difficulty I took out Stumm's pass from
my pocket-book.

"That is my warrant,** I said. "I am a member
of the Imperial Secret Service and for the sake of my
work I must move in the dark. If you will permit
it, mother, I will sleep till I am better, but no one
must know that I am here. If any one comes, you
must deny my presence.*'

She looked at the big seal as if it were a talisman.

"Yes, yes,'* she said, "you will have the bed in the
garret and be left in peace till you are well. We have
no neighbors near, and the storm will shut the roads.
I will be silent, I and the little ones.'*

My head was beginning to swim, but I made one
more effort.

"There is food in my rucksack — ^biscuits and ham
and chocolate. Pray take it for your use. And here

122

CHRISTMASTIDE

is some money to buy Christmas fare for the little
ones." And I gave her some of the German notes.

After that my recollection became dim. She helped
me up a ladder to the garret, undressed me, and gave
me a thick coarse nightgowi^. I seem to remember
that she kissed my hand, and that she was crying.
"The good Lord has sent you," she said. "Now the
little ones will have their prayers answered and the
Christkmd will not pass by our door."

123

(

CHAPTER VIII

THE ESSEN BARGES

1LAY for four days like a log in that garret bed.
The storm died down, the thaw set in, and the snow
melted. The children played about the doors and told
stories at night round the fire. Stumm's myrmidons no
doubt beset every road and troubled the lives of inno-
cent wayfarers. But no one came near the cottage,
and the fever worked itself out while I lay in peace.

It was a bad bout, but on the fifth day it left me,
and I lay, as weak as a kitten, staring at the raftersi
and the little skylight. It was a leaky, draughty old
place, but the woman of the cottage had heaped deer-
skins and blankets on my bed and kept me warm. She
came in now and then, and once she brought me a
brew of some bitter herbs which greatly refreshed me.
A little thin porridge was all the food I could eat,
and some chocolate made from the slabs in my ruck-
sack.

I lay and dozed through the day, hearing the faint
chatter of children below, and getting stronger hourly.
Malaria passes as quickly as it comes and leaves a
man little the worse, though this was one of the sharp-
est turns I ever had. As I lay I thought, and my
thoughts followed curious lines. One queer thing was
that Stumm and his doings seemed to have been shot
back into a lumber-room of my brain and the door

124

THE ESSEN BARGES

locked. He didn't seem to be ^ creature of the living
present, but a distant memory on which I could look
calmly. I thought a good deal about my battalion
and the comedy of my present position. You see I
was getting better, for I called it comedy now, not
tragedy.

But chiefly I thought of my mission. All that wild
day in the snow it had seemed the merest farce. The
three words Harry Bullivant had scribbled had danced
through my head in a crazy fandango. They were
present to me now, but coolly and sanely in all their
meagreness.

I remember that I took each one separately and
chewed on it for hours. Kasredin — the^-e was nothing
to be got out of that. Cancer — there were too many
meanings, all blind, v. I — ^that was the worst gib-
berish of all.

Before this I had always taken the I as the letter
of the alphabet. I had thought the v. must stand for
vofif and I had considered the German names begin-
ning with I — Ingolstadt, Ingeburg, Ingenohl, and all
the rest of them. I had made a list of about seventy
at the British Museum before I left London.

Now I suddenly found myself taking the I as the
numeral One. Idly, not thinking what I was doing, I
put it into German.

Then I nearly fell out of the bed. Von Einem —
the name I had heard at Gaudian's house, the name
Stumm had spoken behind his hand, the name to
which Hilda was probably the prefix. It was a tre-
mendous discovery — ^the first real bit of light I had
found. Harry Bullivant knew that some man or
woman called von Einem was at the heart of the mys-
tery. Stumm had spoken of the same personage with

125

GREENMANTLE

respect and in connection with the work I proposed
to do in raising the Moslem Africans. If I found
von Einera I would be getting very warm. What was
the word that Stumm had whispered to Gaudian and
scared that worthy? It had sounded like VnmantL
If I could only get that clear, I would solve the riddle.

I think that discovery completed my cure. At any
rate on the evening of the fifth day — it was Wednes-
day, the 29th of December — ^I was well enough to get
up. When the dark had fallen arid it was too late
to fear a visitor, I came downstairs and, wrapped in
my green cape, took a seat by the iire.

As we sat there in the fireli^t, with the three white-
headed children staring at me with saucer eyes, and
smiling when I looked their way, the woman talked.
Her man had gone to the wars on the Eastern front,
and the last she had heard from him he was in a
Polish bog and longing for his dry native woodlands.
The struggle meant little to her. It was an act of
God, a thunderbolt out of the sky, which had taken a
husband from her, and might soon make her a widow
and her children fatherless. She knew nothing of its
causes and purposes, and thought of the Russians as
a gigantic nation of savages, heathens who had never
been converted, and who would eat up German
homes if the good Lord and the brave German soldiers
did not stop them. I tried hard to find out if she
had any notion of affairs in the West, but she hadn't,
beyond the fact that there was trouble with the French.
I doubt if »he knew of England's share in it. She
was a decent soul, with no bitterness against anybody,
not even the Russians if they would spare her man.

That night I realised the crazy folly of war. When
I saw the splintered shell of Ypres and heard hideous

126

THE ESSEN BARGES

tales of German doings, I used to want to sec the
whole land of the Bodies given up to fire and sword.
I thought we could never end the war properly with-
out giving the Huns some of their own medicine. But
that woodcutter's cottage cured me of such nightmares.
I was for punishing the guilty but letting the inno-
cent go free. It was our business to thank God and
keep our hands clean from the ugly blunders to which
Germany's madness had driven her. What good would
it do Christian folk to burn poor little huts like this
and leave children's bodies by the wayside? To be
able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things
that make man better than the beasts.

The place, as I have said, was desperately poor.
The woman's face had the skin stretched tight over
the bones, and that transparency which means under-
feeding; I fancied she did not have the liberal allow-
ance that soldiers' wives get in England. The chil-
dren looked better nourished, but it was by their
mother's sacrifice. I did my best to cheer them up.
I told them long yarns about Africa and lions and
tigers, and I got some pieces of wood and whittled
them into toys. I am fairly good with a knife, and
I carved very presentable likenesses of a monkey, a
springbok, and a rhinoceros. The children went to
bed hugging the first toys, I expect, they ever pos-
sessed.

It was pretty clear to me that I must leave as soon
as possible. I had to get on with my business, and
besides, it was not fair to the woman. Any moment
I might be found here, and she would get into trouble
for harbouring me. I asked her if she knew where
the Danube was, and her answer surprised me. "You

127

GREENMAN.TLE

will reach it in an hour's walk," she said. "The track
through the wood runs straight to the ferry."

Next morning after breakfast I took my departure.
It was drizzling weather, and I was feeling very lean.
Before going I presented my hostess and the children
with two sovereigns apiece. "It is English gold," I
said, **for I have to travel among our enemies and use
our enemies' money. But the gold is good, and if you
go to any town they wilt change it for you. But I
advise you to put it in your stocking-foot and use it
only if all else fails. You must keep your home go-
ing, for some day there will be peace, and your man
will come back from the wars."

I kissed the children, shook the woman's hand, and
went oflF down the clearing. They had cried "Auf
wiedersehen," but it wasn't likely I would ever see
them again.

The snow had all gone, except in patches in the
deep hollows. The ground was like a full sponge, and
a cold rain drifted in my eyes. After half an hour's
steady trudge, the trees thinned ajid presently I came
out on a knuckle of open ground cloaked in dwarf
junipers. And there before me lay the plain, and
a mile off a broad brimming river.

I sat down and looked dismally at the prospect.
The exhilaration of my discovery the day before had
gone. I had stumbled on a worthless piece of knowl-
edge, for I could not use it. Hilda von Einem, if such
a person existed and possessed the great secret, was
probably living in some big house in Berlin, and I was
about as likely to get anything out of her as to be
asked to dine with the Kaiser. Blenkiron might do
something, but where on earth was Blenkiron? I dared
say Sir Walter would value the information, but

128

THE ESSEN BARGES

I could not get to Sir Walter. I was to go on to
Constantinople, running away from the people who
really pulled the ropes. But if I stayed I could do
nothing, and I could not stay. I must go on and I
didn't see how I could go on. Every course seemed
shut to me, and I was in as pretty a tangle as any
man ever stumbled into.

For I was morally certain that Stumm would not
let the thing drop. I knew too much, and besides
I had outraged his pride. He would beat the coun-
tryside till he got me, and he undoubtedly would get
me if I waited much longer. But how was I to get
over the border? My passport would be no good,
for the number of that pass would long ere this have
been wired to every police-station in Germany, and
to produce it would be to ask for trouble. Without
it I could not cross the borders by any railway. My
studies of the Tourists' Guide had suggested that once
I was in Austria I might find things slacker and move
about easier. I thought of having a try at the Tyrol
and I also thought of Bohemia. But these places
were a long way off, and there were several thousand
chances each day that I would be caught on the road.

This was Thursday, the 30th of December, the sec-
ond last day of the year. I was due in Constantinople
on the 17th of January. Constantinople I I had
thought myself a long way from it in Berlin, but now
it seemed as distant as the moon.

But that big sullen river in front of me led to it.
And as I looked my attention was caught by a curious
sight On the far eastern horizon, where the water
slipped round a comer of hill, there was a long trail
of smoke. The streamers thinned out, and seemed
to come from some boat well round the comer, but

129

GREENMANTLE

I could see at least two boats in view. Therefore there
must be a long train of barges, with a tug in tow.

I looked to the west and saw another such pro-
cession coming into sight. First went a big river
steamer— it can't have been much less than i ,000 tons
— and after came a string of barges. I coimted no
less than six besides the tug. They were heavily
loaded and their draught must have been consider-
able, but there was plenty of depth in the flooded
river.

A moment's reflection told me what I was looking
at. Once Sandy, in one of the discussions you have
in hospital, had told us just how the Germans muni-
tioned their Balkan campaign. They were pretty cer-
tain of dishing Serbia at the first go, and it was up
to them to get through guns and shells to the old
Turk, who was running pretty short in his first supply.
Sandy said that they wanted the railway, but they
wanted still more the river, and they could make cer-
tain of that in a week. He told us how endless strings
of barges, loaded up at the big factories of West-
phalia, were moving through the canals from the
Rhine or the Elbe to the Danube. Once the first
reached Turkey, there would be regular delivery, you
see — as quick as the Turks could handle the stuff.
And they didn't return empty, Sandy said, but came
back full of Turkish cotton, and Bulgarian beef, and
Rumanian com. I don't know where Sandy got the
knowledge, but there was the proof of it before my
eyes.

It was a wonderful sight, and I could have gnashed
my teeth to see those loads of munitions going snugly
off to the enemy. I calculated they would give our
poor chaps hell in Gallipoli. And then, as I looked,

130

THE ESSEN BARGES

an idea came Into my head, and with it an eighth
part of a hope.

There was only one way for me to get out of Ger-
many, and that was to leave in such good company
that I would be asked no questions. That was plain
enough. If I travelled to Turkey, for instance, in
the Kaiser's suite, I would be as safe as the mail ; but
if I went on my own I was done. I had, so to speak,
to get my passport inside Germany, to join some cara-
van which had free marching powers. And there was
the kind of caravan before me — ^the Essen barges.

It sounded lunacy, for I guessed that munitions of
war would be as jealously guarded as von Hinden-
burg's health. All the safer, I replied to myself, once
I got there. If you are looking for a deserter you
don't seek him at the favourite regimental public-
house. If you're after a thief, among the places you'd
be apt to leave unsearched would be Scotland Yard.

It was sound reasoning, but how was I to get on
board? Probably the beastly things did not stop once
in a hundred miles, and Stumm would get me long
before I struck a halting-place. And even if I did
get a chance like that, how was I to get permission
to travel?

One step was clearly indicated — to get down to the
river bank at once. So I set off at a sharp walk across
squelchy fields, till I struck a road where the ditches
had overflowed so as almost to meet in the middle.
The place was so bad that I hoped travellers might
be few. And as I trudged, my thoughts were busy
with my opportunities as a stowaway. If I bought
food, I might get a chance to lie snug on one of the
barges. They would not break bulk till they got to
tiieir journey's end.

131

GREENMANTLE

Suddenly I noticed that the steamer, which was now
abreast me, began to move towards the shore, and
as I came over a low rise I saw on my left a strag-
gling village with a church, and a small landing-stage.
The houses stood about a quarter of a mile from the
stream, and between them was a straight, poplar-
fringed road.

Soon there could be no doubt about it The pro-
cession was coming to a standstill. The big tug nosed
her way in and lay up alongside the pier, where in
that season of flood there was enough depth of wa-
ter. She signalled to the barges and they also started
to drop anchors, which showed that there must be
at least two men aboard each. Some of them dragged
a bit and it was rather a cock-eyed train that lay
in mid-stream. The tug got out a gangway, and from
where I lay I saw half a dozen men leave it, carry-
ing something on their shoulders.

It could be only one thing — a dead body. Some
one of the crew must have died, and this halt was to
bury him. I watched the procession move towards
the village and I reckoned they would take some time
there, though they might have wired ahead for a
grave to be dug. Anyhow, they would be long enough
to give me a chance.

For I had decided upon the brazen course. Blen-
kiron had said you couldn't cheat the Boche, but you
could bluff him. I was going to put up the most
monstrous bluff. If the whole countryside was hunt-
ing for Richard Hannay, Richard Hannay would walk
through as a pal of the hunters. For I remembered
the pass Stumm had given me. If that was worth a
tinker's curse it should be good enough to impress a
ship's captain.

132

THE ESSEN BARGES

Of course there were a thousand risks. They
might have heard of me in the village and told the
ship's party the story. For that reason I resolved
not to go there but to meet the sailors when they
were returning to the boat. Or the captain might
have been warned and got the number of my pass,
in which case Stumm would have his hands on me
pretty soon. Or the captain might be an ignorant
fellow who had never seen a Secret Service pass and
did not know what it meant, and would refuse me
transport by the letter of his instructions. In that
case I might wait on another convoy.

I had shaved and made myself a fairly respectable
figure before I left the cottage. It was my cue to
wait for the men when they left the church, wait
on that quarter-mile of straight highway. I judged
the captain must be in the party. The village, I was
glad to observe, seemed very empty. Ihave my own
notions about the Bavarians as fighting men, but I
am bound to say that, judging by my observations,
very few of them stayed at home.

That funeral took hours. They must have had to
dig the grave, for I waited near the road in a clump
of cherry-trees, with my feet in two inches of mud
and water, till I felt chilled to the bone. I prayed
to God it would not bring back my fever, for I was
only one day out of bed. I had very little tobacco
left in my pouch, but I stood myself one pipe, and I
ate one of the three cakes of chocolate I still carried.

At last, well after midday, I could see the ship's
party returning. They marched two by two, and I
was thankful that they had no villagers with them.
I walked to the road, turned it, and met the vanguard,
carrying my head as high as I knew how.

133

GREENMANTLE

"Where's your captain?" I asked, and a man jerked
his thumb over his shoulder. The others wore thick
jerseys and knitted caps, but diere was one man at
the rear in uniform.

He was a short, broad man with a weather-beaten
face and an anxious eye.

"May I have a word with you, Herr Captain?" I
said, with what I hoped was a judicious blend of au-
thority and conciliation.

He nodded to his companion, who walked on.

"Yes?" he asked rather impatiently.

I proffered him my pass. Thank Heaven he had
seen the kind of thing before, for his face at once
took on that curious look which one person in author-
ity always wears when he is confronted with another.
He studied it closely and then raised his eyes.

"Well, sir?" he said. "I observe your credentials.
What can I do for you?"

"I take it you are bound for Constantinople?" I
asked.

"The boats go as far as Rustchuk," he replied.
"There the stuff is transferred to the railway."

"And you reach Rustchuk when?"

"In ten days, bar accidents. Let us say twelve
to be safe."

"I want to accompany you," I said. "In my pro-
fession, Herr Captain, it is necessary sometimes to
make journeys by other than the common route. That
is now my desire. I have the right to call upon some
other branch of our country's service to help me.
Hence my request"

Very plainly he did not like it.

"I must telegraph about it. My instructions are
to let no one aboard, not even a man like you. I

134

THE ESSEN BARGES

am sorry, sir, but I must get authority first before
I can fall in with your desire. Besides, my boat is
ill-found. You had better wait for the next batch and
ask Dreyser to take you. I lost Walter to-day. He
was ill when he came aboard — a disease of the heart
— but he would not be persuaded. And last night he
died."

"Was that he you have been burying?" I asked.

"Even so. He was a good man and my wife's
cousin, and now I have no engineer. Only a fool of
a boy from Hamburg. I have just come from wiring
to my owners for a fresh man, but even if he comes
by the quickest train he will scarcely overtake us be-
fore Vienna or even Buda."

I saw light at last.

"We will go together," I said, "and cancel that
wire. For behold, Herr Captain, I am an engineer,
and will gladly keep an eye on your boilers till we
get to Rustchuk."

He looked at me doubtfuUy.

"I am speaking truth," I said. "Before the war
I was an engineer in Damaraland. Mining was my
branch, but I had a good general training, and I know
enough to run a river-boat. Have no fear. I promise
you I will earn my passage."

His face cleared, and he looked what he was, an
honest, good-humoured North German seaman.

"Come then in God's name," he cried, "and we
will make a bargain. I will let the telegraph sleep.
I want authority from the Government to take a pas-
senger, but I need none to engage a new engineer."

He sent one of the hands back to the village to
cancel his wire. In ten minutes I found myself on
board, and ten minutes later we were out in mid-
135

GREENMANTLE

stream and our tows were lumbering Into line. CoSee
was being made ready in the cabin, and while I waited
for it I picked up the captain's binoculars and scanned
the place I had left.

I saw some curious things. On the first road I had
struck on leaving the cottage there were men on bicy-
cles moving rapidly. They seemed to wear uniform.
On the next parallel road, the one that ran through
the village, I could see others. I noticed, too, that
several figures appeared to be beating the intervening
fields.

Stunun's cordon had got busy at last, and I thanked
my stars that not one of the villagers had seen me.
I had not got away much too soon, for in another
half -hour he would have had me.

»3«

CHAPTER IX

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

BEFORE I turned in that evening I had done some
good hours' work in the engine-room. The boat
was oil-fired, and in very fair order, so my duties did
not look as if they would be heavy. There was no-
body who could be properly called an enpneer; only,
besides the fumacenmen, a couple of lads from Ham-
burg who had been a year ago apprentices in a ship-
building yard. They were civil fellows, both of them
consumptive, who did what I told them and said little.
By bed-time, if you had seen me in my blue jumpers,
a pair of carpet slippers, and a flat cap — all the prop-
erty of the deceased Walter — ^you would have sworn
I had been bred to the firing of river-boats, whereas
I had acquired most of my knowledge on one run
down the Zambesi, when the proper en^neer got
drunk and fell overboard among the crocodiles.

The captain — they called him Schenk — ^was out of
his bearings in the job. He was a Frisian and a first-
class deep-water seaman, but, since he knew the Rhine
delta, and because the German mercantile marine was
laid on the ice till the end of war, they had turned
him on to this show. He was bored by the business,
you could see, and didn't understand it very well. The
river charts puzzled him, and though it was pretty
plain going for hundreds of miles, yet he was in

137

GREENMANTLE

a perpetual fidget about the pilotage. You could see
that he would have been far more in his element smell-
ing his way through the shoals of the Ems mouth, or
beating against a north-easter in the shallow Baltic.
He had six barges in tow, but the heavy flood of the
Danube made it an easy job except when it came to,
going slow. There were two men on each barge, who\
came aboard every morning to draw rations. That
was a funny business, for we never lay to if we could
help it. There was a cKnghy belonging to each barge,
and the men used to row to the next and get a lift in
that barge's dinghy, and so forth. Six men would
appear in the dinghy of the barge nearest us and carry
oflF supplies for the rest. The men were mostly
Frisians, slow-spoken, sandy-haired lads, very like the
breed you strike on the Essex coast.

It was the fact that Schenk was really a deep-water
sailor, and so a novice to the job, that made me get
on with him. He was a good fellow and quite will-
ing to take a hint, so before I had been twenty-four
hours on board he was teUing me all his difEculties,
and I was doing my best to cheer him. And difficulties
came thick, because the next night was New Year's
Eve.

I knew that that night was a season of gaiety in
Scotland, but Scotland wasn't in it vnth the Father- j
land. Even Schenk, though he was in charge of valu- '
able stores and was voyaging ags^inst time, was quite
clear that the men must have permission for some
kind of beano. Just before darkness we came abreast
a fair-sized town, whose name I never discovered,
and decided to lie to for the night. The arrange-
ment was that one man should be left on guard in
each barge, and the other get four hours' leave ashore.

138

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

Then he would return and relieve his friend, who
should proceed to do the same thing. I foresaw
that there would be some fun when the first batch
returned, but I did not dare to protest. I was des-
perately anxious to get past the Austrian frontier, for
I had a half-notion we might be searched there, but
Schenk took this Sylvesterabend business so seriously
that I would have risked a row if I had tried to argue.

The upshot was what I expected. We got the first
batch aboard about midnight, blind to the world, and
the others straggled in at all hours next morning. I
stuck to the boat for obvious reasons, but next day it
became too serious, and I had to go ashore with the
captain to try and round up the stragglers. We got
them all in but two, and I am inclined to think these
two had never meant to come back. If I had a soft
job like a river-boat I shouldn't be inclined to run
away in the middle of Germany with the certainty that
my best fate would be to be scooped up for the
trenches, but your Frisian has no more imagination
than a haddock. The absentees were both watchmen
from the barges, and I fancy the monotony of the
life had got on their nerves.

The captain was in a raging temper, for he was
short-handed to begin with. He would have started
a press-gang, but there was no superfluity of men in
that township : nothing but boys and grandfathers. As
I was helping to run the trip I was pretty annoyed
also, and I sluiced down the drunkards with icy Dan-
ube water, using all the worst language I knew in
Dutch and German. It was a raw morning, and as
we raged through the river-«ide streets I remember I
heard the dry crackle of wild geese going overhead,
and wished I could get a shot at them. I told one

139

GREENMANTLE

fellow — he was the most troublesome — ^that he was a
disgrace to a great Empire, and was only fit to fight
with the filthy English.

"God in Heaven I" said the captain, "we can delay
no longer. We must make shift the best we can. I
can spare one man from the deck hands, and you must
pve up one from the engine-room."

That was arranged, and we were tearing back rather
short in the wind when I espied a figure sitting on a
bench beside the booking-office on the pier. It was
a slim figure, in an old suit of khaki; some cast-off
duds which had long lost the semblance of a uniform.
It had a gentle face, and was smoking peacefully,
looking out upon the river and the boats and us noisy
fellows with meek philosophical eyes. If I had seen
General French sitting there and looking like nothing
on earth I couldn't have been more surprised.

The man stared at me without recognition. He was
waiting for his cue.

I spoke rapidly in Sesutu, for I was afraid the cap-
tain might know Dutch. %

"Where have you come from?" I asked.

"They shut me up in tronk/^ said Peter, "and I
ran away. I am tired, Comelis, and want to con*
tinue the journey by boat."

"Remember you have worked for me in Africa," I
said. "You are just home from Damaraland. You
are a German who has lived thirty years away from
home. You can tend a furnace and have worked in

mines."

Then I spoke to the captain :

"Here is a fellow who used to be in my employ,
Captain Schenk. It*s almighty luck weVe struck him.
He*s old, and not very strong in the head, but FU

140

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

go bail he's a good worker. He says he'll come with
us and I can use him in the en^ne-room."

^^Stand up," said the captain.

Peter stood up, light and slim and wiry as a leopard.
A sailor does not judge men by girth and weight.

''He'll do," said Schenk, and the next minute he
was readjusting his crews and giving the strayed revel-
lers the rough side of his tongue. As it chanced, I
couldn't keep Peter with me, but had to send him to
one of the barges, and I had die chance of no more
than five words with him, when I told him to hold his
tongue and live up to4iis reputation as a half-^t.
That accursed Sylvesterahend had played havoc with
the whole outfit, and the captain and I were weary
men before we got things straight.

In one way it turned out well. That afternoon we
passed the frontier and I never knew it till I saw a
man in a strange uniform come aboard, who copied
some figures on a schedule, and brought us a mail.
With my dirt/ face and general air of absorption in
duty, I must have been an unsuspicious figure. He
took down the names of the men in the barges, and
Peter's name was given as it appeared on the ship's
roll — ^Anton Blum.

"You must feel it strange, Herr Brandt," said the
captain, "to be scrutinised by a policeman, you who
give orders, I doubt not, to many policemen."

I shrugged my shoulders. "It is my profession.
It is my business to go unrecognised often by my own
servants." I could see that I was becoming rather a
figure in the captain's eyes. He liked the way I kept
the men up to their work, for I hadn't been a nigger-
driver for nothing.

Late on that Sunday night we passed through a

141

GREENMANTLE

great city which the captain told me was Vienna. It
seemed to last for miles and miles, and to be as
brightly lit as a circus. After that, we were in big
plains • and , the air grew perishing cold. Peter had
come aboard once for his rations, but usually he left
it to his partner, for he was lying very low. But one
morning — ^I think it was the 5th of January, when we
had passed Buda and were moving through great
sodden flats just sprinkled with snow — ^the captain took
it into his head to get me to overhaul the barge loads.
Armed with a mighty type*written list, I made a tour
of the barges, beginning with the hindmost. There
was a fine old stock of deadly weapons — ^mostly ma-
chine-guns and some field-pieces, and enough shells to
blow up the Gallipoli peninsula. All kinds of shell
were there, from the big 14-inch crumps to rifle
grenades and trench-mortars. It made me fairly sick
to see all these good things preparing for our own
fellows, and I wondered whedier I would not be do-
ing my best service if I en^neered a big explosion.
Happily I had the conunon sense to remember my job,
and my duty to stick to it.

Peter was in the middle of the convoy, and I found
him pretty unhappy, principally through not being
allowed to smoke. His companion was an ox-eyed lad,
whom I ordered to the look-out while Peter and I went
over the lists,

"Comelis, my old friend," he said, "there are some
pretty toys here. With a spanner and a couple of clear
hours I could make these maxims about as deadly
as bicycles. What do you say to a try?"
. "I've considered that," I said, "but it won't do.
We're on a bigger business than wrecking munition
convoys. I want to know how you got here."

142

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

He smiled with that extraordinary Sunday-school
docility of his.

**It was very simple, Cornelis. I was foolish in the
cafe — ^but they have told you of that. You see I was
angry, and did not reflect. They had separated us,
and I could see would treat me as dirt. Therefore
my bad temper came out, for, as I have told you, I
do not like Germans."

Peter gazed lovingly at the little bleak farms whidi
dotted the Hungarian plain.

"All night I lay in tronk with no food. In the
morning they fed me, and took me hundreds of miles
in a train to a place which I think is called Neuburg.
It was a great prison, full of English officers. ... I
a-sked myself many times on the journey what was
the reason of this treatment, for I could see no sense
in it. If they wanted to punish me for insulting
them they had the chance to send me off to the
trenches. No one could have objected. If they
thought me useless they could have turned me back
to Holland. I could not have stopped them. But
they treated me as if I were a dangerous man, whereas
all their conduct hitherto had shown that they thought
me a fool. I could not imderstand it.

"But I had not been one night in that Neuburg place
before I found out the reason. They wanted to keep
me under observation as a check upon you, Cornelis.
I figured it out this way. They had given you some
very important work which required them to let you
into some big secret. So far, good. They evidendy
thought much of you, even yon Stumm man, though
he was as rude as a buffalo. But they did not know
you fully, and they wanted a check on you. That check
they found in Peter Pienaar. Peter was a fool, and

143

GREENMANTLE

if there was anything to blab, sooner or later Peter
would blab it. Then they would stretch out a long
arm and nip you short, wherever you were. There-
fore they must keep old Peter under tljeir eye."

"That sounds likely enough," I said.

"It was God's truth," said Peter. "And when it
was all clear to me I settled that I must escape. Partly
because I am a free man and do not like to be in
prison, but mostly because I was not sure of myself.
Some day my temper would go again, and I might say
foolish things for which Comelis would suffer. So
it was very certain that I must escape.

"Now, Cornelis, I noticed pretty soon that there
were two kinds among the prisoners. There were the
real prisoners, mostly English and French, and there
were humbugs. The humbugs were treated apparently
like the others, but not really, as I soon perceived.
There was one man who passed as an English officer,
one as a French Canadian, and the others called them-
selves Russians. None of the honest men suspected
them, but they were there as spies to hatch plots for es-
cape and get the poor devils caught in the act, and to
worm out confidences which might be of value. That
is the German notion of good business. I am not a
British soldier to think all men are gentlemen. - 1 know
that amongst men are desperate skellums, so I soon
picked up this game. It made me very angry, but
it was a good thing for my plan. I made my resolu-
tion to escape the day I arrived at Neuburg, and on
Christmas Day I had a plan made."

"Peter, you're an old marvel. Do you mean to
say you were quite certain of getting away whenever
you wanted?"

"Quite certain, Comelis. You see, I have been

144

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

wicked in my time and know something about the
inside of prisons. You may build them like great
castles, or they may be like a backveld tronk, only
mud and corrugated iron, but there is always a key
and a man who keeps it, and that man can be bested.
I knew I could get away, but I did not think it would
be so easy. That was due to the bogus prisoners, my
friends the spies.

"I made great pals with them. On Christmas night
we were very jolly together. I think I spotted every
one of them the first day. I bragged about my past
and all I had done, and I told them I was going to
escape. They backed me up and promised to help.
Next morning I had a plan. In the afternoon, just
after dinner, I had to go to the commandant's room.
They treated me a little differently from the others,
for I was not a prisoner of war, and I went there
to be asked questions and to be cursed as a stupid
Dutchman. There was no strict guard kept there,
for the place was on the second floor, and distant by
many yards from any staircase. In the corridor out-
side the commandant's room there was a window
which had no bars, and four feet from the window
the limb of a great tree. A man might reach that
limb, and if he were active as a monkey might descend
to the ground. Beyond that I knew nothing, but I
am a good climber, Cornelis.

**I told the others of my plan. They said it was
good, but no one offered to come with me. They
were very noble; they declared that the scheme was
mine and I should have the fruit of it, for if more
than one tried detection was certain. I agreed and
thanked them — thanked them with tears in my eyes.
Then one of them very secretly produced a map. We

145

GREENMANTLE

planned out my road, for I was going straight to
Holland. It was a long road, and I had no money,
for they had taken all my sovereigns when I was
arrested, but they promised to get a subscription up
among themselves to start me. Again I wept tears
of gratitude. This was on Sunday, the day after
Christmas. I settled to make the attempt on the
Wednesday afternoon."

**Now, Cornells, when the lieutenant took us to see
the British prisoners, you remember, he told us many
things about the ways of prisons. He told us how
they loved to catch a man in the act of escape, so
that they could use him harshly with a clear con-
science. I thought of that, and calculated that now
my friends would have told everything to the com-
mandant, and that they would be waiting to bottle me
on the Wednesday. Till then I reckoned I would be
slackly guarded, for they would look on me as safe
in the net. . . .

"So I went out of the window next day. It was the
Monday afternoon. . . ."

"That was a bold stroke," I said admiringly.

"The plan was bold, but it was not skilful," said
Peter modestly. "I had no money beyond seven
marks, and I had but one stick of chocolate. I had
no overcoat, and it was snowing hard. Further, I
could not get down the tree, which had a trunk as
smooth and branchless as a blue gum. For a little
I thought I should be compelled to give in, and I was
not happy.

"But I had leisure, for I did not think I would
be missed before nightfall, and given time a man can
do most things. By and by I found a branch which
led beyond the outer wall of the yard and hung above

146

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

the river. This I followed, atid then dropped from
it into the stream. It was a drop of some yards, and
the water was very swift, so that I nearly drowned.
I would rather swim the Limpopo, Cornelis, among all
the crocodiles, than that icy river. Yet I managed
to reach the shore and get my breath lying in the
bushes. . . .

"After that it was plain going, though I was very
cold. I knew that I would be sought on the northern
roads, as I had told my friends, for no one would
dream of an ignorant Dutchman going south away
from his kinsfolk. But I had learned enough from
the map to know that our road lay south-east, and I
had marked this big river."

"Did you hope to pick me up?" I asked.

"No, Cornelis. I thought you would be travelling
in first-class carriages while I should be plodding on
foot. But I was set on getting to the place you spoke
of (how do you call it? Constant Nople), where our
big business lay. I thought I might be in time for
that." ^

"You're an old Trojan, Peter," I said; "but go
on. How did you get to that landing-stage where I
found you ?"

"It was a hard journey," he said meditatively. "It
was not easy to get beyond the barbed wire entangle-
ments which surrounded Neuburg— yes, even across
the river. But in time I reached the woods and was
safe, for I did not think any German could equal me
in wild country. The best of them, even their for-
esters, are but babes in veldcraft compared with such
as me. . • . My troubles came only from hunger and
cold. Then I met a Peruvian smouse,* and sold him

* Peter meant a Polish- Jew fellow.

GREENMANTLE

"^ my clothes and bought from him these. I did not want
.to part with my own, which were better, but he gave
me ten marks on the deal. After that I went into a
village and ate heavily."

"Were you pursued?" I asked.

"I do not think so. They had gone north, as I
expected, and were looking for me at the railway
stations which my friends hiad marked for me. I
walked happily and put a bold face on it. If I saw
a man or woman look at me suspiciously I went up
to them at once and talked. I told a sad tale, and
all believed it. I was a poor Dutchman travelling
home on foot to see a dying mother, ,and I had been
told that by the Danube I should find the main rail-
way to take me to Holland. There were kind peo-
ple who gave me food, and one woman gave me half
a mark, and wished me God speed. • . . Then on the
last day of the year I came to the river and found
many drunkards."

"Was that when you resolved to get on one of the
river boats?"

^'Ja, Cornelis. As soon as I heard of the boats I
saw where my chance lay. But you might have
knocked me over with a straw when I saw you come
on shore. That was good fortune, my friend. . . .
I have been thinking much about the Germans, and I
will tell you the truth. It is only boldness that can
baffle them. They are a most diligent people. They
will think of all likely difficulties, but not of all pos-
sible ones. They have not much imagination. They
are like steam engines which must keep to prepared
tracks. There they will hunt any man down, but let
him trek for open country and they will be at a loss.
Therefore boldness, my friend; for ever boldness.

148

}\^

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

Remember as a nation they wiear spectacles, which
means that they are always peering."

Peter broke off to gloat over the wedges of geese
and the strings of wild swans that were always wing-
ing across those plains. His tale had bucked me up
wonderfully. Our luck had held beyond all belief,
and I had a kind of hope in the business now which
had been wanting before. That afternoon, too, I got
another fillip.

I came on deck for a breath of air ahd found it
pretty cold after the heat of the engine room. So
I called to one of the deck hands to fetch me up
my cloak from the cabin — the same I had bought that
first morning in the Greif village.

"Der griine MantelT^ the man shouted up, and I
cried, Yes. But the words seemed to echo in my ears,
and long after he had given me the garment I stood
staring abstractedly over the bulwarks.

His tone had awakened a chord of memory, or, to
be accurate, they had given emphasis to what before
had been only blurred and vague. For he had spoken
the words which Stumm had uttered behind his hand
to Gaudian. I had heard something like "Uhnmantl"
and could make nothing of it. Now I was as certain
of those words as of my own existence. They had
been "Griine Mantel." Griine Mantel, whatever it
might be, was the name which Stumm had not meant
me to hear, which was some talisman for the task I
had proposed, and which was connected in some way
with the mysterious von Einem.

This discovery put me in high fettle. I told my-
self that, considering the difficulties, I had managed
to find out a wonderful amount in a very few days.

149

GREENMANTLE

•

It only shows what a man can do with the slenderest
evidence if he keeps chewing and chewing on it. . . .

Two mornings later we lay alongside the quays at
Belgrade, and I took the opportunity of stretching my
legs. Peter had come ashore for a smoke, and we
'wandered among the battered riverside streets, and
looked at the broken arches of the great railway
bridge which the Germans were working at like
beavers. There was a big temporary pontoon affair
to take the railway across, but I calculated that the
main bridge would be ready inside a month. It was
a clear, cold, blue day, and as one looked south one*
saw ridge after ridge of snowy hills. The upper
streets of the city were still fairly whole, and there
were shops open where food could be got. I remem-
ber hearing English spoken, and seeing some Red
Cross nurses in the custody of Austrian soldiers coming
from the railway station.

It would have done me a lot of good to have had
a word with them. I thought of the gallant people
whose capital this had been, how three times they
had flung the Austrians back over the Danube, and
then had only been beaten by the black treachery of
their so-called allies. Somehow that morning in Bel-
grade gave both Peter and me a new purpose in our
task. It was our business to put a spoke in the wheel
of this monstrous bloody Juggernaut that was crush-
ing out the little heroic nations.

We were just getting ready to cast off when a dis-
tinguished party arrived at the quay. There were all
kinds of uniforms — German, Austrian, and Bulgarian,
and amid them one stout gentleman in a fur coat and
a black felt hat. They watched the barges up-anchor,
and, before we began to jerk into line I could hear

150

THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER

their conversation. The fur coat was talking English.

"I reckon that's pretty good noos, General," it said;
"if the English have run away from Gally-poly we
can use these noo consignments for the bigger game.
I guess it won't be long before we see the British lion
moving out of Egypt with sore paws."

They all laughed. "The privilege of that spectacle
may soon be ours," was the reply.

I did not pay much attention to the talk; indeed
I did not realise till weeks later that that was the
first tidings of the great evacuation of Cape Helles.
What rejoiced me was the sight of Blenkiron, as bland
as a barber among those swells. Here were two of
the missionaries within reasonable distance of their
goal.

151

CHAPTER X

THE GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

WE reached Rustchuk on January lo, but by no
means landed on that day. Something had
gone wrong with the unloading arrangements, or more
likely with the railway behind them, and we were kept
swinging all day well out in the turbid riven On the
top of this Captain Schenk got an ague, and by that
evening was a blue and shivering wreck. He had
done me well and I reckoned I would stand by hfei.
So I got his ship's papers and the manifests of cargo,
and undertook to see to the transhipment. It wasn't
the first time I had tackled that kind of business,
and I hadn't much to learn about steam cranes. I
told him I was going on to Constantinople and would
take Peter with me, and he was agreeable. He would
have to wait at Rustchuk to get his return cargo, and
could easily inspan a fresh engineer.

I worked about the hardest twenty-four hours of
my life getting the stuff ashore. The landing officer
was a Bulgarian, quite a competent man if he could
have made the railways give him the trucks he
needed. There was a collection of hungry German
transport officers always putting in their oars, and
being infernally insolent to everybody. I took the
high and mighty line with them; and as I had the
Bulgarian commandant^ on my side, after about two
hours' blasphemy got them quieted.

152

GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

But the big trouble came the next morning when
I had got nearly all the stuff aboard the trucks.

A young officer in what I took to be a Turkish uni-
form rode up with an aide-de-camp. I noticed the
German guards saluting him, so I judged he was rather
a swell. He came up to me and asked me very civilly
in German for the way-bills. I gave him them 'and
he looked carefully through them, marking certain
items with a blue pencil. Then he coolly handed them
to his aide-de-camp and spoke to him in Turkish.

"Look here, I want these back," I said. "I can't
do without them, and weVe no time to waste."

"Presently," he said, smiling, and went off.

I said nothing, reflecting that the stuff was for the
Turks and they naturally had to have some say in its
handling. The loading was practically flnished when
my gentleman returned. He handed me a neatly
typed new set of way-bills. One glance at them
showed that some of the big items had been left out.

"Here, this won't do," I cried. "Give me back the
right set. This thing's no good to me."

For answer he winked gently, smiled like a dusky
seraph, and held out his hand. In it I saw a roll of
money.

"For yourself," he said. "It is the usual custom."

It was the first time any one had ever tried to bribe
me, and it made me boil up like a geyser. I saw
his game clearly enough. Turkey would pay for the
lot to Germany; probably had already paid the bill;
but she would pay double for the things not on the
way-bills, and pay to this fellow and his friends. This
struck me as rather steep even for Oriental methods
of doing business.

"Now look here, sir," I said, "I don't stir from

153

GREENMANTLE

this place till I get the correct way-bills. If you won't
give me them, I will have every item out of the trucks
and make a new list. But a correct list I have, or
the stuff stays here till Doomsday."

He was a slim, foppish fellow, and he looked more
puzzled than angry.

"I offer you enough," he said, again stretching out
his hand.

At that I fairly roared. "If you try to bribe me,
you damned little haberdasher, I'll have you off that
horse and chuck you in the river."

He no longer misunderstood me. He began to curse
and threaten, but I cut him short.

*'Come along to the commandant, my boy," I said,
and I marched away, tearing up his typewritten sheets
as I went and strewing them behind me like a paper*
chase.

We had a fine old racket in the commandant's of-
fice. I said it was my business, as representing the
German Government, to see the stuff delivered to the
consignee at Constantinople ship-shape and Bristol-
fashion. I told him it wasn't my habit to proceed with
cooked documents. He' couldn't but agree with me,
but there was that wrathful Oriental with his face as
fixed as a Buddha.

"I am sorry, Rasta Bey," he said; "but this man
is in the right."

"I have authority from the Committee to receive
the stores," he said sullenly.

"Those are not my instructions," was the answer,
"They are consigned to the Artillery commandant at
Chataldja, General von Oesterzee."

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Very well. I
will have a word to say to General von Oesterzee, and

154

GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

many to this fellow who flouts the Committee." And
he strode away like an impudent boy.

The harassed commandant grinned. "You've of-
fended his lordship, and he is a bad enemy. All those
damned Comitajis are. You would be well advised
not to go on to Constantinople."

"And have that blighter in the red hat loot the
trucks on the road. No, thank you. I am going to
see them safe at Chataldja, or whatever they call the
artillery depot."

I said a good deal more, but that is an abbreviated
translation of my remarks. My word for "blighter"
was trottel, but I used some other expressions which
would have ravished my young Turkish friend to
hear. Looking back, it seems pretty ridiculous to have
made all this fuss about guns which were going to be
used against my own people. But I didn't see that
at the time. My professional pride was up in arms,
and I couldn't bear to have a hand in a crooked deal.

"Well, I advise you to go armed," said the com-
mandant. "You will have a guard for the trucks,
of course, and I will pick you good men. They may
hold you up all the same. I can't help you once you
are past the frontier, but I'll send a wire to Oesterzee
and he'll make trouble if anything goes wrong. I
still think you would have been wiser to humour Rasta
Bey."

As I was leaving he gave me a telegram. "Here's
a wire for your Captain Schenk." I slipped the en-
velope in my pocket and went out.

Schenk was pretty sick, so I left a note for him.
At one o'clock I got the train started, with a couple
of German landwehr in each truck and Peter and I
in a horse-box. Presently I remembered Schenk's tele-

155

GREENMANTLE

gram, which still reposed in my pocket. I took it
out and opened it, meaning to wire it from the first
station we stopped at. But I changed my mind when
I read it. It was from some official at Regensburg,
asking him to put under arrest and send back by the
first boat a man called Brandt, who was believed to
have come aboard aft Absthafen on the 30th of De-
cember.

I whistled and showed it to Peter. The sooner
we were at Constantinople the better, and I prayed we
would get there before the fellow who sent this wire
repeated it and got thie commandant to send on the
message and have us held up at Chataldja. For
my back had got fairly stiffened about these muni-
tions, and I was going to take any risk to see them
safely delivered to their proper owner. Peter couldn't
understand me at all. He still hankered after a grand
destruction of the lot somewhere down the railway.
But then, this wasn't the line of Peter's profession,
and his pride was not at stake.

We had a mortally slow journey. It was bad
enough in Bulgaria, but when we crossed the frontier
at a place called Mustafa Pasha we struck the real
supineness of the East. Happily I found a German
officer there who had some notion of hustling, and,
after all, it was his interest to get the stuff moved.
It was the morning of the i6th, after Peter and I had
been living like pigs on black bread and condemned
tinned stuff, that we came in sight of a blue sea on our
right hand and knew we couldn't be very far from
the end.

It was jolly near the end in another sense. We
stopped at a station and were stretching our legs on
the platform, when I saw a familiar figure ap-

156

GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

preaching. It was Rasta, with half a dozen Turkish
gendarmes.

I called to Peter, and we clambered into the truck
next our horse-box. I had been half expecting son^
move like this and had made a plan.

The Turk swaggered up and addressed us. "You
can get back to Rustchuk/' he said "I take over
from you here. Hand me the papers.'*

"Is this Chataldja?" I asked innocently.

"It is the end of your affair/' he said haughtily.
"Quick, or it will be the worse for you.'*

"Now, look here, my son," I said; "you're a kid
and know nothing. I hand over to General von Oes-
terzee and to no one else."

"You are in Turkey," he cried, "and will obey
the Turkish Government."

"I'll obey the Government right enough," I said;
"but if you're the Government I could make a better
one with a bib and a rattle."

He said something to his men, who unslung their
rifles.

"Please don't begin shooting," I said; "there are
twelve armed guards in this train who will take their
orders from me. Besides, I and my friend can shoot
a bit."

"Fool!" he cried, getting very angry. "I can order
up a regiment in five minutes."

"Maybe you can," I said; "but observe the situa-
tion. I am sitting on enough toluol to blow up this
countryside. If you dare to come aboard I will shoot
you. If you call in your regiment I will tell you what
I'll do. I'll fire this stuff, and I reckon they'll be
picking up the bits of you and your regiment off the
Gallipoli Peninsula."

IS7

GREENMANTLE

He had put up a bluff — a poor one — and I had
called it. He saw I meant what I said, and became
silken.

"Good-bye, sir,'' he said. "You have had a fair
chance and rejected it. We shall meet again soon,
and you will be sorry for your insolence."

He strutted away, and it was all I could do to keep
from running after him. I wanted to lay him over
my knee and spank him.

We got safely to Chataldja, and were received By
von Oesterzee like long-lost brothers. He was the
regular gunner-officer, not thinking about anything
except his guns and shells. I had to wait about three
hours while he was checking the stuff with the invoices,
and then he gave me a receipt which I still possess.
I told him about Rasta, and he agreed that I had done
right. It didn't make him as mad as I expected,
because, you see, he got his stuff safe in any case. It
was only that the wretched Turks had to pay twice for
a lot of it.

He gave Peter and me luncheon, and was altogether
very civil and inclined to talk about the war. I would
have liked to hear what he had to say, for it would
have been something >to get the inside view of Ger-
many's eastern campaign, but I did not dare to wait.
Any moment there might arrive an incriihinating wire
from Rustchuk. Finally he lent us a car to take us
the few miles to the city.

So it came about that at five minutes past three
on the 1 6th day of January, with only the clothes we
stood up in, Peter and I entered Constantinople.

I was in considerable spirits, for I had got the final
lap successfully over, and I was lookkig forward madly

158

GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

to meeting my friends ; but all the same, the first sight
was a mighty disappointment. I don't quite know
what I had expected — a sort of fairyland Eastern city,
all white marble and blue water, and stately Turks
in surplices and veiled houris, and roses and nightin-
gales, and some sort of string band discoursing sweet
music. I had forgotten that winter is pretty much
the same everywhere. It was a drizzling day, with
a south-east wind blowing, and the streets were long
troughs of mud. The first part I struck looked like
a dingy colonial suburb — ^wooden houses and corru-
gated iron roofs, and endless dirty, sallow children.
There was a cemetery I remember, with Turks' caps
stuck at the head of each grave. Then we got into
narrow steep streets which descended to a kind of big
canal. I saw what I took to be mosques and minarets,
and they were about as impressive as factory chim-
neys. By and by we crossed a bridge, and paid a
penny for the privilege. If I had known it was the
famous Golden Horn I would have looked at it with
more interest, but I saw nothing save a lot of moth-
eaten biirges and some queer little boats like gondolas.
Then we came into busier streets, where ramshackle
cabs drawn by lean horses spluttered through the mud.
I saw one old fellow who looked like my notion of a
Turk, but most of the population had the appearance
of London old-clothes men. All but the soldiers, Turk
and German, who seemed well-«et-up fellows.

Peter had paddled along at my side like a faithful
dog, not saying a word, but clearly not approving of
this wet and dirty metropolis.

"Do you know that we are being followed. Cor-
nelis," he said suddenly, "ever since we came into
this evil-smelling dorp?"

159

GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

I told him in German I wanted to speak to Mr.
Kuprasso. He paid no attention, so I shouted louder
at him, and the noise brought a man out of the back
parts.

He was a fat, oldish fellow with a long nose, very
like the Greek traders you see on the Zanzibar coast.
I beckoned to him and he waddled forward, smiling
oilily. Then I asked him what he would take, and he
replied, in very halting German, that he would have a
sirop.

"You are Mr. Kuprasso," I said. "I wanted to
show this place to my friend. He has heard of your
garden-house and the fun there."

"The Signor is mistaken. I have no garden-
house."

"Rot," I said; "I've been here before, my friend.
I recall your shanty at the back and many merry nights
there. What was it you called it? Oh, I remember—
the Garden-House of Suliman the Red."

He put his finger to his lip and looked incredibly sly.
"The Signor remembers that. But that was in the
old happy days before war came. The place is long
since shut. The people here are too poor to dance
and sing."

"All the same I would like to have another look
at it," I said, and I slipped an English sovereign into
his hand.

He glanced at it in surprise and his manner changed.
"The Signor is a Prince, and I will do his will." He
clapped his hands and the negro appeared, and at
his nod took his place behind a little side-counter.

"follow me," he said, and led us through a long,
noisome passage, which was pitch dark and very ui-.

i6i

GREENMANTLE

evenly paved. Then he unlocked a door and with a
swirl the wind caught it and blew it back on us.

We were looking into a mean little yard, with on
one side a high curving wall, evidently of great age,
with bushes growing in the cracks of it. Some scraggy
myrtles stood in broken pots, and nettles flourished in
a corner. At one end was a wooden building like a
dissenting chapel, but painted a dingy scarlet. Its
windows and skylights were black with dirt, and its
door, tied up with rope, flapped in the wind.

"Behold the Pavilion," Kuprasso said proudly.

"That is the old place," I observed with feeling.
"What times I've seen there I Tell me, Mr. Kuprasso,
do you ever open it now?"

He put his thick lips to my ear.

"If the Signor will be silent I will tell him. It is
sometimes open — ^not often. Men must amuse them-
selves even in war. Some of the German officers come
here for their pleasure, and but last week we had the
ballet of Mademoiselle Cici. The police approve —
but not often, for this is no time for too much gaiety.
I will tell you a secret. To-morrow afternoon there
will be dancing — ^wonderful dancing 1 Only a few of
my patrons know. Who, think you, will be there?"

He bent his head closer and said in a whisper—

"The Compagnie des Heures Roses."
/ "Oh, indeed," I said with a proper tone of respect,
though I hadn't a notion what he meant.
^ "Will the Signor wish to come ?"
V "Sure," I said, "Both of us. We're all for the
^ rosy hours."

"Then the fourth hour after midday. Walk
straight through the cafe and one will be there to
unlock the door. You are new-comers herel Take

162

GARDEN-HOUSE OF SULIMAN THE RED

the advice of Angelo Kuprasso and avoid the streets
after nightfall. Stamboul is no safe place nowadays
for quiet men."

I asked him to name an hotel, and he rattled off a
list from which I chose one that sounded modest and
in keeping with our get-up. It was not far off, only
a hundred yards to the right at the top of the hill.

When we left his door the night had begun to drop.
We hadn't gone twenty yards before Peter drew very
near to me and kept turning his head like a hunted
stag.

"We are being followed close, Cornells," he said
calmly.

Another ten yards and we were at a cross-road,
where a little place faced a big^sh mosque. I could
see in the waning light a crowd of people who seemed
to be moving towards us. I heard a high-pitched voice
cry out a jabber of excited words, and it seemed to me
that I had heard the voice before.

163

CHAPTER XI

THE COMPANIONS OP THE ROSY HOURS

WE battled to a comer, where a jut of building
stood out into the street. It was our only
chance to protect our backs, to stand up with the rib
of stone between us. It was only the work of seconds.
One moment we were groping our solitary way in
the darkness, the next we were pinned against a wall
with a throaty mob surging round us.

It took me a moment or two to realise that we were
attacked. Every man has one special funk in the bade
of his head, and mine was to be the quarry of an angry
crowd. I hated the thought of it — the mess, the blind
struggle, the sense of unleashed passions different from
those of any single blackguard. It was a dark world
to me, and I don't like darkness. But in my night-
mares I had never imagined anything just like this.
The narrow, fetid street, with the icy winds fanning
the filth, the unknown tongue, the hoarse savage mur-
mur, and my utter ignorance as to what it might all
be about, made me cold in the pit of my stomach.

"WeVe got it in the neck this time, old man," I
said to Peter, who had out the pistol the commandant
at Rustchuk had giveri him. These pistols were our
only weapons. The crowd saw them and hung back,
but if they chose to rush us it wasn't much of a barrier
two pistols would make.

164

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

Rasta's voice had stopped. He had done his work,
and had retired to the background. There were shouts
from the crowd. "Alleman^^ and a word '^Khafiyeh'^
constantly repeated. I didn't know what it meant at
the time, but now I know that they were after us
because we were Boches and spies. There was no love
lost between the Constantinople scum and their new
masters. It seemed an ironical end for Peter, and me
to be done in because we were Boches. And done in
we should be. I had heard of the East as a good
place for people to disappear in ; there were no inquisi-
tive newspapers or incorruptible police.

I wished to Heaven I had a word of Turkish. But
I made my voice heard for a second in a pause of the
din, and shouted that we were German sailors who
had brought down big guns for Turkey, and were
going home next day. I asked them what the devil
they thought we had done? I don't know if any fellow
there understood German; anyhow, it only brought a
pandemonium of cries in which that ominous word
Khafiyeh was predominant.

Then Peter fired over their heads. He had to, for
a chap was pawing at his throat. The answer was
a clatter of bullets on the wall above us. It looked
as if they meant to take us alive, and that I was very
clear should not happen. Better a bloody end in a
street scrap than the tender mercies of that bandbox
bravo.

I don't quite know what happened next. A press
drove down at me and I fired. Some one squealed,
and I looked the next moment to be strangled. And
then suddenly the scrimmage eased, and there was a
wavering splash of light in that pit of darkness.

I never went through many worse minutes than

165

GREENMANTLE

these. When I had been hunted in the past weeks
there had Been mystery enough, but no immediate
peril to face. When I had been up against a real,
urgent, physical risk, like Loos, the danger at any
rate had been clear. One knew what one was in for.
But here was a threat I couldn't put a name to, and
it wasn't in the future, but pressing hard at our
throats.

And yet I couldn't feel it was quite real. The patter
of the pistol bullets against the wall, like so many
crackers, the faces felt rather than seen in the dark,
the clamour which to me was pure gibberish, had all
the madness of a nightmare. Only Peter, cursing
steadily in Dutch by my side, was real. And then
the light came, and made the scene more eerie I

It came from one or two torches carried by wild
fellows with long staves who drove their way into
the heart of the mob. The flickering glare ran up
the steep wall and made monstrous shadows. The
wind swung the flame into long streamers, dying away
in a fan of sparks.

And now a new word was heard :n the crowd. It
was Chinganeh, shouted not in anger but in fear.

At first I could not see the new-comers. They were
hidden in the deep darkness under their canopy of
[light, for they were holding their torches high at the
' full stretch of their arms. They were shouting, too,
wild shrill cries ending sometimes in a gush of rapid
speecli. Their words did not seem to be directed
against us, but against the crowd. A sudden hope
came to me that for some unknown reason they were
on our side.

The press was no longer heavy against us. It was

thinning rapidly and I could hear the scuffle as men

1 66

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

made off down the side streets. My first notion was
that these were the Turkish police. But I changed
my mind when the leader came out into a patch of
light. He carried no torch, but a long stave with
which he belaboured the heads of those who were too
tightly packed to flee.

It was the most eldritch apparition you can conceive.
A tall man dressed in skins, with bare legs and sandal-
shod feet. A wisp of scarlet cloth clung to his shoul-
ders, and, drawn over his head down close to his eyes,
was a skull-cap of some kind of pelt with the tail
waving behind it. He capered like a wild animal,
keeping up a strange high monotone that fairly gave
me the creeps.

I was suddenly aware that the crowd had gone.
Before us was only this figure and his half-dozen com-
panions, some carrying torches and all wearing cldthes
of skin. But only the one who seemed to be their
leader wore the skull-cap ; the rest had bare heads and
long tangled hair.

The fellow was shouting pbberish at me. His eyes
were glassy, like a man who smokes hemp, and his
legs were never still a second. You would think
such a figure no better than a mountebank, and yet
there was nothing comic in it. Fearful and sinister
and uncanny it was; and I wanted to do anything
but laugh.

As he shouted he kept pointing with his stave up a
street which climbed the hillside.

"He means us to move," said Peten "For God's
sake let's get away from this witch-doctor."

I couldn't make sense of it, but one thing was dear.
These maniacs had delivered us for the moment from
Rasta and his friends.

167

GREENMANTLE

Then I did a dashed silly thing. I pulled out a
sovereign and oflered it to the leader. I had some
jcirid of notion of showing gratitude, and as I had no
.^^ords I had to show it by deed.

He brought his stick down on ray wrist and sent
■t^t^c com spinning in the gutter. His eyes blazed, and
}sc: made his weapon sing round my head. He cursed
xx»e — oh, I could tell cursing well enough, though I
cJi«in't follow a word; and he cried to his followers and
■th.ey cursed me too. I had offered him a mortal insult
sind stirred up a worse hornet's nest than Rasta's
push.

Peter and I, with a common impulse, took to our
tieels. We were not looking for any trouble with
<lemoniac8. Up that steep narrow lane we ran mth
that bedlamite crowd at our heels. The torclfes
seemed to have gone out, for the place was black as
jjitch, and we tumbled over heaps of offal and splashed
tHrough running drains. The men were close behind
us, and more than once I felt a stick on my shoulder.
Sut fear lent us wings, and suddenly before us was a
tilaze of H^t and we saw the debouchment of our
street in a main thoroughfare. The others saw it too,
for they slackened ofE. Just before we reached the
light we stopped and looked round- There was no
sound or sight behind us in the black lane which dipped
to the harbour.

.. . '* ^ queer country, Cornells," said Peter,
feeling his limbs for bruises. "Too many things hap-
P^" '" t°? short a time. I am breathless."

he big street we had struck seemed to run along
the crest of the hill. There were lamps in it, and
crawling cabs, and quite civilised-looking shops. We
soon found the hotel to which Kuprasso had directed

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

us, a big place in a courtyard with a very tumble-down-
looking portico, and green sun shutters which rattled
drearily in the winter's wind. It proved, as I had
feared, to be packed to the door, mostly with German
officers. With some trouble I got an interview with
the proprietor, the usual Greek, and told him that we
had been sent there by Mr. Kuprasso. That didn't
affect him in the least, and we would have been shot
into the street if I hadn't remembered about Stumm's
pass.

So I explained that we had come from Germany
with munitions and only wanted rooms for one night.
I showed him the pass and blustered a good deal, till
he became civil and said he would do the best he could
for us.

That best was pretty poor. Peter and I were
doubled up in a small room which contained two camp
beds and little else, and had broken windows through
which the wind whistled. We got a wretched dinner
of stringy mutton boiled with vegetables, and a white
cheese strong enough to raise the dead. But I got a
bottle of whisky, for which I paid a sovereign, and
we managed to light the stove in our room, fasten the
shutters, and warm our hearts with a brew of toddy.
After that we went to bed and slept like logs for
twelve hours. On the road from Rustchuk we had had
uneasy slumbers.

I woke next morning and, looking out from the
broken window, saw that it was snowing. With a lot
of trouble I got hold of a servant and made him bring
us some of the treacly Turkish coffee. We were both
in pretty low spirits. "Europe is a poor cold place,"
said Peter, **not worth fighting for. There is only

169

GREENMANTLE

one white man's land, and that is South Africa." At
the time I heartily agreed with him.

I remember that, sitting on the edge of my bed, I
took stock of our position. It was not very cheering.
We seemed to have been amassing enemies at a furious
pace. First of all, there was Rasta, whom I had in-|
suited and who wouldn't forget it in a hurry. He had
his crowd of Turkish riff-raff and was bound to get us
sooner or later. Then there was the maniac in the
skin hat. He didn't like Rasta, and I made a guess
that he and his weird friends were of some party
hostile to the Young Turks. But, on the other hand,
he didn't like us, and there would be bad trouble the
next time we met him. Finally^ there was Stumm and
the German Government. It could only be a matter
of hours at the best before he got the Rustchuk
authorities on our trail. It would be easy to trace us
from Chataldja, and once they had us we were abso-
lutely done. There was a big black dossier against
us, which by no conceivable piece of luck could be
upset.

It was very dear to me that, unless we could find
sanctuary and shed all our various pursuers during
this day, we should be done in for good and all. But
where on earth were we to find sanctuary? We had
neither of us a word of the language, and there wasj
no way I could see of taking on new characters. For
that we wanted friends and help, and I could think of
none anywhere. Somewhere, to be sure, there was
Blenkiron, but how could we get in touch with him?
As for Sandy, I had pretty well given him up. I
always thought his enterprise the craziest of the lot,
and bound to fail. He was probably somewhere in
Asia Minor, and a month or two later would get to

170

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

Constantinople and hear in some pot-house the yarn of
the two wretched Dutchmen who had disappeared so
soon from men's sight.

That rendezvous at Kuprasso's was no good It
would have been all right if we had got here unsus-
pected, and could have gone on quietly frequenting
the place till Blenklron picked us up. But to do that
we wanted leisure and secrecy, and here we were with
a pack of hounds at our heels. .The place was horribly
dangerous already. If we showed ourselves there we
should be gathered in by Rasta, or by the German
military police, or by the madman in the skin cap. It
was a stark impossibility to hang about on the ofi-
chance of meeting Blenkiron.

I reflected with some bitterness that this was the
17th day of January, the day of our assignation. I
had had high hopes all the way down the Danube of
meeting with Blenkiron — for I knew he would be in
time — of giving him the information I had had the
good fortune to collect, of piecing it together with
what he had found out, and of getting the whole story
which Sir Walter hungered for. After that, I thought
it wouldn't be hard to get away by Rumania, and to
get home through Russia. I had hoped to be back
with my battalion in February, having done as good a
bit of work as anybody in the war. As it was, it looked
as if my information would die with me, unless I could
find Blenkiron before the evening.

I talked the thing over with Peter, and he agreed
that we were fairly up against it. We decided to go
to Kuprasso's that afternoon, and to trust to luck for
the rest. It wouldn't do to wander about the streets,
so we sat tight in our room all morning, and swopped
old hunting yams to keep our minds from the beastly

171

GREENMANTLE

present. We got some food at midday — cold mutton
and the same cheese, and finished our whisky. Then
I paid the bill, for I cUdn't dare to stay there another
night. About half-past three we went into the street,
without the foggiest notion where we would find our
next quarters.

It was snowing heavily, which was a piece of luck
for us. Poor old Peter had no greatcoat, and mine
was nothing to boast of, so we went into a Jew's shop
and bought two ready-made abominations, whidi
looked as if they might have been meant for dissent-
ing parsons. It was no good saving my money, when
the future was so black. The snow made the streets
deserted, and we turned down the long lane which led
to Ratchik ferry and found it perfectly quiet. I do not
think we met a soul till we got to Kuprasso's shop.

We walked straight through the cafe, which was
empty, and down the dark passage, till we were
stopped by the garden door. I knocked and it swung
open. There was the bleak yard, now puddled with
snow, and a blaze of light from the pavilion iat the
other end There was a scraping of fiddles too, and
the sound of human talk. We paid the negro at the
door, and passed from the bitter afternoon into a
garish saloon.

There were forty or fifty people there, drinking
coffee and sirops and filling the air with the fumes of
latakia. Most of them were Turks in European
clothes and the fez, but there were some German
officers and what looked like German civilians — ^Army
Service Corps clerks, probably, and mechanics from
the Arsenal. A woman in cheap finery was tinkling
at the piano, and there were several shrill females
with the officers. Peter and I sat down modestly in the

172

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

nearest corner, where old Kuprasso saw us and sent
us coffee. A girl who looked like a Jewess came over
to us and talked French, but I shook my head and she
went off again.

Presently a girl came on the stage and danced, a
silly affair, all a clashing of tambourines and wriggling.
I have seen native women do the same thing better
in a Mozambique kraal. Another sang a German
song, a simple, sentimental thing about golden hair
and rainbows, and the Germans present applauded.
The place was so tinselly and common that, coming
to it from weeks of rough travelling, it made me impa-
tient. I forgot that, while for the others it might be
a vulgar little dancing-hall, for us it was as perilous
as a brigands' den.

Peter did not share my mood. He was quite inter-
ested in it, as. he was interested in everything new.
He had a genius for living in the moment.

I remember there was a drop-scene on which was
daubed a blue lake with very green hills in the dis*
tance. As the tobacco smdke grew thicker and the
fiddles went on squealing, this tawdry picture began
to mesmerise me. I seemed to be looking out of a
window at a lovely summer landscape where there
were no wars or dangers. I seemed to feel the warm
sun and to smell the fragrance of blossom from the
islands. And then I became aware that a queer scent
had stolen into the heavy atmosphere.

There were braziers burning at both ends to warm
the room, and the thin smoke from these smelt^jike
incense. Somebody had been putting a powder in the
flames, for suddenly the place became very quiet. The
fiddles still sounded, but far away like an echo. The

173

GREENMANTLE

lights went down, all but a circle on the stage, and
into that circle stepped my enemy of the skin cap.

He had three others with him. I heard a whisper
behind me, and the words were those which Kuprasso
had used the day before. These bedlamites were
called the Companions of the Rosy Hours, and Ku-
prasso had promised great dancing.

I hoped to goodness they would not see ys, for they
had fairly pven me the horrors. Peter felt the same,
and we both made ourselves very small in that dark
comer. But the newcomers had no eyes for us.

In a twinkling the pavilion changed from a common
saloon, which might have been in Chicago or Paris,
to a place of mystery — ^yes, and of beauty. It be-
came the garden-house of Suliman the Red, whoever
that sportsman might have been. Sandy had said
that the ends of the earth converged there, and he had
been right. I lost all consciousness of my neighbours
— stout German, frock-coated Turk, frowsy Jewess —
and saw only strange figures leaping in a circle of
light, figures that^ came out of the deepest darkness
to make big magic.

The leader flung some stuff into the brazier and a
great fan of blue light flared up. He was weaving
circles, and he was singing something shrill and high,
whilst his companions made a chorus with their deep
monotone. I can't tell you what the dance was. I
had seen the Russian ballet just before the war, and
one of the men in it reminded me of this man. But
the dancing was the least part of it. It was neither
sound nor movement nor scent that wrought the spell,
but something far more potent In an instant I found
myself reft away from the present, with its dull dan-
gers, and looking at a world all young and fresh and

174

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

beautiful. The gaudy drop-scene had vanished. It
was a window I was looking from, and I was gazing
at the finest landscape on earth, lit by the pure clear
light of morning.

It seemed to be part of the veld, but like no veld
I had ever seen. It was wider and wilder and more
gracious. Indeed, I was looking at my first youth. I
was feeling the kind of unspeakable light-heartedness
which only a boy knows in the dawning of his days.
I had no longer any fear of these magic-makers. They
were kindly wizards, who had brought me into fairy-
land.

Then slowly from the silence there distilled drops
of music. They came like water falling a long way
into a cup, each the essential quality of pure sound.
We, with out elaborate harmonies, have forgotten the
charm of single notes. The African natives know
it, and I remember a learned man once telling me
that the Greeks had the same art. These silver bells
broke out of infinite space, so exquisite and perfect
that no mortal words could have been fitted to them.
That wa^ the music, I expect, that the morning stars
made when they sang together.

Slowly, very slowly, it changed. The glow passed
from blue to purple, and then to an angry red. Bit
by bit the notes spun together till they had made a
harmony — a fierce, restless harmony. And I was con-
scious again of the skin-clad dancers beckoning out of
their circle.

There was no mistake about the meaning now. All
the daintiness and youth had fled, and passion was
beating in the air — terrible, savage passion, which 1be-
longed neither to day nor night, life nor death, but to
the half-world between them. I suddenly felt the

I7S

GREENMANTLE

dancers as monstrous, inhuman, devilish. The thick
scents that floated from the brazier seemed to have a
tang of new-shed blood. Cries broke from the hearers
— cries of anger and lust and terror. I heard a woman
sob, and Peter, who is as tough as any mortal, took
tight hold of my arm.

I now realised that these Companions of the Rosy
Hours were the only thing in the world to fear. Rasta
and Stumm seemed feeble simpletons by contrast. The
window I had been looking out of was changed to a
prison wall — I could see the mortar between the
massive blocks. In a second these devils would be
smelling out their enemies like some foul witch-doc-
tors. I felt the burning eyes of their leader looking
for me in the gloom. Peter was praying audibly be-
side me, and I could have choked him. His infernal
chatter would reveal us, for it seemed to me that there
was no one in the place beside us and the magic-
workers.

Then suddenly the spell was broken. The door was
flung open and a great gust of icy wind swirled through
the hall, driving clouds of ashes from the braziers. I
heard loud voices without, and a hubbub began inside.
For a moment it was quite dark, and ihen some one
lit one of the flare lamps by the stage. It revealed
nothing but the common squalor of a low saloon-
white faces, sleepy eyes, and frowsy heads. The drop-
scene was there in all its tawdriness.

The Companions of the Rosy Hours had gone. But
at the door stood men in uniform ; I heard a German
a long way off murmur, "Enver's bodyguards," and I
heard him distinctly ; for though I could not see dearly,
my hearing was desperately acute. That is often the
way when you suddenly come out of a swoon.

176

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS

The place emptied like magic. Turk and German
tumbled over each other, while Kuprasso wailed and
wept. No one seemed to stop them, and then I saw
the reason. Those Guards had come for us. This
must be Stumm at last. The authorities had tracked
us down, and it was all up with Peter and me.

A sudden revulsion leaves a man with low vitality.
I didn't seem to care greatly. We were done, and
there was an end of it. It was Kismet, the act of
God, and there was nothing for it but to submit. I
hadn't a flicker of a thought of escape or resistance.
The game was utterly and absolutely over.

A man who seemed to be a sergeant pointed to us
and said something to Kuprasso, who nodded. We
got heavily to our feet and stumbled towards them.
With one on each side of us we crossed the yard,
walked through the dark passage and the empty shop,
and out into the snowy street. There was a closed
cab waiting which they motioned us to get into. It
looked exactly like the Black Maria.

Both of us sat still, like truant schoolboys, with our
hands on our knees. I didn't know where I was going
and I didn't care. We seemed to be rumbling up the
hill, and then I caught the glare of lighted streets.

"This is the end of it, Peter," I said.

^'Ja, Comelis," he replied, and that was all our
talk.

By and by — ^hours later it seemed — ^we stopped.
Some one opened the door and we got out, to find
ourselves in a courtyard with a huge dark building
around. The prison, I guessed, and I wondered if
they would give us blankets, for it was perishing
cold.

We entered a door, and found ourselves in a big

177

GREENMANTLE

stone hall. It was quite warm, which made me more
hopeful about our cells. A man in some kind of uni-
form pointed to the staircase, up which we plodded
wearily. My mind was too blank to take impressions,
or in any way to forecast the future. Another warder
met us and took us down a passage till we halted at a
doof. He stood aside and motioned us to enter.

I guessed that was the governor's room, and we
should be put through our first examination. My head
was too stupid to think, .and I made up my mind to
keep perfectly mum. Yes, even if they tried thumb-
screws. I had no kind of story, but I resolved not
to give anything away. As I turned the handle I
wondered idly what kind of sallow Turk or bulging-
necked German we should find inside.

It was a pleasant room, with a polished wood floor
and a big fire burning on the hearth. Beside the fire
a man lay on a couch, with a little table drawn up
beside him. On that table was a small glass of milk
and a number of Patience cards spread in rows.

I stared blankly at the spectacle, till I saw a second
figure. It was the man in the skin-cap, the leader of
the dancing maniacs. Both Peter and I backed sharply
at the sight and then stood stock still.

For the dancer crossed the room in two strides and
gripped both of my hands.

**r)ick, old man," he cried, **I'm most awfully glad
to see you again 1"

178

CHAPTER XII

FOUR MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN THEIR MISSION

A SPASM of incredulity, a vast relief, and that
sharp joy which comes of reaction chased each
other across my mind. I had come suddenly out of
very black waters into an unbelievable calm. I
dropped into the nearest chair and tried to grapple
with something far beyond words.

"Sandy," I said, as soon as I got my breath, "youVe
an incarnate devil. You've given Peter and me the
fright of our lives."

"It was the only way, Dick. If I hadn't come mew-
ing like a tom-cat at your heels yesterday, Rasta would
have had you long before you got to your hotel. You
two have g^ven me a pretty anxious time, and it took
some doing to get you safe here. However, that is
all over now. Make yourselves at home, my
children."

"Over I" I cried incredulously, for my wits were
still wool-gathering. "What place is this?"

"You may call it my humble home" — it was Blen-
kiron's sleek voice that spoke. "We've been prepar-
ing for you. Major, but it was only yesterday I heard
of your friend."

I introduced Peter.

"Mr. Pienaar," said Blenkiron. "Pleased to meet
you. Well, as I was observing, you're safe enough

179

GREENMANTLE

here, but youVe cut it mighty fine. Officially, a Dutch-
man called Brandt was to be arrested this afternoon
and handed over to the German authorities. When
Germany begins to trouble about that Dutchman she
will find difficulty in getting the body ; but such are the
languid Ways of an Oriental despotism. Meantime the
Dutchman will be no more. He will have ceased upon
the midnight without pain, as your poet sings."

"But I don't understand," I stammered. "Who
arrested us?"

"My men," said Sandy. "We have a bit of a graft
here, and it wasn't difficult to manage it. Old Moellen-
dorff will be nosing after the business to-morrow, but
he will find the mystery too deep for him. That is
the advantage of a Government run by a pack of ad-
venturers. But, by Jove, Dick, we hadn't any time
to spare. If Rasta had got you, or the Germans had
had the job of lif tmg you, your goose would have been
jolly well cooked. I had some unquiet hours this
morning."

The thing was too deep for me. I looked at Blen-
kiron, shuffling his Patience cards with his old sleepy
smile, and Sandy, dressed like some bandit in melo-
drama, his lean face as brown as a nut, his bare arms
aU tattooed with crimson rings, and the fox pelt drawn
tight over brow and ears. It was still a nightmare
world, but the dream was getting pleasanter. Peter
said not a word, but I could see his eyes heavy with his
own thoughts.

Blenkiron hove himself from the sofa and waddled
to a cupboard.

"You boys must be hungry," he said. "My duo-
denum has been giving me hell as usual, and I don't
eat no more than a squirrel. But I laid in some stores,

i8o

' MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN MISSION

far I guessed you would want to stoke up some after
your travels."

He brought out a couple of Strassburg pies, a
cheese, a cold chicken, a loaf, and three bottles of
champagne.

"Fizz," said Sandy rapturously. "And a dry Heid-
sieck too I WeVe in luck, Dick, old man."

I never ate a more welcome meal, for we had
starved in that dirty hotel. But I had still the old
feeling of the hunted, and before I began I asked
about the door.

"That's all right," said Sandy. "My fellows are
on the stair and at the gate. If the Metreb are in
possession, you may bet that other people ^11 keep
off. Your past is blotted out, dean vanished away,
and you begin to-morrow morning with a new sheet.
• Blenkiron's the man -you've got to thank for that.
He was pretty certain you'd get here, but he was also
certain that you'd arrive in a hurry with a good many
inquiries behind you. So he arranged that you should
leak away and start fresh."

"Your name is Richard Hanau," Blenkiron said,
"bom in Cleveland, Ohio, of German parentage on
both sides. One of our brightest mining-engineers,
and the apple of Guggenheim's eye. You arrived this
afternoon from Constanza, and I met you at the
packet. The clothes for the part are in your bed-
room next door. But I guess all that can wait, for
I'm anxious to get to business. We're not here on a
joy-ride, Major, so I reckon we'll leave out the dime-
novel adventures. I'm just dying to hear them, but
they'll keep. I want to know how our mutual inquiries
have prospered."

He gave Peter and me cigars, and we sat ourselves

i8i

GREENMANTLE

in arm-chairs in front of the blaze. Sandy squatted
cross-legged on the hearthrug and lit a foul old briaf
pipe, which he extricated from some pouch among hi^
skins. And so began that conversation which had
never been out of my thoughts for four hectic weeks.

**If I presume to bepn," said Blenkiron, "it's be-
cause I reckon my story is the shortest. I have to con-
fess to you, gentlemen, that I have failed.*'

He drew down the corners of his mouth till he
looked a cross between a music-hall comedian and a
sick child.

"If you were looking for something in the root of
the hedge, you wouldn't want to scour the road in a
high-speed automobile. And still less would you want
to get a bird's-eye view in an aeroplane. That parable
about fits my case. I have been in the clouds and I've
been scorching on the pikes, but what I was wanting
was in the ditch all the time, and I naturally missed it.
... I had the wrong stunt. Major. I was too high
up and refined. I've been processing through Europe
like Barnum's Circus, and living with generals and
transparencies. Not that I haven't picked lup a lot of
noos, and got some very interesting sidelights on high
politics. But the thing I was after wasn't to be found
in my beat, for those that knew it weren't going to tell.
In that kind of society they don't get drunk and blab
after their tenth cocktail. So I guess I've no contri-
bution to make to quieting Sir Walter Bullivant's mind,
except that he's dead right Yes, sir, he has hit the
spot and rung the bell. There is a mighty miracle-
working proposition being floated in these parts^ but
the promoters arc keeping it to themselves. They
aren't taking more than they can help in on the ground-
floor."

182

MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN MISSION

Blenkiron stopped to light a fresh cigar. He was
leaner than when he left London and there were
pouches below his eyes. I fancy his journey had not
been as fur-lined as he made out.

^Tve found out one thing, and that is» that the last
dream Germany will part with is the control of the
Near East. That is what your statesmen don't figure
enough on. She'll give up Bel^um and Alsace-Lor-
raine and Poland, but by God I she'll never give up
the road to Mesopotamia till you have her by the
throat and make her drop it. Sir Walter is a pretty
bright-eyed citizen, and he sees it ri^t enough. If
the worst happens. Kaiser will fling overboard a lot of
ballast in Europe, and it will look like a big victory for
the Allies, but he won't be beaten if he has the road
to the East safe. Germany's like a scorpion : her
sting's in her tail, and that tail stretches way down
into Asia.

'*I got that clear, and I also made out that it wasn't
going to be dead easy for her to keep that tail healthy.
Turkey's a bit of an anxiety, as you'll soon discover.
But Germany thinks she can manage it, and I won't
say she can't. It depends on the hand she holds, and
she redcons it a good one. I tried to find out, but
they gave me nothing but eyewash. I had to pretend
to be satisfied, for the position of John S. wasn't so
strong as to allow him to take liberties. If I asked one
of the highbrows, he looked wise, and spoke of the
might of German arms and German organisation and
German staff-work' I used to nod my head and get
enthusiastic about these stunts, but it was all soft soap.
She has a trick in hand — that much I know, but Fm
darned if I can put a name to it. I pray to God you
boys have been cleverer."

183

GREENMANTLE

His tone was quite melancholy, and I was mean
enough to feel rather glad. He had been the pro-
fessional with the best chance. It would be a good
joke if the amateur succeeded where the expert failed.

I looked at Sandy. He filled his pipe again, and
pushed back his skin cap from his brows. What with
his long dishevelled hair, his high-boned face, and
stained eyebrows he had the appearance of some mad
mullah.

"I went straight to Smyrna," he said. "It wasn't
difScult, for you see I had laid down a good many lines
in former travels. I reached the town as a Greek
money-lender from the Fayoum, but I had friends
there I could count on, and the same evening I was
a Turkish gipsy, a member of the most famous frater-
nity in Western Asia. I had long been a member, and
I'm blood-brother of the chief boss, so I stepped into
the part ready made. But I found out that the Com-
pany of the Rosy Hours was not what I had known it
in 19 ID. Then it had been all for the Young Turks
and reform; now it hankered after the old regime and
was the last hope of the Orthodox. It had no use for
Enver and his friends, and it did not regard with
pleasure the beaux yeux of the Teuton. It stood for
Islam and the old ways, and might be described as a
Conservative-Nationalist caucus. But it was uncom-
mon powerful in the provinces, and Enver and Talaat
daren't meddle with it. The dangerous thing about
it was that it said nothing and apparently did nothing.
It just bided its time and took notes.

"You can imagine that this was the very kind of
crowd for my purpose. I knew of old its little ways,
for with all its orthodoxy it dabbled a good deal in
magic, and owed half its power to its atmosphere of

184

MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN MISSION

the uncanny. The Companions could dance the hearts
out of the ordinary Turk. You saw a bit of one of
our dances this afternoon, Dick — ^pretty good, wasn't
it? They could go anywhere, and no question asked.
They knew what the ordinary man was thinking, for
they were the best intelligence department in the Otto-
man Empire — far better than Enver's Khafiyeh. And
they were popular too, for they had never bowed the
knee to the Nemseh — ^the Germans who are squeezing
out the life-blood of the Osmanli for their own ends.
It would have been as much as the life of the Com-
mittee or its German masters was worth to lay a hand
on us, for we dung together like leeches and we were
not in the habit of sticking at trifles.

"Well, you may imagine it wasn't difficult for me
to move where I wanted. My dress and the pass-
word franked me anywhere. I travelled from Smyrna
by the new railway to Pandemia on the Marmora,
and got there just before Christmas. That was after
Anzac and Suvla had been evacuated, but I could hear
the guns going hard at Cape Helles. From Panderma
I started to cross to Thrace in a coasting steamer.
And there an uncommon funny thing happened — I got
torpedoed.

"It must have been about the last effort of a British
submarine in these waters. But she got us all right.
She gave us ten minutes to take to the boats, and then
sent the blighted old packet and a fine cargo of 6-inch
shells to the bottom. There weren't many passengers,
so it was easy enough to get ashore in the ship's boats.
The submarine sat on the surface watching us, as we
wailed and howled in the true Oriental way, and I
saw the captain quite close in the conning-tower. Who

185

GREENMANTLE

do you think it was? Tommy Elliot, who lives on
the other side of the hill from me at home.

"I gave Tommy the surprise of his life. As we
bumped past him, I started the *Flowers of the Forest'
— ^the old version — on the antique stringed instrument
I carried, and I sang the words very plain. Tommy's
eyes bulged out of his head, and he shouted at me in
English to know who the devil I was. I replied in the
broadest Scots, which no man in the submarine or in
our boat could have understood a word of. *Maister
Tammy,' I cried, *what for wad ye skail a dacent
tinkler lad intil a cauld sea? I'll gie ye your kail
through the reek for this ploy the next time I for-
gaither wi* ye on the tap o' Caerdon.'

"Tommy spotted me in a second. He laughed till
he cried, and as we moved off shouted to me in the
same language to *pit a stoot hert tae a stey brae.'
I hope to Heaven he had the sense not to tell my
father, or the old man will have had a fit. He never
much approved of my wanderings, and thought I was
safely anchored in the battalion.

"Well, to make a long story short, I got to Con-
stantinople, and pretty soon found touch with Blen-
kiron. The rest you know. . . . And now for busi-
ness. I have been fairly lucky — ^but no more, for I
haven't got to the bottom of the thing nor anything
like it. But I've solved the first of Harry BuUivant's
riddles. I know the meaning of Kasredin.

"Sir Walter was right, as Blenkiron has told us.
There's a great stirring in Islam, something moving
on the face of the waters. They make no secret of
it. These religious revivals come in cycles, and one
was due about now. And they are quite clear about
the details. A seer has arisen of the blood of the

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MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN MISSION

Prophet, who will restore the Khalifate to its old
glories and Islam to its old purity. His sayings are
everywhere in the Moslem world. All the orthodox
believers have them by heart. That is why they are
enduring grinding poverty and preposterous taxation,
and that is why their young men are rolling up to the
armies and dying without complaint in Gallipoli and
Transcaucasia. They believe they are on the eve of a
great deliverance.

"Now the first thing I found out was that the Young
Turks had nothing to do with this. They are unpop-
ular and unorthodox, and no true Turks. But Ger-
many has. How, I don't know, but I could see quite
plainly that in some subtle way Germany wad regarded
as a collaborator in the movement. It is that belief
that is keeping the present regime going. The ordi-
nary Turk loathes the Committee, but he has some
queer perverted expectation from Germany. It is not
a case of Enver and the rest carrying on their shoul-
ders the unpopular Teuton ; it is a case of the Teuton
carrying the unpopular Committee. And Germany's
graft is just this and nothing more — ^that she has some
hand in the coming of the new deliverer.

"They talk about the thing quite openly. It is called
the Kadba-i-hurriyeh, the Palladium of Liberty. The
prophet himself is known as Zimrud — "the Emerald"
— and his four ministers are called also after jewels —
Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl, and Topaz. You will hear
their names as often in the talk of the towns and vil-
lages as you will hear the names of generals in Eng-
land. But no one knew where Zimrud was or when he
would reveal himself, though every week came his mes-
sages to the faithful. All that I could learn was that
he and his followers were coming from the West.

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GREENMANTLE

"You will say, what about Kasredin? That puzzled
rne dreadfully, for no one used the phrase. The Home
of the Spirit! It is an obvious cliche, just as in Eng-
land some new sect might call itself the Church of
Christ. Only no one seemed to use it.

"But by and by I discovered that there was an
inner and an outer circle in this mystery. Every creed
has an esoteric side which is kept from the common
herd. I struck this side in Constantinople. Now
there is a very famous Turkish shaka called Kasre-
din, one of those old half -comic miracle-plays with
an allegorical meaning which they call orta oyun,
and which take a week to read. That tale tells of
the coming of a prophet, and I found that the select
of the faith spoke of the new revelation in terms of it.
The curious thing is that in that tale the prophet is
aided by one of the few women who play much part
in the hagiology of Islam. That is the point of the
tale, and it is partly a jest, but mainly a religious
mystery. The prophet, too, is not called Emerald."
"I know," I said; "he is called Greenmantle."
Sandy scrambled to his feet, letting his pipe drop
in the fireplace.

"Now how on earth did you find out that?" he
cried.

Then I told them of Stumm and Gaudian and the
whispered words I had not been meant to hear. Blen-
kiron was giving me the benefit of a steady stare,
unusual from one who seemed always to have his eyes
abstracted, and Sandy had taken to ran^ng up and
down the room.

"Germany's in the heart of the plan. That is what
I always thought. If we're to find the Kaaba-i-
hurriyeh it is no good fossicking among the Committee

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MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN MISSION

or in the Turkish provinces. The secret's in Germany.
Dick, you should not have crossed the Danube."

"That's what I half feared," I said. "But on the
other hand it is obvious that the thing must come east,
and sooner rather than later. I take it they can't
afford to delay too long before they deliver the goods.
If we can stick it out here we must hit the trail. . . .
I've got another bit of evidence. I have solved Harry
Bullivant's third puzzle."

Sandy's eyes were very bright and I had an audience
on wires.

"Did you say that in the tale of Kasredtn a woman
is the ally of the prophet?"

"Yes," said Sandy; "what of that?"

"Only that the same thing is true of Greenmantle.
I can give you her name."

I fetched a piece of paper and a pencil from Blen-
kiron's desk and handed it to Sandy.

"Write down Harry Bullivant's third word."

He promptly wrote down ^^v. I."

Then I told them of the other name Stumm and
Gaudian had spoken. I told of my discovery as I lay
in the woodman's cottage.

"The T is not the letter of the alphabet, but the
numeral. The name is von Einem — ^Hilda von
Einem."

"Good old Harry," said Sandy softly. "He was a
dashed clever chap. Hilda von Einem 1 Who and
where is she? for if we find her we have done the
trick."

Then Blenkiron spoke. "I reckon I can put you
wise on that, gentlemen," he said. "I saw her no
later than yesterday. She is a loVely lady. She hap-
pens also to be the owner of this house."

189

GREENMANTLE

Both Sandy and I began to laugh. It was too comic
to have stumbled across Europe and lighted on the
very headquarters of the puzzle we had set out to
unriddle.

But Blenkiron did not laugh. At the mention of
Hilda von Einem he had suddenly become very solemn,
and the sight of his face pulled me up short.

"I don't like it, gentlemen," he said. "I would
rather you had mentioned any other name on God's
earth. I haven't been long in this city, but I have
been long enough to size up the various political bosses.
They haven't much to them. I reckon they wouldn't
stand up against what we could show them in the
U-nited States. But I have met the Frau von Einem,
and that lady's a very different proposition. The man
that will understand her has got to take a biggish size
in hats."

"Who is she?" I asked.

"Why, that is just what I can't tell you. She was ^
great excavator of Babylonish and Hittite ruins, and
she married a diplomat who went to glory three years
back. It isn't what she has been, but what she is, and
that's a mighty clever woman."

Blenkiron's respect did not depress me. I felt as if
at last we had got our job narrowed to a decent com-
pass, for I had hated casting about in the dark. I
asked where she lived.

"That I don't know," said Blenkiron. "You won't
find people unduly anxious to gratify your natural
curiosity about Frau von Einem."

"I can find that out," said Sandy. "That's the
advantage of having a push like mine. Meantime,
I've got to clear, for my day's work isn't finished.
Dick, you and Peter must go to bed at once."

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MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT IN MISSION

"Why?" I asked in amazement. Sandy spoke like
a medical adviser.

"Because I want your clothes — ^the things you've
got on now. I'll take them off with me and you'll never
see them again."

"You've a queer taste in souvenirs," I said.

"Say rather the Turkish police. The current in the
Bosporus is pretty strong, and these sad relics of two
misguided Dutchmen will be washed up to-morrow
about Seraglio Point. In this game you must drop
the curtain neat and pat at the end of each scene, if
you don't want trouble later with the missing heir and
the family lawyer."

191

CHAPTER XIII

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

I WALKED out of that house next morning with
Blenkiron's arm in mine, a different being from the
friendless creature who had looked vainly the day be-
fore for sanctuary. To begin with, I was splendidly
dressed. I had a navy-blue suit with square padded
shoulders, a neat black bow-tie, shoes with a hump at
the toe, and a brown bowler. Over that I wore a
greatcoat lined with wolf fur. I had a smart malacca
cane, and one of Blenkiron's cigars in my mouth.
Peter had been made to trim his beard, and, dressed in
unassuming pepper-and-salt, looked with his docile
eyes and quiet voice a very respectable servant. Old
Blenkiron had done the job in style, for, if you'll be-
lieve it, he had brought the clothes all the way from
London. I realised now why he and Sandy had been
fossicking in my wardrobe. Peter's suit had been of
Sandy's procuring, and it was not the fit of mine. I
had no difficulty about the accent. Any man brought
up in the colonies can get his tongue round American,
and I flattered myself I made a very fair shape at the
lingo of the Middle West.

The wind had gone to the south and the snow was
melting fast. There was a blue sky over Asia, and
away to the north masses of white cloud drifting over
the Black Sea. What had seemed the day before the

192

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

dingiest of cities now took on a strange beauty, the
beauty of unexpected horizons and tongues of grey
water winding below cypress-studded shores. A man's
mind has a lot to do with the appreciation of scenery.
I felt a free man once more, and could use my eyes.

That street was a jumble of every nationality on
earth. There were Turkish regulars in their queer,
comical khaki helmets, and wild-looking levies who had
no kin with Europe. There were squads of Germans
in flat forage-caps, staring vacantly at novel sights,
and quick to salute any officer on the side-walk. Turks
in closed carriages passed, and Turks on good Arab
horses, and Turks who looked as if they had come out
of the ark. But it was the rabble that caught the eye —
a very wild, pinched, miserable rabble. I never in my
life saw such swarms of beggars, and you walked down
that street to the accompaniment of entreaties for alms
in all the tongues of the Tower of Babel. Blenkiron
and I behaved as if we were interested tourists. We
would stop and laugh at one fellow and give a penny
to a second, passing comments in high-pitched Western
voices.

We went into a cafe and had a cup of coffee. A
beggar came in and asked alms. Hitherto Blenkiron's
purse had been closed, but now he took out some small
nickels and planked five down on the table. The man
cried down blessings and picked up three. Blenkiron
very swiftly swept the other two into his pocket.

That seemed to me queer, and I remarked that I
had never before seen a beggar who gave change.
Blenkiron said nothing, and presently we moved on
and came to the harbour-side.

There were a number of small tugs moored along-
side, and one or two bigger craft — fruit boat9 I

193

GREENMANTLE

judged, which used to ply in the ^Egean. They looked
pretty well moth-eaten from disuse. We stopped at
one of them and watched a fellow in a blue nightcap
splicing ropes. He raised his eyes once and looked at
us, and then kept on with his business.

Blenkiron asked him where he came from, but he
shook his head, not understanding the tongue. A
Turkish policeman came up and stared at us suspi-
ciously, till Blenkiron opened his -coat, as if by acci-
dent, and displayed a tiny square of ribbon, at which
he saluted. Failing to make conversation with the
sailor, Blenkiron flung him three of his black cigars.
"I guess you can smoke, friend, if you can'f talk," he
said.

The man grinned and caught the three neatly in the
air. Then to my amazement he tossed one of them
back.

The donor regarded it quizzically as it lay on the
pavement. "That boy's a connoisseur of tobacco," he
said. As we moved away I saw the Turkish police-
man pick it up and put it inside his cap.

We returned by the long street on the crest of the
hill. There was a man selling oranges on a tray, and
Blenkiron stopped to look at them. I noticed that the
man shuffled fifteen into a cluster. Blenkiron felt the
j oranges, as if to see that they were sound, and pushed
two aside. The man instantly restored them to the
group, never raising his eyes.

"This ain't the time of year to buy fruit," said Blen-
kiron as we passed on. "Those oranges are rotten as
medlars."

We were almost on our own doorstep before I
guessed the meaning of the business.

"Is your morning's work finished?" I said.

194

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

^*Our morning's walk?" he asked innocently.

"I said 'work.' "

He smiled blandly. "I reckoned you'd tumble to
it. Why, yes, except that I've some figuring still to
do. Give me half an hour and I'll be at your service,
Major."

That afternoon, after Peter had cooked a wonder-
fully good luncheon, I had a heart-to-heart talk with
Blenkiron.

"My business is to get noos," he said; "and before
I start on a stunt I make considerable preparations.
All the time in London when I was yelping at the
British Government, I was busy with Sir Walter ar-
ranpng things ahead. We used to meet in queer
places and at all hours of the night. I fixed up a lot
of connections in this city before I arrived, and espe-
cially a noos service with your Foreign Office by way
of Rumania and Russia. In a day or two I guess our
friends will know all about our discoveries."

At that I opened my eyes very wide.

"Why, yes. You Britishers haven't any notion how
wide-awake your Intelligence Service is. I reckon
it's easy the best of all the belligerents. You never
talked about it in peace time, and you shunned the
theatrical ways of the Teuton. But you had the wires
laid good and sure. I calculate there isn't much that
happens in any corner of the earth that you don't
know within twenty-four hours. I don't say your
highbrows use the noos well. I don't take much
stock in your political push. They're a lot of silver-
tongues, no doubt, but it ain't oratory that is wanted
in this racket. The William Jennings Bryan stunt
languishes in war-time. Politics is like a chicken-coop,
and those inside get to behave as if their little run

195

GREENMANTLE

were all the world. But if the politicians make mis-
takes it isn't from lack of good instruction to guide
their steps. If I had a big proposition to handle and
could have my pick of helpers Fd plump for the Intel-
ligence Department of the British Admiralty. Yes,
sir, I take off my hat to your Government sleuths.'*

"Did they provide you with ready-made spies
here ?" I asked in astonishment.

"Why, no,*' he said. "But they gave me the key,
and I could make my own arrangements. In Ger-
many I buried myself deep in the local atmosphere, and
never peeped out. That was my game, for I was
looking for something in Germany itself, and didn't
want any foreign cross-bearings. As you know, I
failed where you succeeded. But so soon as I crossed
the Danube I set about opening up my lines of com-
munication, and I hadn't been two days in this metrop-
olis before I had ^ot my telephone exchange buzzing.
Sometime I'll explain the thing to you, for it's a pretty
little business. I've got the cutest cypher. . . . No, it
ain't my invention. It's your Government's. Any one
• — ^babe, imbecile, or dotard, can carry my messages —
you saw some of them to-day — ^but it takes some mind
to set the piece, and it takes a lot of figuring at my end
to work out the results. Some day you shall hear it
all, for I guess it would please you."

"How do you use it?" I asked.

"Well, I get early noos of what is going on in this
cabbage-patch. Likfwise I get authentic noos of the
rest of Europe, and I can send a message to Mr. X.
in Petrograd and Mr. Y. in London, or, if I wish, to
Mr. Z. in Noo York. What's the matter with that
for a post-office? I'm the best informed man in Con-
stantinople, for old General Liman only hears one side,

196

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

and mostly lies at that, and Enver prefers not to listen
at all. Also, I could give them points on what is hap-
pening at their very door, for our friend Sandy is a
big boss in the best-run crowd of mountebanks that
ever fiddled secrets out of men's hearts. Without their
help I wouldn't have cut much ice in this city."

"I want you to tell me one thing, Blenkiron," I
said. "I've been playing a part for the past month,
and it wears my nerves to tatters. Is this job very
tiring, for if it is, I doubt I may buckle up."

He looked thoughtful. "I can't call our business
an absolute rest-cure any time. You've got to keep
youir eyes skinned, and there's always the risk of the
little packet of dynamite going off unexpected. But
as these things go, I rate this stunt as easy. We've
only got to be natural. We wear our natural clothes,
and talk English, and sport a Teddy Roosevelt smile,
and there isn't any call for theatrical talent. Where
I've found the job tight was when I had got to be
natural, and my naturalness was the same brand as
that of everybody round about, and all the time I
had to do unnatural things. It isn't easy to be going
down town to business and taking cocktails with Mr.
Carl Rosenheim, and next hour being engaged trying
to blow Mr. Rosenheim's friends sky high. And it
isn't easy to keep up a part which is clean outside your
ordinary life. I've never tried that. My stunt has
always been to keep my normal personality. But you
have, Major, and I guess you found it wearing."

"Wearing's a mild word," I said. "But I want
to know another thing. It seems to me that the line
you've picked is as good as could be. But it's a cast-
iron line. It commits us pretty deep and it won't be a
simple job to drop it."

197

GREENMANTLE

"Why, that's just the point I was coming to/' he
said. "I was going to put you wise about that very
thing. When I started out I figured on some situation
like this. I argued that unless I had a very clear part
with a big bluff in it I wouldn't get the confidences
which I needed. We've got to be at the heart of the
show, taking a real hand and not just looking on. So
I settled I would be a big engineer — there was a time
when there weren't many bigger in the United States
than John S. Blenkiron. I talked large about what
might be done in Mesopotamia in the way of washing
the British down the river. Well, that talk caught on.
They knew of my reputation as an hydraulic expert,
and they were tickled to death to rope me in. I told
them I wanted a helper, and I told them about my
friend Richard Hanau, as good a German as ever
supped sauerkraut, who was coming through Russia and
Rumania as a benevolent neutral; but when he got to
Constantinople would drop his neutrality and double
his benevolence. They got reports on you by wire
from the States — ^I arranged that before I left London.
So you're going to be welcomed and taken to their
bosoms just like John S. was. We've both got jobs
we can hold down, and now you're in these pretty
clothes you're the dead ringer of the brightest kind of
American engineer. . . . But we can't go back on our
tracks. If we wanted to leave for Constanza next
week they'd be very polite, but they'd never let us.
We've got to go on with this adventure and nose our
way down into Mesopotamia, hoping that our luck will
hold. . . . God knows how we will get out of it ; but
it's no good going out to meet trouble. As I observed
before, I believe in an all-wise and beneficent Provi-
dence, but you've got to give Him a chance."

198

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

I am bound to confess the prospect staggered me.
We might be let in for fighting — and worse than fight-
ing — against our own side. I wondered if it wouldn't
be better to make a bolt for it, and said so.

He shook liis head. *'I reckon not. In the first
place we haven't finished our inquiries. We've got
Greenmantle located right enough, thanks to you, but
we still know mighty little about that holy man. In
the second place it won't be as bad as you think. This
show lacks cohesion, sir. It is not going to last for
ever. I calculate that before you and I strike the site
of the garden that Adam and Eve frequented there
will be a queer turn of affairs. Anyhow, it's good
enough to gamble on."

Then he got some sheets of paper and drew me a
plan of the disposition of the Turkish forces. I had
no notion he was such a close student of war, for his
exposition was as good as a staff lecture. He made
out that the situation was none too bright anywhere.
The troops released from Gallipoli wanted a lot of
refitment, and would be slow in reaching the Trans-
caucasian frontier, where the Russians were threaten-
ing. The Army of Syria was pretty nearly a rabble
under the lunatic Djemal. There wasn't the foggiest
chance of an invasion of Egypt being undertaken.
Only in Mesopotamia did things look fairly cheerful,
owing to the blunders of British strategy. "And you
may take it from me," he said, "that if the old Turk
mobilised a total of a million men, he has lost 40 per
cent, of them already. And if I'm anything of a
prophet he's going pretty soon to lose more."

He tore up the papers and enlarged on politics.
"I reckon I've got the measure of the Young Turks
and their precious Committee^ Those boys aren't any

199

/ GREENMANTLE

good. Enver's bright enough, and for sure he's got
sand. He'll stick out a fight like a Vermont game-
chicken, but he lacks the larger vision, sir. He doesn't
understand die intricacies of the job no more than a
sucking-child, so the Germans play with him, till his
temper goes and he bucks like a mule. Talaat is a
sulky dog who wants to go for mankind with a club.
Both these boys would have made good cow-punchers
in the old days, and they might have got a living out
West as the gun-men- of a Labour Union. They're
about the class of Jesse James or Bill the Kid, except-
ing that they're college-reared and can patter lan-
guages. But they haven't the organising power to
manage the Irish vote in a ward election. Their one
notion is to get busy with their firearms, and people are
getting tired of the Black Hand stunt. Their hold on
the country is just the hold that a man with a Browning
has over a crowd with walking-sticks. The cooler
heads in the Committee are growing shy of them, and
an old fox like Djavid is lying low till his time comes.
Now it doesn't want arguing that a gang of that kind
has got to hang close together or they may hang sepa-
rately. They've got no grip on the ordinary Turk,
barring the fact that they are active and he is sleepy,
and that they've got their guns loaded."

"What about the Germans here?" I asked.

Blenklron laughed. "It is no sort of a happy family.
But the Young Turks know that without the German
boost they'll be strung up hke Haman, and the Ger-
mans can't afiord to neglect any ally. Consider what
would happen if Turkey got sick of the game and made
a separate peace. The road would be open for Russia
to the ^gean. Ferdy of Bulgaria would take his de-
preciated goods to the other market, and not waste a

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

day thinking about it. You'd have Rumania coming
in on the Allies' side. Things would look pretty black
for that control of the Near East on which Germany
has banked her winnings. Kaiser says that's got to be
prevented at all costs, but how is it going to be done ?"

Blenkiron's face had become very solemn again. "It
won't be done unless Germany's got a trump card to
play. Her game's mighty near bust, but it's still got a
chance. And that chance is a woman and an old man.
I reckon our landlady has a bigger brain than Enver
and Liman. She's the real boss of the show. When
I came here I reported to her, and presently you've
got to do the same. I am curious as to how she'll
strike you, for I'm free to admit that she impressed me
considerable."

"It looks as if our job was a long way from the
end," I said.

"It's scarcely begun," said Blenldron.

That talk did a lot to cheer my spirits, for I realised
that it was the biggest of big game we were hunting
this time. I'm an economical soul, and if I'm going to
be hanged I want a good stake for my neck.

Then began some varied experiences. I used to
wake up in the morning, wondering where I should
be at night, and yet quite pleased at the uncertainty.
Greenmantle became a sort of myth with me. Some-
how I couldn't fix any idea in my head of what he was
like. The nearest I got was a picture of an old man
in a turban coming out of a bottle in a cloud of smoke,
which I remembered from a child's edition of the
Arabian Nights. But if he was dim, the lady was
dimmer. Sometimes I thought of her as a fat old
German crone, sometiipes as a harsh-featured woman

20I

GREENMANTLE

like a schoolmistress with thin lips and eyeglasses.
But I had to fit the Past into the picture, so I made
her young and gave her a touch of the languid houri
in a veil. I was always wanting to pump Blenkiron on
the subject, but he shut up like a rat-trap. He was
looking for bad trouble in that direction, and was dis-
inclined to speak about it beforehand.

We led a peaceful existence. Our servants were
two of Sandy's lot, for Blenkiron had very rightly
cleared out the Turkish caretakers, and they worked
like beavers under Peter's eye, till I reflected I had
never been so well looked after in my life. I walked
about the city with Blenkiron, keeping my eyes open,
and speaking very civil. The third night we were
bidden to dinner at MocUendorff's, bo we put on our
best clothes and set out in an ancient cab. Blenkiron
had fetched a dress suit of mine, from which my own
tailor's label had been cut and a New York one
substituted.

General Liman and Mettemich the Ambassador
had gone up the line to Nish to meet the Kaiser, who
was touring in those parts^ so Moellendorff was the
biggest German in the city. He was a thin, foxy-
faced fellow, cleverish but monstrously vain, and he
was not very popular either with the Germans or the
Turks. He was very polite to both of us,, but I am
bound to say that I got a bad fright when I entered
the room, for the first man I saw was Gaudian.

I doubt if he would have recognised me even in
the clothes I had worn in Stumm's company, for his
eyesight was wretched. As it was, I ran no risk in
dress-clothes, with my hair brushed back and a fine
American accent. I paid him high compliments as a
fellow engineer, and translated part of a highly tech-
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I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

nical conversation between him and Blenkiron.
Gaudian was in uniform, and I liked the look of his
honest face better than ever.

But the great event was the sight of Enver. He
was a slim fellow of Rasta^s build, very foppish and
precise in his dress, with a smooth oval face like a
girl's, and rather fine straight black eyebrows. He
spoke perfect German, and had the best kind of man-
ners, neither pert nor overbearing. He had a pleasant
trick, too, of appealing all round the table for con-
firmation, and so bringing everybody into the talk.
Not that he spoke a great deal, but all he said was
good sense, and he had a smiling way of saying it.
Once or twice he ran counter to Moellendorff, and I
could see there was no love lost between these two,
I didn't think I wanted him as a friend — he was too
cold-blooded and artificial; and I was pretty certain
that I didn't want those steady black eyes as an enemy.
But it was no good denying his quality. The little
fellow was all cold courage, like the fine polished blue
steel of a sword.

I fancy I was rather a success at that dinner. For
one thing I could speak German, and so had a pull on
Blenkiron. For another I was in a good temper, and
really enjoyed putting my back into my part. They
talked very high-flown stuff about what they had done
and were going to do, and Enver was great on Gal-
lipoli. I remember he said that he could have de-
stroyed the whole British Army if it hadn't been for
somebody's cold feet — ^at which Moellendorff looked
daggers. They were so bitter about Britain and all
her works that I gathered they were getting pretty
panicky, and that made me as jolly as a sandboy. I'm
afraid I was not free from bitterness myself on that

203

GREENMANTLE

subject. I said things about my own country that I
sometimes wake in the night and sweat to think of.

Gaudian got on the use of water power in war, and
that gave me a chance.

"In my country," I said, "when we want to get rid
of a mountain we wash it away. There's nothing on
earth that will stand against water. Now, speaking
with all respect, gentlemen, and as an absolute novice
in the military art, I sometimes ask why this God-
given weapon isn't more used in the present war. I
haven't been to any of the fronts, but I've studied them
some from maps and the newspapers. Take your
German position in Flanders, where you've got the
high ground. If I were a British general I reckon I
would very soon make it no sort of position."

Moellendorff asked, "How?"

"Why, I'd wash it away. Wash away the four*
teen feet of soil down to the stone. There's a heap
of coalpits behind the British front where they could
generate power, and I judge there's an ample water
supply from rivers and canals. I'd guarantee to wash
you away in twenty-four hours — ^yes, in spite of all
your big guns. It beats me why the British haven't
got on to this notion. They used to have some bright
engineers."

Enver was on the point like a knife, far quicker
than Gaudian. He cross-examined me in a way that
showed he knew how to approach a technical subject,
though he mightn't have much technical knowledge.
He was just giving me a sketch of the flooding in
Mesopotamia when an aide-de-camp brought in a chit
which fetched him to his feet.

"I have gossiped long enough," he said. "My kind

204

I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

host, I must leave you. Gentlemen all, my apologies
and farewells."

Before he left he asked my name and wrote it down.
"This is an unhealthy city for strangers, Mr. Hanau,"
he said in very good English. ''I have some small
power of protecting a friend, and what I have is at
your disposal." This with the condescension of a king
promising his favour to a subject.

The little fellow amused me tremendously, and
rather impressed me too. I said so to Gaudian after
he had left, but that decent soul didn't agree.

"I do not love him," he said. "We are Allies — yes;
but friends — ^no. He is no true son of Islam, which
is a noble faith and which despise^ liars and boasters
and betrayers of their salt."

That was the verdict of one honest man on this
ruler in Israel. The next night I got another from
Blenkiron on a greater than Enver.

He had. been out alone and had come back pretty
late, with his face grey and drawn with pain. The
food we ate — ^not at all bad of its kind — and die cold
east wind played havoc with his dyspepsia. I can
see him yet, boiling milk on a spirit-lamp, while Peter
worked at a Primus stove to get him a hot-water bottle.
He was using horrid language about his inside.

"My God, Major, if I were you with a sound stom-
ach I'd fairly conquer the world. As it is, I've got to
do my work with half my mind, while the other half is
dwelling in my intestines. I'm like the child in the
Bible that had a fox gnawing at its vitals."

He got his milk boiling and began to sip it.

"I've been to see our pretty landlady," he said.
"She sent for me and I hobbled oflF with a grip full of
plans, for she's mighty set on Mesopotamy."

205

GREENMANTLE

"Anything about Greenmantle ?" I asked eagerly.

"Why, no, but I have reached one conclusion. I
opine that the hapless prophet has no sort of time with
that lady. I opine that he will soon wish himself in
Paradise. For if Almighty God created a female
devil it's Madame von Einem."

He sipped a little more milk with a grave face.

"That isn't my duo-denal dyspepsia. Major. It's
the verdict of a ripe experience, for I have a cool and
penetrating judgment, even if I've a deranged stomach.
And I give it 3s my con-sidered conclusion that that
woman's mad arid bad — ^but principally bad."

206

CHAPTER XIV

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

SINCE that first night I had never clapped eyes on
Sandy. He had gone clean out of the world, and
Blenkiron and I waited anxiously for a word of news.
Our own business was in good trim, for we were pres-
ently going east towards Mesopotamia, but unless we
learned more about Greenmantle our journey would
be a grotesque failure. And learn about Greenmantle
we could not, for nobody by word or deed suggested
his existence, and it was impossible of course for us to
ask questions. Our only hope was Sandy, for what
we wanted to know was the prophet^s whereabouts and
his plans. I suggested to Blenkiron that we might do
more to cultivate Frau von Einem, but he shut his jaw
like a rat-trap. "There's nothing doing for us in that
quarter," he said. "That's the most dangerous woman
on earth; and if she got any kind of notion that we
were wise about her pet schemes I reckon you and I
would very soon be in the Bosporus."

This was all very well ; but what was going to hap-
pen if the two of us were bundled off to Bagdad with
instructions to wash away the British? Our time was
getting pretty short, and I doubted if we could spin
out more than three days more in Constantinople. I
felt just as I had felt with Stumm that last night when
I was about to be packed off to Cairo and saw no way

207

GREENMANTLE

of avoiding it. Even Blenkiron was getting anxious.
He played Patience incessantly, and was disinclined
to talk. I tried to find out something from the serv-
ants, but they either knew nothing or wouldn't speak —
the former, I think. I kept my eyes lifting, too, as I
walked about the streets, but there was no sign any-
where of the skin coats or the weird stringed instru-
ments. The whole company of the Rosy Hours
seemed to have melted into the air, and I began to
wonder if they had ever existed.

Anxiety made me restless, and restlessness made me
want exercise. It was no good walking about the city.
The weather had become foul again, and I was sick
of the smells and the squalor and the flea-bitten crowds.
So Blenkiron and I got horses, Turkish cavalry mounts
with heads like trees, and went out through the sub-
urbs into the open country.

It was a grey drizzling afternoon, with the begin-
nings of a sea fog which hid the Asiatic shores of the
straits. It wasn't easy to find open ground for a
gallop, for there were endless small patches of culti-
vation, and the gardens of country houses. We kept
on the high land above the sea, and when we reached
a bit of downland came on squads of Turkish soldiers
digging trenches. Whenever we let the horses go we
had to pull up sharp for a digging party or a stretch
of barbed wire. Coils of the beastly wire were lying
loose everywhere, and Blenkiron nearly took a nasty
toss over one. Then we were always being stopped
by sentries and having to show our passes. Still the
ride did us good and shook up our livers, and by the
time we turned for home I was feeling more like a
white man.

We jogged back in the short winter twilight, past

208

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

the wooded grounds of white villas, held up every
few minutes by transport-waggons and companies of
soldiers. The rain had come on in real earnest, and
it was two very bedraggled horsemen that crawled
along the muddy lanes. As we passed one villa, shut
in by a high white wall, a pleasant smell of wood
smoke was wafted towards us, which made me sick
for the burning veld. My ear, too, caught the twang-
ing of a zither, which somehow reminded me of the
afternoon in Kuprasso's garden-house.

I pulled up and proposed to investigate, but Blen-
kiron very testily declined.

''Zithers are as common here as fleas,'' he said.
"You don't want to be fossicking around somebody's
stables and find a horse-boy entertaining his friends.
They don't like visitors in this country; and you'll
be asking for trouble if you go inside those walls. I
guess it's some old Buzzard's harem." Buzzard was
his own private peculiar name for the Turk, for he
said he had had as a boy a natural history book with
a picture of a bird called the turkey-buzzard, and
couldn't get out of the habit of applying it to the Otto-
man people.

I wasn't convinced, so I tried to mark down the
place. It seemed to be about three miles out from
the city, at the end of a steep lane on the inland
side of the hill coming from the Bosporus. I fancied
somebody of distinction lived there, for a little farther
on we met a big empty motor-car snorting its way up,
and I had a notion that car belonged to the walled
villa.

Next day Blenkiron was in grievous trouble with
his dyspepsia. About midday he was compelled to
lie down, and having nothing better tp do I bad out

209

GREENMANTLE

the horses again and took Peter with me. It was
funny to see Peter in a Turkish army-saddle, riding
with the long Boer stirrup and the slouch of the back-
veld.

That afternoon was unfortunate from the start.
It was not the mist and drizzle of the day before,
but a stiff northern gale which blew sheets of rain
in our faces and numbed our bridle hands. We took
the same road, but pushed west of the trench-digging
parties and got to a shallow valley with a white vil-
lage among cypresses. Beyond that there was a very
respectable road which brought us to the top of a
crest which in clear weather must have given a fine
prospect. Then we turned our horses, and I shaped
our course so as to strike the top of the long lane
that abutted on the down. I wanted to investigate
the white villa.

But we hadn't gone far on our road back before
we got into trouble. It arose out of a sheep-dog, a
yellow mongrel brute that came at us like a thunder-
bolt. It took a special fancy to Peter, and bit sav-
agely at his horse's heels and sent it capering oS the
road. I should have warned him, but I did not realise
what was happening till too late. For Peter, being
a<:customed to mongrels in Kaffir kraals, took a sum-
mary way with the pest. Since it despised his whip,
he out with his pistol and put a bullet through its
head.

The echoes of the shot had scarcely died away when
the row began. A big fellow appeared running to-
wards us, shouting wildly. I guessed it was the dog's
owner, and proposed to pay no attention. But his
cries summoned two other fellows — soldiers by the
look of them — ^who closed in on us» unslinging their

2IO

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

rifles as they ran. My first idea was to show them our
heels, but I had no desire to be shot in the back, and
they looked like men who wouldn't stop short of shoot-
ing. So we slowed down and faced them.

They made as savage-looking a trio as you would
want to avoid. The shepherd looked as if he had
been dug up, a dirty ruffian with matted hair and a
beard like a bird's nest. The two soldiers stood star-
ing with sullen faces, fingering their guns, while the
other chap raved and stormed and kept pointing at
Peter, whose mild eyes stared unwinkingly at his
assailant.

The mischief was that neither of us had a word
of Turkish. I tried German, but it had no effect.
We sat looking at them, and they stood storming at
us, and it was fast getting dark. Once I turned my
horse round as if to proceed, and the two soldiers
jumped in front of me.

They jabbered among themselves, and then one said
very slowly: "He . . . want . . . pounds," and he
held up five fingers. They evidently saw by the cut
of our jib that we weren't Germans.

"I'll be hanged if he gets a penny," I said angrily,
and the conversation languished.

The situation was getting serious, so I spoke a word
to Peter. The soldiers had their rifles loose in their
hands, and before they could lift them we had the pair
covered with our pistols.

"If you move," I said, "you are dead." They
understood that all right and stoo^ stock still, while
the shepherd stopped his raving and took to mutter-
ing like a gramaphone when the record is finished.

"Drop your guns," I said sharply. "Quick, or we
shoot."

211

GREENMANTLE

The tone, if not the words, conveyed my meaning.
Still staring at us, they let the rifles slide to the ground.
The next second we had forced our horses on the
top of them, and the three were oflF like rabbits. I
sent a shot over their heads to encourage them. Peter
dismounted and tossed the guns into a bit of scrub
where they would take some finding.

This hold-up had taken time. By now it was get-
ting very dark, and we hadn't ridden a mile before
it was black night. It was an annoying predicament,
for I had completely lost my bearings and at the best
I had only a foggy notion of the lie of the land. The
best plan seemed to be to try and get to the top of
a rise in the hope of seeing the lights of the city, but
all the countryside was so pockety that it was hard
to strike the right kind of rise.

We had to trust to Peter's instinct. I asked him
where our line lay, and he sat very still for a minute
sniffing the air. Then he pointed the direction. It
wasn't what I would have taken myself, but on a point
like that he was pretty near infallible.

Presently we came to a long slope which cheered
me. But at the top there was no light visible any-
where — only a black void like the inside of a shell.
As I stared into the gloom it seemed to' me that
there were patches of deeper darkness that might be
woods.

"There is a house half-left in front of us," said
Peter.

I peered till my eyes ached and saw nothing.

"Well, for Heaven's sake, guide me to it," I said,
and with Peter in front we set off down the hill.

It was a wild journey, for darkness clung as close
to us as a vest. Twice we stepped into patches of

212

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

bog, and once my horse saved himself by a hair from
going head forward into a gravel pit. We got
tangled up in strands of wire, and often found our-
selves rubbing our noses against tree trunks. Several
times I had to get down and make a gap in barricades
of loose stones. But after a ridiculous amount of
slipping and stumbling we finally struck what seemed
the level of a road, and a piece of special darkness
in front which turned out to be a high wall.

I argued that all mortal walls had doors, so we set
to groping along it, and presently struck a gap. There
was an old iron gate, on broken hinges, which we
easily pushed open, and found ourselves on a back
path to some house. It was clearly disused, for masses
of rotting leaves covered it, and by the feel of it
underfoot it was grass-grown.

We were dismounted now, leading our horses, and
after about fifty yards the path ceased and came out
on a well-made carriage drive. So, at least, we
guessed, for the place was as black as pitch. Evi-
dently the house couldn't be far off, but in which
direction I hadn't a notion.

Now I didn't want to be paying calls on any Turk
at that time of day. Our job was to find where the
road opened into the lane, for after that our way to
Constantinople was clear. One side the lane lay, and
the other the house, and it didn't seem wise to take
the risk of tramping up with horses to the front door.
So I told Peter to wait for me at the end of the back-
road, while I would prospect a bit. I turned to the
right, my intention being if I saw the light of a house
to return, and with Peter take the other direction.

I walked like a blind man in that nether-pit of dark-
ness. The road seemed well kept, and the soft wet

213

GREENMANTLE

gravel muffled the sounds of my feet. Great trees
overhung it, and several times I wandered into drip-
ping bushes. And then I stopped short in my tracks,
for I heard the sound of whistling.

It was quite close, about ten yards away. And the
strange thing was that it was a tunc I knew, about
the last tune you would expect to hear in this part
of the world. It was the Scotch air: "Ca' the yowes
to the knowes," which was a favourite of my father's.

The whistler must have felt my presence, for the
air suddenly stopped in the middle of a bar. An un-
bounded curiosity seized me to know who the fellow
could be. So I started in and finished it myself.

There was silence for a second, and then the un-
known began again and stopped. Once more I chipped
in and finished it.

Then it seemed to me that he was coming nearer.
The air in that dank tunnel was very still, and I thought
I heard a light foot. I think I took a step backward.
Suddenly there was a flash of an electric torch from
a yard off, so quick that I could see nothing of the
man who held it.

' Then a low voice spoke out of the darkness — a voice
I knew well — and, following it, a hand was laid on
my arm. "What the devil are you doing here, Dick?'*
it said, and there was something like consternation
in the tone.

I told him in a hectic sentence, for I was beginning
to feel badly rattled myself.

"You've never been in greater danger in your life,"
said the voice. "Great God, man, what brought you
wandering here to-day of all days ?"

You can imagine that I was pretty scared, for
Sandy was the last man to put a case too high. And

214

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

the next second I felt worse, for he clutched my arm
and dragged me in a bound to the side of the road.
I could see nothing, but I felt that his head was
screwed round, and mine followed suit. And there,
a dozen yards off, were the acetylene lights of a big
motor-car.

It came along very slowly, purring like a great cat,
while we pressed into the bushes. The head-lights
seemed to spread a fan far to either side, showing
the full width of the drive and its borders, and about
half the height of the over-arching trees. There was
a figure in uniform sitting beside the chauffeur, whom
I saw dimly in the reflex glow, but the body of the
car was dark.

It crept towards us, passed, and my mind was just
getting easy again when it stopped. A switch was
snapped within, and the limousine was brightly lit
up. Inside I saw a woman's figure.

The servant had got out and opened the door and
a voice came from within — a clear soft voice speaking
in some tongue I did not understand. Sandy had
started forward at the sound of it, and I followed
him. It would never do for me to be caught skulking
in the bushes.

I was so dazzled by the suddenness of the glare
that at first I blinked and saw nothing. Then my
eyes cleared and I found myself looking at the inside
of a car upholstered in some soft dove-coloured
fabric, and beautifully finished off in ivory and silver.
The woman who sat in it had a mantilla of black
lace over her head and shoulders, and with one slender
jewelled hand she kept its folds over the greater part
of her face. I saw only a pair of pale grey-blue
eyes — ^these and the slim fingers.

215

GREENMANTLE

I remember that Sandy was standing very upright
with his hands on his hips, by no means like a servant
in the presence of his mistress. He was a fine figure
of a man at all times, but in those wild clothes, with
his head thrown back and his dark brows drawn below
his skull-cap, he looked like some savage king out of
an older world. He was speaking Turkish, and glanc-
ing at me now and then as if angry and perplexed. I
took the hint that he was not supposed to know any
other tongue, and that he was asking who the devil
I might be.

Then they both looked at me, Sandy with the slow
unwinking staje of the gipsy, the lady with those
curious beautiful pale eyes. They ran over my clothes,
my brand-new riding-breeches, my splashed gaiters,
my wide-brimmed hat. I took off the last and made
my best bow.

"Madam," I said, "I have to ask pardon for tres-
passing in your garden. The fact is, I and my serv-
ant — ^he's down the road with the horses and I guess
you noticed him — the two of us went for a ride thi»
afternoon, and got good and well lost. We came in
by your back gate, and I was prospecting for your
front door to find some one to direct us, when I
bumped into this brigand-chief who didn't understand
my talk. Fm American, and I'm here on a big Gov-
ernment proposition. I hate to trouble you, but if
you'd send a man to show us how to strike the city
I'd be very much in your debt."

Her eyes never left my face. "Will you come into
the car?" she said in English. "At the house I will
give you a servant to direct you."

She drew in the skirts of her fur cloak to make roam
for me, and in my muddy boots and sopping clothes

216

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

I took the seat she pointed out. She said a word in
Turkish to Sandy, switched off the light, and the car
moved on.

Women have never come much my way, and I knew
about as much of their ways as I knew about the
Chinese language. All my life I have lived with men
only, and rather a rough crowd at that. When I made
my pile and came home I looked to see a little society,
but I had first the business of the Black Stone on my
hands, and then the war, so my education languished.
I had never been in a motor-car with a lady before,
and I felt like a fish on a dry sandbank. The soft
cushions and the subtle scents filled me with acute un-
easiness. I wasn't thinking now about Sandy's grave
words, or about Blenkiron's warning, or about my job
and the part this woman must play in it, I was think-
ing only that I felt mortally shy. The darkness made
it worse. I was sure that my companion was looking
at me all the time and laughing at me for a clown.

The car stopped and a tall servant opened the door.
The lady was over the threshold before I was at the
step. I followed her heavily, the wet squelching from
my field-boots. At that moment I noticed that she
was very tall.

She led me through a long corridor to a room where
two pillars held lamps in the shape of torches. The
place was dark but for their glow, and it was as warm
as a hothouse from invisible stoves. I felt soft carpets
underfoot, and on the walls hung some tapestry or rug
of an amazingly intricate geometrical pattern, but
with every strand as rich as jewels. There, between
the pillars, she turned and faced me. Her furs were
thrown back, and the black mantilla had slipped down
to her shoulders.

217

GREENMANTLE

"I have heard of you," she said. "You are called
Richard Hanau, the American. Why have you come
to this land?"

"To have a share in the campaign," I said. "Fm
an engineer, and I thought I could help out with some
business like Mesopotamia."

"You are on Germany's Side?" she asked.

"Why, yes," I replied. "We Americans are sup-
posed to be nootrals, and that means we're free to
choose any side we fancy. I'm for the Kaiser."

Her cool eyes searched me, but not in suspicion.
I could see she wasn't troubling with the question
whether I was speaking the truth. She was sizing
me up as a man. I cannot describe that calm apprais-
ing look. There was no sex in it, nothing even of that
implicit sympathy with which one human being ex-
plores the existence of another. I was a chattel, a
thing infinitely removed from intimacy. Even so I
have myself looked at a horse which I thought of buy-
ing, scanning his shoulders and hocks and paces. Even
so must the old lords of Constantinople have looked
at the slaves which the chances of war brought to
their markets, assessing their usefulness for some task
or other with no thought of a humanity common to
purchased and purchaser. And yet — ^not quite. This
woman's eyes were weighing me, not for any special
duty, but for my essential qualities. I felt that I was
under the scrutiny of one who was a connoisseur in
human nature.

I see I have written that I knew nothing about
women. But every man has in his bones a conscious-
ness of sex. I was shy and perturbed, but horribly
fascinated. This slim woman, poised exquisitely like
some statue between the pillared lights, with her fair

218

THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA

cloud of hair, her long delicate face, and her pale
bright eyes, had the glamour of a wild dream. I
hated her instinctively, hated her intensely, but I longed
to arouse her interest. To be valued coldly by those
eyes was an offence to my manhood, and I felt antag-
onism rising within me. I am a strong fellow, well
set up, and rather above the average height, and
my irritation stiffened me from heel to crown. I flung
my head back and gave her cool glance for cool glance,
pride against pride.

Once, I remember, a doctor on board ship who dab-
bled in hypnotism told me that I was the most im-
sympathetic person he had ever struck. He said I
was about as good a mesmeric subject as Table Moun-
tain. Suddenly I began to realise that this woman was
trying to cast some spell over me. The eyes grew
large and luminous, and I was conscious for just an
instant of some will battling to subject mine. I was
aware, too, in the same moment of a strange scent
which recalled that wild hour in Kuprasso's garden-
house. It passed quickly, and for a second her eyes
drooped. I seemed to read in them failure, and yet
a kind of satisfaction too, as if they had found more
in me than they expected.

"What life have you led?" the soft voice was
saying.

I was able to answer quite naturally, rather to my
surprise. "I have been a mining engineer up and
down the world.'*

"You have faced danger many times?"

"I have faced danger."

"You have fought against men in battles?"

"I have fought in battles,"

Her bosom rose and fell in a kind of sigh. A

219

GREENMANTLE

smile — a very beautiful thing — flitted over her face.
She gave me her hand.

"The horses are at the door now," she said, "and
your servant is with them. One of my people will
guide you to the city."

She turned away and passed out of the circle of
light into the darkness beyond. . . .

Peter and I jogged home in the rain with one of
Sandy's skin-clad Companions loping at our sides.
We did not speak a word, for my thoughts were run-
ning like hounds on the track of the past hours. I
had seen the mysterious Hilda von Einem, I had
spoken to her, I had held her hand. She had insulted
me with the subtlest of insults and yet I was not angry.
Suddenly the game I was playing became invested
with a tremendous solemnity. My old antagonists,
Stumm and Rasta and the whole German Empire,
seemed to shrink into the background, leaving only
the slim woman with her inscrutable smile and de-
vouring eyes. "Mad and bad," Blenkiron had called
her, "but principally bad." I did not think they were
the proper terms, for they belonged to the narrow
world of our common experience. This was some-
thing beyond and above it, as a cyclone or an earth-
quake is outside the decent routine of nature. Mad
and bad she might be, but she was also great.

Before we arrived our guide had plucked my knee
and spoken some words which he had obviously got
by heart. "The Master says," ran the message, "ex-
pect him at midnight."

220

CHAPTER XV

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

I WAS soaked to the bone, and while Peter set off
to look for dinner, I went to my room to change.
I had a rub down and then got into pyjamas for some
dumb-bell exercises with two chairs, for that long wet
ride had stiffened my arms and shoulder muscles.
They were a vulgar suit of primitive blue, which
Blenkiron had looted from my London wardrobe.
As Cornelis Brandt I had sported a flannel night-
gown.

My bedroom opened off the sitting-room, and while
I was busy with my gymnastics I heard the door
open. I thought at first it was Blenkiron, but the
briskness of the tread was unlike his measured gait.
I had left the light burning there, and the visitor,
whoever he was, had made himself at home. I slipped
on a green dressing-gown Blenkiron had lent me, and
sallied forth to investigate.

My friend Rasta was standing by the table, on
which he had laid an envelope. He looked round at
my entrance and saluted.

**I come from the Minister of War, sir," he said,
"and bring your passports for to-morrow. You will
travel by . . ." And then his voice tailed away and
his black eyes narrowed to slits. He had seen some-
thing which switched him off the metals.

221

GREENMANTLE

At that moment I saw it too. There was a mirror
on the wall behind him, and as I faced him I could
not help seeing my reflection. It was the exact
image of the engineer on the Danube boat — blue jeans,
loden cloak, and all. The accursed mischance of my
costume had ]^ven him the clue to an identity which
was otherwise buried deep in the Bosporus.

I am bound to say for Rasta that he was a man of
quick action. In a trice he had whipped round to
the other side of the table between me and the door,
where he stood regarding me wickedly.

By this time I was at the table and stretched out
a hand for the envelope. My one hope was non-
chalance.

"Sit down, sir," I said, "and have a drink. It's a
filthy night to move about in."

"Thank you, no, Herr Brandt," he said. "You
may burn those passports, for they will not be used."

"Whatever's the matter with you?" I cried.
"You've mistaken the house, my lad. I'm called
Hanau — Richard Hanau — and my partner's Mr. John
S. Blenkiron. He'll be here presently. Never knew
any one of the name of Brandt, barring a tobacconist
in Denver City."

"You have never been to Rustchuk?" he said with
a sneer.

"Not that I know of. But, pardon me, sir, if I
ask your name and your business here. I'm darned
if I'm accustomed to be called by Dutch names or
have my word doubted. In my country we consider
that impolite as between gentlemen."

I could see that my bluff was having its effect. His
stare began to waver, and when he next spoke it was
in a more civil tone.

222

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

"I will ask pardon if I'm mistaken, sir, but youVe
the image of a man who a week ago was at Rust-
chuk, a man much wanted by the Imperial Govern-
ment."

"A week ago I was tossing in a dirty little hooker
coming from Constanza. Unless Rustchuk's in the
middle of the Black Sea I've never visited the town-
ship. I guess you're barking up the wrong tree. Cdme
to think of it, I was expecting passports. Say, do you
come from Enver Damad?"

"I have that honour," he said.

"Well, Enver is a very good friend of mine. He's
the brightest citizen I've struck this side of the
Atlantic."

The man was calming down, and in another minute
his suspicions would have gone. But at that moment,
by the crookedest \ufld of luck, Peter entered with
a tray of dishes. He did not notice Rasta, and walked
straight to the table and plumped down his burden
on it. The Turk had stepped aside at his entrance, and
I saw by the look in his eyes that his suspicions had
become a certainty. For Peter, stripped to shirt and
breeches, was the identical shabby little companion of
the Rustchuk meeting.

I had never doubted Rasta's pluck. He jumped
for the door and had a pistol out in a trice pointing
at my head.

^^Bonne fortune^^^ he cried. "Both the birds at one
shot." His hand was on the latch, and his mouth
was open- to cry. I guessed there was an orderly
waiting on the stairs.

He had what you call the strategic advantage, for
he was at the door while I was at the other end of
the table and Peter at the side of it at least two yards

223

GREENMANTLE

from him. The road was clear before him, and
neither of us was armed. I made a despairing step
forward, not knowing what I meant to do, for I saw
no light. But Peter was before me.

He had never let go of the tray, and now, as a
bpy skims a stone on a pond, he skimmed it with its
contents at Rasta's head. The man was opening the
door with one hand while he kept me covered with
the other, and he got the contrivance fairly in the
face. A pistol shot cracked out, and the bullet went
through the tray, but the noise was drowned in the
crash of glasses and crockery. The next second Peter
had wrenched the pistol from Rasta's hand and had
gripped his throat.

A dandified young Turk, brought up in Paris and
finished in Berlin, may be as brave as a lion, but he
cannot stand in a rough-and-tumble against a backveld
hunter, though more than double his age. There was
no need for me to help. Peter had his own way,
learned in a wild school, of knocking the sense out of
a foe. He gagged him scientifically, and trussed him
up with his own belt and two straps from a trunk in
my bedroom.

''This man is too dangerous to let go,'' he said, as
if his procedure were the most ordinary thing in the
world. "He will be quiet now till we have time to
make a plan.''

At that moment there came a knocking at the door.
That is the sort of thing that happens in melodrama,
just when the villain has finished off his job neatly.
The correct thing to do is to pale to the teeth, and
with a rolling, conscience-stricken eye glare round the
horizon. But that was not Peter's way.

224

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

"We'd better tidy up if we're to have visitors," he
said calmly.

Now there was one of those big oak German cup-
boards against the wall which must have been brought
in in sections, for complete it would never have got
through the door. It was empty now, but for Blen-
kiron's hat-box. In it he deposited the unconscious
Rasta, and turned the key. "There's enough ventila-
tion through the top," he observed, "to keep the air
good." Then he opened the door.

A magnificent kavass in blue and silver stood but^
side. He saluted and proffered a card on which was
written in pencil, "Hilda von Einem."

I would have begged for time to change my clothes,
but the lady was behind him. I saw the black mantilla
and the rich sable furs. Peter vanished through my
bedroom and I was left to receive my guest in a room
littered with broken glass and a senseless man in the
cupboard.

There are some situations so crazily extravagant
that they key up the spirit to meet them. I was al-
most laughing when that stately lady stepped over
my threshold.

"Madam," I said^, with a bow that shamed my old
dressing-gown and strident pyjamas. "You find mc
at a disadvantage. I came home soaking from my
ride, and was in the act of changing. My servant
has just upset a tray of crockery, and I fear this room's
no fit place for a lady. Allow me three minutes to
make myself presentable."

She inclined her head gravely and took a scat by
the fire. I went into my bedroom, and as I expected
found Peter lurking by the other door. In a hectic
sentence I bade him get Rasta's orderly out of the

225

GREENMANTLE

place on any pretext, and tell him his master would
return later. Then I hurried into decent garments
and came out to find my visitor in a brown study.

At the sound of my entrance she started from her
dream and stood up on the hearthrug, slipping the
long robe of fur from her slim body.

"We are alone?" she said. "We will not be dis-
turbed?"

Then an inspiration came to me. I remembered
that Frau von Einem, according to Blenkiron, did not
see eye to eye with the Young Turks; and I had a
queer instinct that Rasta could not be to her liking.
So I spoke the truth.

"I must tell you that there's another guest here to-
night. I reckon he's feeling pretty uncomfortable.
At present he's trussed up on a shelf in that cup-
board."

She did not trouble to look round.

"Is he dead?" she asked calmly.

"By no means," I said, "but he's fixed so he can't
speak, and I guess he can't hear much."

"He was the man who brought you this?" she asked,
pointing to the envelope on the table which bore the
big blue stamp of the Minister of War.

"The same," I said. "I'm not perfectly sure of
his name, but I think they call him Rasta."

Not a flicker of a smile crossed her face, but I had
a feeling that the news pleased her.

"Did he thwart you?" she asked.

"Why, yes. He thwarted me some. His head is
a bit swelled, and an hour or two on the shelf will do
him good."

"He is a powerful man," she said, "a jackal of
Enver's. You have made a dangerous enemy."

226

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

"I don't value him at two cents," said I, though I
thought grimly that as far as I could see the value
of him was likely to be about the price of nly neck.

"Perhaps you are right," she said with abstracted
eyes. "In these days no enemy is dangerous to a bold
man. I have come to-night, Mr. Hanau, to talk busi-
ness with you, as they say in your country. I have
heard well of you, and to-day I have seen you. I
may have need of you, and you assuredly will have
need of me. ..."

She broke off, and again her strange potent eyes
fell on my face. They were like a burning search-
light which showed up every cranny and crack of the
soul. I felt it was going to be horribly difficult to
act a part under that compelling gaze. She could not
mesmerise me, but she could strip me of my fancy
dress and set me naked in the masquerade.

"What came you forth to seek?" she asked. "You
are not like the stout American Blenkiron, a lover of
shoddy power and a devotee of a feeble science.
There is something more than that in your face. You
are on our side, but you are not of the Germans with
their hankerings for a rococo Empire. You come
from America, the land of pious follies, where man
worships gold and words. I "ask, what came you forth
to seek?"

As she spoke I seemed to get a vision of a figure,^
like one of the old gods looking down on human nature
from a great height, a Hgure disdainful and passion-
less, but with its own magnificence. It kindled my
imagination, and I answered with the words I had
often cogitated when I had tried to explain to myself
just how a case could be made out against the Allied
cause.

227

.« «.

jREENMANTLE

place

retur
and
A
drer
Ion;:

tur'

:h:

- % The world, as I see It, has . a^-
• ;3Ud. Men have ^or^'''^^,^ ^at tVve
,-^?^. and they have f jf ^^t^s of the
:«a. smug civilisation were tne ^^xX

\ : ftie that is not the teaching ots,, the
J> teaching of life. We H^ J^^mascuUted
\:\imcs, and we were becoming em ^ T:Vven
•;i,«*ose gods were our own "^^^^^^^ in spite
• :S. and the air was cleared. Germany^ ^^ ^^
V jAmdcrs and her grossness, stooa ^v^^ougn
^ of «int. She - had the courage to ^^^gV^es of
^-S* of humbug and to laugh at the p^t

.. i^ Therefore I am on G^^^^^^ nothmg oi
,^ here for another reason. 1 ^°^ ^Vie desert
^,£,a, but as I read history it^^"° mankind »'
^, the purification comes. ^^^^ tinted idols
^e«d with shams and phrases a^^* ^ simpl\5^
i *iod blows out of the wilds to cleanse a j^^iii-

,^. The world needs space and fresh ait- , ^ ^lind
^tion we have boasted of is a toy-shop »
j/cy, and I hanker for open country. . a. Her

This confounded nonsense was well recei ^^^
ale eyes had the cold light of the ,*»"*;{ of her
;r bright hair and the long exquisite J>^, ^ j^orse
ce she looked like some destroying ^^^ xu, {eared
gend. A.t that moment I tUinlc 1 first rea J ^^^
=r ; before I had half hated and half adrnw^ ' ^^^ i
«aven, in her absorption sUe did not oo^.^
*-Yt^***'^gotten the speech of Cleveland,^,, J^^ said.
I ou are of the HouseKoia. of FaitJ. ^^ pj-,th
* On will presently learn mar^y things* W''

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

marches to victory. Meantime I have one word for
you. You and your companion travel eastward."

"We go to Mesopotamia," I said. "I reckon these
are our passports," and I pointed to the envelope.

She picked it up, opened it, and then tore it in
pieces and tossed it in the fire.

"The orders are countermanded," she said. "I
have need of you and you go with me. Not to the flats
of the Tigris, but to the great hills. To-morrow you
shall receive new passports."

She gave me her hand and turned to go. At the
threshold she paused, and looked towards the oak
cupboard. "To-morrow I will relieve you of your
prisoner. He will be safer in my hands."

She left me in a condition of pretty blank bewilder-
ment. We were to be tied to the chariot-wheels of
this fury, and started on an enterprise compared to
which fighting against our friends at Kut seemed tame
and reasonable. On the other hand, I had been spotted
by Rasta, and had got the envoy of the most powerful
man in Constantinople locked in a cupboard. At all
costs we had to keep Rasta safe, but I was very de-
termined that he should not be handed over to the
lady. I was going to be no party to cold-blooded mur-
der, which I judged to be her expedient. It was a
pretty ketde of fish, but in the meantime I must have
food, for I had eaten nothing for nine hours. So I
went in search of Peter.

I had scarcely begun my long deferred meal when
Sandy entered. He was before his time, and he looked
as solemn as a sick owl. I seized on him as a drown-
ing man clutches a spar.

He heard my story of Rasta with a lengthening
face.

229

GREENMANTLE

"That's bad," he said. "You say he spotted you,
and your subsequent doings of course would not disil-
lusion him. It's an infernal nuisance, but there's only
one way out of it. I must put him in charge of my own
people. They will keep him safe and sound till he's
wanted. Only he mustn't see me." And he went out
in a hurry.

I fetched Rasta out of his prison. He had come
to his senses by this time, and lay regarding me with
stony, malevolent eyes.

"I'm very sorry, sir," I said, "for what has hap-
pened. But you left me no alternative. I've got a
big job on hand and I can't have it interfered with
by you or any one. You're paying the price of a sus-
picious nature. When you know a little more you'll
want to apologise to me. I'm going to see that you
are kept quiet and comfortable for a day or two.
You've no cause to worry, for you'll suffer no harm.
I ^ve you my word of honour as an American citizen."

Two of Sandy's miscreants came in and bore him
off, and presently Sandy himself returned. When I
asked where he was being taken, Sandy said he didn't
know. "They've got their orders, and they'll carry
them out to the letter. There's a big unknown area
in Constantinople to hide a man, into which the
Khafiyeh never enter."

Then he flung himself in a chair and lit his old pipe.

"Dick," he said, "this job is getting very difficult
and very dark. But my knowledge has grown in the
last few days. I've found out the meaning of the
second word that Harry BuUivant scribbled."

''Cancerf" I asked.

"Yes. It means just what it reads and no more.
Greenmantle is dying — has been dying for months.

230

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

This afternoon they brought a German doctor to see
him, and the man gave him a few hours of life. By
now he may be dead."

The news was a staggerer. For a moment I thought
it cleared up things. "Then that busts the show,"
I said. "You can't have a crusade without a prophet."

"I wish I thought it did. It's the end of one stage,
but the start of a new and blacker one. Do you think
that woman will be beaten by such a small thing as
the death of her prophet? She'll find a substitute- —
one of the four Ministers, or some one else. She's
a devil incarnate, but she has the soul of a Napoleon.
The big danger is only beginning."

Then he told me the story of his recent doings.
He had found out the house of Frau von Einem with-
out much trouble, and had performed with his raga-
muffins in the servants' quarters. The prophet had a
large retinue, and the fame of the minstrels — for the
Companions were known far and wide in the land of
Islam — came speedily to the ears of the Holy Ones.
Sandy, a leader in this most orthodox coterie, was
taken into favour and brought to the notice of the four
Ministers. He and his half-dozen retainers became
inmates of the villa, and Sandy, from his knowledge
of Islamic lore and his ostentatious piety, was ad-
mitted to the confidence of the household. Frau von'
Einem welcomed him as an ally, for the Companions
had been the most devoted propagandists of the new
revelation.

As he described it, it was a strange business. Green-
mantle was dying and often in great pain, but he strug-
gled to meet the demands of his proteAress. The
four Ministers, as Sandy saw them, were unworldly
ascetics; the prophet himself was a saint, though a

. 231

GREENMANTLE

practical saint with some notions of policy ; but the con-
trolling brain and will were those of the lady. Sandy
seemed to have won his favour, even his affection. He
spoke of him with a kind of desperate pity»

"I never saw such a man. He is the greatest gentle-
man you can picture, with a dignity like a high moun-
tain. He is a dreamer and a poet, too — a genius if I
can judge these things. I think I can assess him
rightly, for I know something of the soul of the East,
but it would be too long a story to tell now. The
West knows nothing of the true Oriental. It pictures
him as lapped in colour and idleness and luxury and
gorgeous dreams. But it is all wrong. The Kaf he
yearns for is an austere thing. It is the austerity of
the East that is its beauty and its terror. ... It al-
ways wants the same things at the back of its head.
The Turk and the Arab came out of big spaces, and
they have the desire of them in their bones. They
settle down and stagnate, and by and by they degener-
ate into that appalling subtlety which is their ruling
passion gone crooked. And then comes a new revela-
tion and a great simplifying. They want to live face
to face with God without a screen of ritual and images
and priestcraft. They want to prune life of its foolish
fringes and get back to the noble bareness of the desert.
Remember, it is always the empty desert and the empty
sky that cast their spell over them — ^these, and the
hot, strong, antiseptic sunlight which burns up all rot
and decay. ... It isn't inhuman. It's the humanity
of one part of the human race. It isn't ours, it isn't
as good as ours, but it's damned good all the same.
There are times when it grips me so hard that I'm
inclined to forswear the go^s of my fathers I

"Well, Greenmantle is the prophet of this great

23^

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

simplicity. He speaks straight to the heart of Islam,
and it's an honourable message. But for our sins It's
. been twisted into part of this damned German propa-
gaada. His unworldliness has been used for a cun-
ning political move, and his creed of space and sim-
plicity for the furtherance of the last word in human
degeneracy- My God, Dick, it's like seeing St. Francis
run by Messalina."

"The woman has been here to-night," I said. "She
asked me what I stood for, and I invented some in-
fernal nonsense which she approved of. But I can
see one thing. She and her prophet may run for
different stakes, but it's the same course."

Sandy started. "She has been here I" he cried.
"Tell me, Dick, what did you think of her?"

"I thought she was about two parts mad, but the
third part was uncommon like inspiration."

"That's about right," he said. "I was wrong in
comparing her to Messalina. She's something a jolly
sight more complicated. She runs the prophet just be-
cause she shares his belief. Only what in him is sane
and fine, in her is mad and horrible. You see, Ger-
many also wants to simplify life.'*

"I know," I said. "I told her that an hour ago,
when I talked more rot to the second than any mortal
man ever achieved. It will come between me and my
sleep for the rest of my days."

"Germany's simplicity is that of the neurotic not,
the primitive. It is megalomania and egotism and the
pride of the man in the Bible that waxed fat and kicked.
But the results are the same. She wants to destroy
and simplify; but it isn't the simplicity of the ascetic,
which is of the spirit, but the simplicity of the madman
which grinds down all the contrivances of civilisation to

233

GREENMANTLE

a featureless monotony. The prophet wants to save
the souls of his people; Germany wants to rule the
inanimate corpse of the world. But you can get the
same language to cover both. And so you have the
partnership of St. Francis and Messalina. Dick, did
you ever hear of a thing called the Superman?"

"There was a time when the papers were full of
nothing else," I answered. "I gather it was invented
by a sportsman called Nietzsche."

**Maybe," said Sandy. "Old Nietzsche has been
blamed for a great deal of rubbish he would have died
rather than acknowledge. But it's a craze of the new,
fatted Germany. It's a fancy type which could never
really exist, any more than the Economic Man of the
politicians. Mankind has a sense of humour which
stops short of the final absurdity. There never has
been and there never could be a real Superman, but
there might be a Super-woman."

"You'll get into trouble, my lad, if you talk like
that," I said.

"It's true all the same. Women have got a perilous
logic which we never have, and some of the best of
them don't see the joke of life like the ordinary man.
They can be far greater than men, for they can go
straight to the heart of things. There never was a
man so near the divine as Joan of Arc. But I think
too they can be more entirely damnable than anything
that was ever breeched, for they don't stop still now
and then and laugh at themselves. . • . There is no
Superman. The poor old donkeys that fancy them-
selves in the part are either crack-brained professors
who couldn't rule a Sunday-school class, or bristling
soldiers with pint-pot heads who imagine that the
shooting of a Due d'Enghien made a Napoleon. But

234

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

there is a Super-woman, and her name's Hilda von
Einem."

"I thought our job was nearly over," I groaned,
"and now it looks as if it hadn't well started. BuUi-
vant said that all we had to do was to find out the
truth."

"BuUivant didn't know. No man knows except you
and me. I tell you, the woman has immense power,
The Germans have trusted her with their trump card,
and she's going to play it for all she is worth. There's
no crime that will stand in her way. She has set the
ball rolling, and if need be she'll cut all her prophets'
throats and run the show herself. ... I don't know
about your job, for honestly I can't quite see what you
and Blenkiron are going to do. But I'm very dear
about my own duty. She's let me into the business, and
Tm going to stick to it in the hope that I'll find a chance
of wrecking it. . . . We're moving eastward to-mor-
row — ^with a new prophet if the old one is dead."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I don't know. But I gather it's a long journey,
judging by the preparations. And it must be to a cold
country, judging by the clothes provided."

"Well, wherever it is, we're going with you. You
haven't heard our end of the yam. Blenkiron and I
have been moving in the best circles as skilled Amer-
ican engineers who are going to play Old Harry with
the British on the Tigris. I'm a pal of Enver's now,
and he has offered me his protection. The lamented
Rasta brought our passports for the journey to Meso-
potamia to-morrow, but an hour ago your lady tore
them up and put them in the fire. We are going with
her, and she vouchsafed the information that it was
towards the great hills."

^35

GREENMANTLE

Sandy whistled long and low. "I wonder what the
deuce she wants with you? This thing is getting
damned complicated, Dick. . . . Where, more by
token, is BlenJciron? He's the fellow to know about
high politics.''

The missing Blenkiron, as Sandy spoke, entered the
room with his slow, quiet step. I could see by his
carriage that for once he had no dyspepsia, and by his
eyes that he was excited.

"Say, boys," he said, "I've got something pretty
considerable in the way of noos. There's been big
fighting on the Eastern border, and the Buzzards have
taken a bad knock."

His hands were full of papers, from which he se-
lected a map and spread it on the table.

"They keep mum about these things in this capital,
but I've been piecing the story together these last
days and I think I've got it straight. A fortnight ago
old man Nicholas descended from his mountains and
scuppered his enemies there — at Kuprikeui, where the
main road eastwards crosses the Araxes. That is only
the beginning of the stunt, for he pressed on on a
broad front, and the gentleman called Kiamil, who
commands in those parts, was not up to the job of
holding him. The Buzzards were shepherded in from
north and east and south, and now the Muscovite is
sitting down outside the forts of Erzerum. I can tell
you they're pretty miserable about the situation in the
highest quarters. . . . Enver is sweating blood to get
fresh divisions to Erzerum from Gallipoli, but it's a
long road and it looks as if they would be too late for
the fair. . . . You and I, Major, start for Meso-
potamy to-morrow, and that's about the meanest bit of
bad luck that ever happened to John S. We're miss*

236

AN EMBARRASSED TOILET

ing the chance of seeing the gloriest fight of this cam-
paign."

I picked up the map and pocketed it. Maps were
my business, and I had been looking for one.

"Wc*re not going to Mesopotamia," I said. "Our
orders have been cancelled."

''But I've just seen Enver, and he said he had sent
round our passports."

"They're in the fire," I siaid. "The right ones will
come along to-morrow morning."

Sandy broke in, his eyes bright with excitement.

"The great hills! . . . We're going to Erzerum.
. . . Don't you see that the Germans are playing
their big card? They're sending Greenmantle to the
point of danger in the hope that his coming will rally
the Turkish defence. Things are beginning to move,
Dick, old man. No more kicking the heels for us.
We're going to be in it up to the neck, and Heaven
help the best man. ... I must be off now, for I've
a lot to do. Au revoir. We meet some time soon in
the hills."

Blenkiron still looked puzzled, till I told him the
story of that night's doings. As he listened, all the
satisfaction went out of his face, and that funny, child-
ish air of bewilderment crept in.

"It's not for me to complain, for it's in the straight
line of our dooty, but I reckon there's going to be big
trouble ahead of this caravan. It's Kismet, and we've
got to bow. But I won't pretend that I'm not consider-
able scared at the prospect."

"Oh, so am I," I said. "The woman frightens me
into fits. We're up against it this time all right. All
the same I'm glad we're to be let into the real star

237

GREENMANTLE

metropolitan performance. I didn't relish the idea of
touring in the provinces."

"I guess that's correct. But I could wish that the
good God would see fit to take that lovely lady to
Himself. She's too much for a quiet man at my time
of life. When she invites us to go in on the ground-
floor I feel like taking the elevator to the roof-garden."

238

CHAPTER XVI

THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

ripiWO days later, in the evening, we came to An-
I gora, die first stage in our journey.
The passports had arrived next morning, as Frau
von Einem had promised, and with them a plan of our
journey. More, one of the Companions, who spoke a
little English, was detailed to accompany us — a wise
precaution, for no one of us had a word of Turkish.
These were the sum of our instructions. I heard noth-
ing more of Sandy or Greenmantle or the lady. We
were meant to travel in our own party.

We had the railway to Angora, a very comfortable
German schlafwagon, tacked to the end of a troop-
train. There wasn't much to be seen of the country,
for after we left the Bosporus we ran into scuds of
snow, and except that we seemed to be climbing on to
a big plateau I had no notion of the landscape. It
was a marvel that we made such good time, for that
line was congested beyond anything I have ever seen.
The place was crawling with the Gallipoli troops, and
every siding was packed with supply trucks. When
we stopped — which we did on an average about once
an hour — ^you could see vast camps on both sides of
the line, and often we struck regiments on the march
along the railway track. They looked a fine, hardy
lot of ruffians, but many were deplorably ragged, and

239

GREENMANTLE

I didn't think much of their boots. I wondered how
they would do the five hundred miles of road to
Erzerum.

Blenkiron played Patience, and Peter and I took
a hand at Picquette, but mostly we smoked and yarned.
Getting away from that infernal city had cheered us
up wonderfully. Now we were out on the open road,
moving to the sound of the guns. At the worst we
should not perish like rats in a sewer. We would be
all together, too, and that was a comfort. I think we
felt the relief which a man who has been on a lonely
outpost feels when he is brought back to his battalion.
Besides, the thing had gone clean beyond our power
to direct. It was no good planning and scheming, for
none of us had a notion what the next step might be.
We were fatalists now, believing in Kismet, and that
is a comfortable faith.

All but Blenkiron. The coming of Hilda von Einem
into the business had put a very ugly complexion on
it for him. It was curious to see how she affected the
different members of our gang. Peter did not care
a rus^ ; man, woman, and hippogriff were the same to
him ; he met it all as calmly as if he were making plans
to round up an old lion in a patch of bush, taking the
facts as they came and working at them as if they were
a sum in arithmetic. Sandy and I were impressed —
it's no good denying it: horribly impressed — ^but we
were too interested to be scared, and we weren't a bit
fascinated. We hated her too much for that. But
she fairly struck Blenkiron dumb. He said himself it
was just like a rattlesnake and a bird.

I made him talk about her, for if he sat and brooded
he would get worse. It was a strange thing that this
man, the most imperturbable, and I think about the

240

THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

most courageous I have ever met, should be paralysed
by a slim woman. There was no doubt about it. The
thought of her made the future to him as black as a
thunder cloud. It took the power out of his joints, and
if she was going to be much around, it looked as if
Blenkiron might be counted out.

I suggested that he was in love with her, but this
he vehemently denied.

"No, sir; I haven't got no sort of affection for the
lady. My trouble is that she puts me out of coun-
tenance, and I can't fit her in as an antagonist. I guess
we Americans haven't got the right poise for dealing
with that kind of female. We've exalted our women-
folk into little tin gods, and at the same time left them
out of the real business of life. Consequently, when
we strike one playing the biggest kind of man's game
we can't place her. We aren't used to regarding them
as anything except angels and children. I wish I had
had you boys' upbringing."

Angora was like my notion of some place such as
Amiens in the retreat from Mons. It was one mass
of troops and transport — ^the neck of the bottI#, for
more arrived every hour, and the only outlet was the
single eastern road. The town was pandemonium into
which distracted German officers were trying to intro-
duce some order. They didn't worry much about us,
for the heart of Anatolia wasn't a likely hunting-
ground for suspicious characters. We took our pass-
port to the commandant, who vised them readily, and
told us he'd do his best to get us transport. We spent
the night in a sort of hotel, where all four crowded
into one little bedroom, and next morning I had my
work cut out getting a motor-car. It took four hours,
and the use of every great name in the Turkish Empire,

241

GREENMANTLE

to raise a dingy sort of Studebaker, and another two
to get the petrol and spare tyres. As for a chauf-
feur, love or money couldn't find him, and I was com-
pelled to drive the thing myself.

We left just after midday and swung out into bare
bleak downs patched with scrubby woodlands. There
was no snow here, but a wind was blowing from the
East which searched the marrow. Presently we
climbed up into hills, and the road, though not badly
engineered to begin with, grew as rough as the channel
of a stream. No wonder, for the traffic was like what
one saw on that awful stretch between Cassel and
Ypres, and there were no gangs of Belgian road-
makers to mend it up. We found troops by the thou-
sands striding along with their impa^ssive Turkish
faces, ox convoys, mule convoys, wagons drawn by
sturdy little Anatolian horses, and, coming in the con-
trary direction, many shabby Red Crescent cars and
wagons of the wounded. We had to crawl for hours
on end, till we. got past a block. Just before the dark-
ening we seemed to outstrip the first press, and "had a
clear run for about ten miles over a low pass in the
hills. I began to get anxious about the car, for it was
a poor one at the best, and the road was guaranteed
sooner or later to knock even a Rolls-Roycfc into scrap
iron.

All the same it was glorious to be out in the open
again. Peter's face wore a new look, and he sniffed
the bitter air like a stag. There floated up from little
wayside camps the odour of wood-smoke and dung-
fires. That, and the curious acrid winter smell of great
wind-blown spaces, will always come to my memory
as I think of that day. Every hour brought me peace
of mind and resolution. I felt as I had felt when the

242

THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

battalion first marched from Aire towards the firing
line, a kind of keying-up and wild expectation. Vm
not used to cities, and loun^ng about Constantinople
had slackened my fibre. Now, as the sharp wind buf-
feted us, I felt braced to any kind of risk. We were
on the great road to the east and the border hills, and
soon we should stand upon the farthest battle-front
of the war. This was no commonplace intelligence
job. That was all over, and we were going into the
firing-line, going to take part in what might be the
downfall of our enemies. I didn't reflect that we were
among these enemies, and would probably share their
downfall if we were not shot earlier. The truth is, I
had got out of the way of regarding the thing as a
struggle between armies and nations. I hardly both-
ered to think where my sympathies lay. First and fore-
most it was a contest between the four of us and a
crazy woman, and this personal antagonism made the
strife of armies only a dimly felt background.

We slept that night like logs on the floor of a dirty
khan, and started next morning in a powder of snow^
We were getting very high up now, and it was perish-
ing cold. The Companion — ^his name sounded like
Hussin — had travelled the road before and told me
what the places were, but they conveyed nothing to me.
All morning we wriggled through a big lot of troops,
a brigade at least, who swung along at a great pace
with a fine free stride that I don't think I have ever
seen bettered. I must say I took a fancy to the Turkish
fighting man : I remembered the testimonial our fel-
lows gave him as a clean fighter, and I felt very bit-
ter that Germany should have lugged him into this
ugly business. They halted for a meal, and we stopped
too and lunched ofl some brown bread and dried figs

2^3

GREENMANTLE

' and a flask of very sour wine. I had a few words with
one of the officers who spoke a little German. He told
me they were marching straight for Russia, since there
had been a great Turkish victory in the Caucasus.
"We have beaten the French and the British, and now
it is Russia's turn,'' he said stolidly, as if repeating
a lesson. But he added that he was mortally sick
of war.

In the afternoon we cleared the column and had
an open road for some hours. The land now had a
tilt eastward, as if we were moving towards the val-
ley of a great river. Soon we began to meet little
parties of men coming from the east with a new look
in their faces. The first lots of wounded had been
the ordinary thing you see on every front, and there
had been some pretence at organisation. But these
new lots were very weary and broken ; they were often
barefoot, and they seemed to have lost their transport
and to be starving. You would find a group stretched
by the roadside in the last stages of exhaustion. Then
would come a party limping along, so tired that they
never turned their heads to look at us. Almost all
were wounded, some badly, and most were horribly
thin. I wondered how my Turkish friend behind would
explain the sight to his men, if he believed in a great
victory. They had not the air of the backwash of a
conquering army.

Even Blenkiron, who was no soldier, noticed it.

"These boys look mighty bad," he observed.
"We've got to hustle. Major, if we're going to get
seats for the last act."

That was my own feeling. The sight made me
mad to get on faster, for I saw that big things were
happening in the East. I had reckoned that fouri

244

. THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

days would take us from Angora to Erzerum, but
here was the second nearly over and we were not yet
a third of the way. I pressed on recklessly, and that
hurry was our undoing.

I have said that the Studebaker was a rotten old
car. Its steering-gear was pretty dicky, and the bad
surface and continual hairpin bends of the road didn't
improve it. Soon we came into snow lying fairly deep,
frozen hard and rutted by the big transport-wagons.
We bumped and bounced horribly, and were shaken
about like peas in a bladder. I began to be acutely
anxious about the old bone-shaker, the more as we
seemed a long way short of the village I had proposed
to spend the night in. Twilight was falling and we
were still in an unfeatured waste, crossing the shal-
low glen of a stream. There was a bridge at the bot-
tom of a slope — a bridge of logs and earth which had
apparently been freshly strengthened for heavy traffic.
As we approached it at a good pace the car ceased to
answer to the wheel.

I struggled desperately to keep it straight, but it
swerved to the left and we plunged over a bank into
a marshy hollow. There was a sickening bump as
we struck the lower ground, and the whole party were
shot out into the frozen slush. I don't yet know how
I escaped, for the car turned over and by rights I
should have had my back broken. But no one was*
hurt. Peter was laughing, and Blenkiron, after shak-
ing the snow out of his hair, joined him. For myself
I was feverishly examining the machine. It was about
as ugly as it could be, for the front axle was broken.

Here was a piece of hopeless bad luck. We were
stuck in the middle of Asia Minor with no means
of conveyance, for to get a new axle there was as

245

GREENMANTLE

likely as to find snowballs on the Congo. It was all
but dark and there was no time to lose. I got out the
petrol tins and spare tyres and cached them among
some rocks on the hillside. Then we collected our
scanty baggage from the derelict Studebaker. Our
only hope was Hussin. He had got to find us some
lodging for the night, and next day we would have
a try for horses or a lift in some passing wagon. I
had no hope of another car. Every automobile in
Anatolia would now be at a premium.

It was so disgusting a mishap that we all took it
quietly. It was too bad to be helped by hard swear-
ing. Hassin and Peter set off on different sides of the
road to prospect for a house, and Blenkiron and I
sheltered under the nearest rock and smoked savagely.

Hussin was the first to strike oil. He came back
in twenty minutes with news of some kind of dwell-
ing a couple of miles up the stream. He went off
to collect Peter, and, humping our baggage, Blen-
kiron and I plodded up the waterside. Darkness had
fallen thick by this time, and we took some bad tosses
among the bogs. When Hussin and Petei- made up
on us they found a better road, and presently we saw
a light twinkle in the hollow ahead.

It proved to be a wretched tumble-down farm in a
grove of poplars— -a foul-smelling, niuddy yard, a two-
roomed hovel of a house, and a barn which was toler-
ably dry and which we selected for our sleeping-place.
The owner was a broken old fellow whose sons were
all at the war, and he received us with the profound
calm of one who expects nothing but unpleasantness
from life.

By this time we had recovered our temper, and I
was trying hard to put my new Kismet philosophy

246

THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

into practice. I reckoned that if risks were foreor-
dained, so were difEculties, and both must be taken as
part of the day's work. With the remains of our pro-
visions and some curdled milk we satisfied our hunger
and curled ourselves up among the pease straw of the
barn. Blenkiron announced with a happy sigh that he
had now been for two days quit of his dyspepsia.

That night, I remember, I had a queer dream. I
seemed to be in a wild place among mountains, and
I was being hunted, though who was after me I
couldn't tell. I remember sweating with fright, for
I seemed to be quite alone and the terror that was pur-
suing me was more than human. The place was hor-
ribly quiet and still, and there was deep snow lying
everywhere, so that each step I took was heavy as lead.
A very ordinary sort of nightmare, you will say. Yes,
but there was one strange feature in this one. The
night was pitch dark, but ahead of me in the throat of
the pass there was one patch of light, and it showed
a rum little hill with a rocky top : what we call in South
Africa a castrol or saucepan. I had a notion that if
I could get to that castrol I should be safe, and 1
panted through the drifts towards it with the avenger
of blood at my heels. I woke gasping, to find the
winter morning struggling through the cracked rafters,
and to hear Blenkiron say cheerily that his duodenum
had behaved all night like a gentleman. I lay still for
a bit trying to fix the dream, but it all dissolved into
haze except the picture of the little hill, which was
quite clear in every detail. I told myself it was a
reminiscence of the veld, some spot done in the Wak-
kerstroom country, though for the life of me I couldn't
place it.

I pass over the next three days, for they were ohc

247

GREENMANTLE

uninterrupted series of heart-breaks. Hussin and Peter
scoured the country for horses, Blenkiron sat in the
barn and played Patience, while I haunted the roadside
near the bridge in the hope of picking up some kind
of conveyance. My task was perfectly futile. The
columns passed, casting wondering eyes on the wrecked .
car among the frozen rushes, but they could offer no
help. My friend the Turkish officer promised to wire
to Angora from some place or other for a fresh car,
but, remembering the state of affairs at Angora, I
had no hope from that quarter. Cars passed, plenty
of them, packed with staff-officers, Turkish and Ger-
man, but they were in far too big a hurry even to
stop and speak. The only conclusion I reached from
my roadside vigils was that things were getting very
warm in the neighbourhood of Erzerum. Everybody
on that road seemed to be in mad haste either to get
there or to get away.

Hussin was the best chance, for, as I have said,
the Companions had a very special and peculiar graft
throughout the Turkish Empire. But the first day
he came back empty-handed. All the horses had been
commandeered for the war, he said; and though he
was certain that some had been kept back and hidden
away, he could not get on their track. The second
day he returned with two — miserable screws and de-
plorably short in the wind from a diet of beans. There
was no decent corn or hay left in that countryside. ^

The third day he picked up a nice little Arab stallion : '

in poor conditi9n, it is true, but perfectly sound. For
these beasts we paid good money, for Blenkiron was
well supplied and we had no time to spare for the in-
terminable Oriental bargaining.

Hussin said he had cleaned up the countryside, and

248

THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

I believed him. I dared not delay another day, even
though It meant leaving him behind. But he had no
notion of doing anything of the kind. He was a good
runner, he said, and could keep up with such horses as
ours for ever. If this was the manner of our progress,
I reckoned we would be weeks in getting to Erzerum.

We started at dawn in the morning of the fourth
day, after the old farmer had blessed us and sold us
some stale rye-bread. Blenkiron bestrode the Arab,
being the heaviest, and Peter and I had the screws.
My worst forebodings were soon realised, and Hussin,
loping along at my side, had an easy job to keep up
with us. We were about as slow as an ox-wagon. The
brutes were unshod, and with the rough roads I saw
that their feet would very soon go to pieces. We
jogged along like a tinker's caravan, about five miles
to the hour, as feckless a party as ever disgraced a
highroad.

The weather was now a cold drizzle, which in-
creased my depression. Cars passed us and disap-
peared in the mist, going at thirty miles an hour to
mock our slowness. None of us spoke, for the futility
of the business clogged our spirits. I bit hard on my
lips to curb my restlessness, and I think I would have
sold my soul there and then for anything that could
move fast. I don't know any sorer trial than to be
mad for speed and have to crawl at a snail's pace.
I was getting ripe for any kind of desperate venture.

About midday we descended on a wide plain full of
the marks of rich cultivation. Villages became fre-
quent, and the land was studded with olive groves and
scarred with water furrows. From what I remem-
bered of the map I judged that we were coming to
that champaign country near Siwas, which is the gran-

249

GREENMANTLE

ary of Turkey, and the home of the true Osmanli
stock.

Then at a turning of the road we came to the
caravanserai.

It was a dingy, battered place, with the pink plaster
falling in patches from its walls. There was a court-
yard abutting on the road, and a flat-topped house
with a big hole in its side. It was a long way from any
battle-ground, and I guessed that some explosion had
wrought the damage. Behind it, a few hundred yards
off, a detachment of cavalry were encamped beside a
streahi, with their horses tied up in long lines of
pickets.

And by the roadside, quite alone and deserted, stood
a large new motor-car.

In all the road before and behind there was no man
to be seen except the troops by the stream. The
owners, whoever they were, must be inside the
caravanserai. ,

I have said I was in the mood for some desperate
deed, and lo and behold Providence had given me
the chance 1 I coveted that car as I have never coveted
anything on earth. At the moment all my plans had
narrowed down to a feverish passion to get to the
battlefield. We had to find Greenmantle at Erzerum,
and once there we should have Hilda von Einem's
protection. It was a time of war, and a front of brass
was the surest safety. But, indeed, I could not figure
out any plan worth speaking of. I saw only one thing
— a fast car which might be ours.

I said a word to the others, and we dismounted and
tethered our horses at the near end of the court-
yard. I heard the low hum of voices from the cavalry-
men by the stream, but they were three hundred yards

250

THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI

off and could not see us. Peter was sent forward to
scout in the courtyard. In the building itself there was
but one window looking on the road, and that was in
the upper floor. Meantime I crawled along beside the
wall to where the car stood, and had a look at it. It
was a splendid six-cylinder affair, brand-new, with the
tyres little worn. There were seven tins of petrol
stacked behind, as well as spare tyres, and, looking in,
I saw map-cases and field-glasses strewn on the seats
as if the owners had only got out for a minute to
stretch their legs.

Peter came back and reported that the courtyard
was empty. "There are men in the upper room,"
he said; "more than one, for I heard their voices.
They are moving about restlessly, and may soon be
coming out."

' I reckoned that there was no time to be Ipst, so I
told the others to slip down the road fifty yards be-
yond the caravanserai and be ready to climb in as I
passed. I had to start the infernal thing, and there
might be shooting.

I waited by the car till I saw them reach the right
distance. I could hear voices from the second floor
of the house and footsteps moving up and down. I
was in a fever of anxiety, for any moment a man might
come to the window. Then I flung myself on the start-
ing handle and worked like a demon.

The cold made the job difficult, and my heart was
in my mouth, for the noise in that quiet place must
have woke the dead. Then, by the mercy of Heaven,
the engines started, and I sprang to the driving seat,
released the dutch, and opened the throttle. The great
car shot forward, and I seemed to hear behind me

251

GREENMANTLE

shrill voices. A pistol bullet bored through my hat,
and another buried itself in a cushion beside me.

In a second I was clear of the place and the rest of
the party were embarking. Blenkiron got on the step
and rolled himself like a sack of coals into the ton-
neau. Peter nipped up beside me, and Hussin scram-
bled in from the back over the folds of the hood. We
had our baggage in our pockets and had nothing to
carry.

Bullets dropped round us, but did no harm. Then
I heard a report at my ear, and out of a corner of my
eye saw Peter lower his pistol. Presently we were out
of range, and, looking back, I saw three man gesticu-
lating in the middle of the road.

"May the devil fly away with this pistol," said
Peter ruefully. "I never could make good shooting
with a little gun. Had I had my rifle * . ."

"What did you shoot for?" I asked m amazement.
"We've got the fellow's car, and we don't want to do
them any harm."

"It would have saved trouble had I had my rifle,"
said Peter, quietly. "The little man you call Rasta
was there, and he knew you. I heard him cry your
name. He is an angry little man, and I observe that
on this road there is a telegraph,"

252

CHAPTER XVII

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

FROM that moment I date the beginning of my
madness. Suddenly I forgot all cares and diffi-
culties of the present and future, and became foolishly
light-hearted. We were rushing towards the great
battle where men were busy at my proper trade. I
realised how much I had loathed the lonely days in
Germany, and still more the dawdling week in Con-
stantinople. Now I was clear of it all, and bound
for the clash of armies. It didn't trouble me that we
were on the wrong side of the battle line. I had a
sort of instinct that the darker and wilder things grew
the better chance for us.

"Seems to me," said Blenkiron, bending over me,
"that this joy-ride is going to come to an untimely
end pretty soon. Peter's right. That young man
will set the telegraph going, and we'll be held up at
the next township."

"He's got to get to a telegraph office first," I an-
swered. "That's where we have the pull of him.
He's welcome to the screws we left behind, and if he
finds an operator before the evening I'm the worst
kind of Dutchman. I'm going to break all the rules
and bucket this car for what's she worth. Don't you
see that the nearer we get to Erzerum the safer we
are?"

253

GREENMANTLE

"I don't follow," he said slowly. "At Erzerum I
reckon they'll be waiting for us with the handcuffs.
Why in thunder couldn't these hairy ragamuffins keep
the little cuss safe ? Your record's a bit too precipitous,
Major, for the most innocent-minded ifiilitary boss."

"Do you remember what you said about the Ger-
mans being open to bluff ? Well, I'm going to put up
the steepest kind of bluff. Of course they'll stop us.
Rasta will do his damnedest. But remember that he
and his friends are not very popular with the Germans,
and Madame von Einem is. We're her proteges, and
the bigger the German swell I get before the safer I'll
feel. We've got our passports and our orders, and
he'll be a bold man that will stop us once we get into
the German zone. Therefore I'm going to hurry as
fast as God will let me."

It was a ride that deserved to have an epic written
about it. The car was good, and I handled her well,
though I say it who shouldn't. The road in that big
central plain was fair, and often I knocked fifty miles
an hour out of her. We passed troops by a circuit
over the veld, where we took some awful risks, and
once we skidded by some transport with our off wheels
almost over the lip of a ravine. We went through
the narrow streets of Siwas like a fire-engine, while
I shouted out in German that we carried despatches
for head-quarters. We shot out of drizzling rain into
brief spells of winter sunshine, and then into a snow
blizzard which all but whipped the skin from our
faces. And always before us the long road unrolled,
with somewhere at the end of it two armies clinched
in a death-grapple.

That night we looked for no lodging. We ate a
.sort of meal in the car with the hood up, and felt our

254

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

way on In the darkness, for the headlights were in per-
fect order. Then we turned off the road for four
hours' sleep, and I had a go at the map. Before
dawn we started again, and came over a pass Into the
vale of a big river. The winter dawn showed its
gleaming stretches, ice-bound among the sprinkled
meadows. I called to Blenkiron :

"I believe that river Is the Euphrates," I said.

"So," he said, acutely interested. "Then that's the
waters of Babylon. Great snakes, that I should have
lived to see the fields where King Nebuchadnezzar
grazed I Do you know the name of that big hill^
Major?"

"Araratf as like as not," I cried, and he believed
me.

We were among the hills now, great, rocky, black
slopes, and, seen through side glens, a hinterland of
snowy peaks. I remember I kept looking for the
castrol I had seen In my dream. The thing had never
left off haunting me, and I was pretty clear now that it
did not belong to my South African memories. I am
not a superstitious man, but the way that little kranz
clung to my mind made me think it was a warning sent
by Providence. I was pretty certain that when I
clapped eyes on it I would be In for bad trouble.

Ail morning we travelled up that broad vale, and
just before noon it spread out wider, the road dipped
to the water's edge, and I saw before me the white
roofs of a town. The snow was deep now, and lay
down to the riverside, but the sky had cleared, and
against a space of blue heaven some peaks to the south
rose glittering like jewels. The arches of a bridge^
spanning two forks of the stream, showed in front, and
as I slowed down at the bend a sentrv's challenge rang

251

»»

GREENMANTLE

out from a block-house. We had reached the fortress
of Erzinghjan, the head-quarters of a Turkish corps
and the gate of Armenia.

I showed the man our passports, but he did not
salute and let us move on. He called another fellow
from the guard-house, who motioned us to keep pace
with him as he stumped down a side lane. At the other
end was a big barracks with sentries outside. The man
spoke to us in Turkish, which Hussin interpreted.
There was somebody in that barracks who wanted
badly to see us.

"By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
quoted Blenkiron softly. "I fear, Major, we'll soon
be remembering Zion."

I tried to persuade myself that this was merely the
red tape of a frontier fortress, but I had an instinct
that difficulties were in store for us. If Rasta had
started wiring I was prepared to put up the brazenest
bluff, for we were still eighty miles from Erzerum,
and at all costs we were going to be landed there be-
fore night.

A fussy staff-officer met us at the door. At the
sight of us he cried to a friend to come and look.

"Here ^re the birds safe. ^ A fat man and two lean
ones and a savage who looks like a Kurd. Call the
guard and march them off. There's no doubt about
their identity."

"Pardon me, sir,'* I said, "but we have no time to
spare and we'd like to be in Erzerum before the dark.
I would beg you to get through any formalities as soon
as possible. This man," and I pointed to the sentry,
"has our passports."

"Compose yourself," he said impudently, "you're
not going on just yet, and when you do it won't be in

256

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

a stolen car." He took the passports and fingered
them casually. Then something he saw there made
him cock his eyebrows.

"Where did you steal these?'* he asked, but with
less assurance in his tone.

I spoke very gently. "You seem to be the victim
of a mistake, sir. These are our papers. We are
under orders to report ourselves at Erzerum without
an hour's delay. Whoever hinders us will have to
answer to General von Liman. We will be obliged
if you will conduct us at once to the Governor."

"You can't see General Posselt," he said; "this is
my business. I have a wire from Siwas that four men
stole a car belonging to one of Enver Damad's staff.
It describes you all, and says that two of you are
notorious spies wanted by the Imperial Government.
What have you to say to that?"

"Only that it is rubbish. My good sir, you have
seen our passes. Our errand is not .to be cried over
the housetops, but five minutes with General Posselt
will make things clear. You will be exceedingly sorry
for it if you delay us another minute."

He was impressed in spite of himself, and after pull-
ing his moustache turned on his heel and left us. Pres-
ently he came back and said very gruffly that the Gov-
ernor would see us. We followed him along a cor-
ridor into a big room looking out on the river, where
an oldish fellow sat in an arm-chair by a stove, writ-
ing letters with a fountain pen.

This w^s Posselt, who had been Governor of Er-
zerum till he fell sick and Ahmed Fevgi took his place.
He had a peevish mouth and big blue pouches below
his eyes. He was supposed to be a good engineer and
to have made Erzerum impregnable, but the look in

257

I GREENMANTLE

his face gave me the Impression that his reputation
at the moment was a bit unstable.

The staff-officer spoke to him in an undertone.

"Yes, yes, I know," he said testily. "Are these the
men? They look a pretty lot of scoundrels. What's
that you say? They deny it. But they've got the can
They can't deny that. Here, you," and he fixed on
Blenkiron, "who the devil are you?"

Blenkiron smiled sleepily at him, not understand*
ing one word, and I took up the parable.

"Our passports, sir, give our credentials," I said.

He glanced through them, and his face lengthened.

"They're right enough. But what about this story
of stealing the car?"

"It is quite true," I said. "But I would prefer to
use a pleasanter word. You will see from our papers
that every authority on the road is directed to give us
the best transport. Our own car broke down, and
after a long delay we got some wretched horses. It is
vitally important that we should be in Erzerum with-
out delay, so I took the liberty of appropriating an
empty car we found outside an Inn. I am sorry for
the discomfort of the owners, but our business Is too
grave to wait."

"But the telegram says you are notorious spies I"

I smiled. "Who sent the telegram?"

"I see no reason why I shouldn't give you his name.
It was Rasta Bey. You've picked an awkward fellow
to make an enemy of."

I did not smile but laughed. "Rasta!" I cried.
"He's one of Enver's satellites. That explains many
things. I should like a word with you alone, sir."

He nodded to the staff-officer, and when he had

258

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

gone I put on my most Bible face and looked as Im-
portant as a provincial niayor at a royal visit.

"I can speak freely," I said, "for I am speaking to
a soldier of Germany. There is no love lost between
Enver and those I serve. I need not tell you that.
This Rasta thought he had found a chance of delaying
us, so he invents this trash about spies. These
Comitadjis have spies on the brain. • . . Espedally he
hates Frau von Einem.**

He jumped at the name.

"You have orders from her?" he asked, in a re-
spectful tone.

"Why, yes," I answered, "and those orders will not
wait."

He got up and walked to a table, whence he turned
a puzzled face on me. "Fm torn in two between the
Turks and my own countrymen. If I please one I
offend the other, and the result is a damnable confu-
sion. You can go on to Erzerum, but I shall send a
man with you to see that you report to headquarters
there. Fm sorry, gentlemen, but Fm obliged to take
no chances in this business. Rasta's got a grievance
against you, but you can easily hide behind the lady's
skirts. She passed through this town two days ago."

Ten minutes later we were coasting through the slush
of the narrow streets with a stolid German fieutenant
sitting beside me.

The afternoon was one of those rare days when in
the pauses of snow you have a spell of weather as mild
as May. I remembered several like It during our
winter's training in Hampshire. The road was a fine
one, well engineered, and well kept too, considering
the amount of traffic. We were little delayed, for it
was sufficiently broad to let lis pass troops and trans-

259

GREENMANTLE

port without slacking pace. The fellow at my side
was good-humoured enough, but his presence naturally
put the lid on our conversation. I didn't want to talk,
however- I was trying to piece together a plan, and
making very little of it, for I had nothing to go upon.
We must find Hilda von Einem and Sandy, and be-
tween us we must wreck the Greenmantle business.
That done, it didn't matter so much what happened to
us. As I reasoned it out, the Turks must be in a bad
way, and, unless they got a fillip from Greenmantle,
would crumple up before the Russians. In the rout
I hoped we might get a chance to change our sides.
But it was no good looking so far forward; the first
thing was to get to Sandy.

Now I was still in the mood of reckless bravado
which 1 had got from bagging the car. I did not realise
how thin our story was, and how easily Rasta might
have a big graft at head-quarters. If I had, I would
have shot out the German lieutenant long before we
got to Erzerum^ and found some way of getting mixed
up in the ruck of the population. Hussin could have
helped me to that. I was getting so confident since our
interview with Posselt that I thought I could bluff the
whole outfit.

But my main business that afternoon was pure non-
sense. I was trying to find my little hill. At every
turn of the road I expected to see the castrol before us.
You must know that ever since I could stand I have
been crazy about high mountains. My father took me
to Basutoland when I was a boy, and I reckon I have
scrambled over almost every bit of upland south of
the Zambesi, from the Hottentots Holland to the Zout-
pansberg, and from the ugly yellow kopjes of Damara-
land to the noble cliffs of Mont aux Sources. One of

260

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

the things I had looked forward to in coming home
was the chance of climbing the Alps. But now I was
among peaks that I fancied were bigger than the Alps,
and I could hardly keep my eyes on the road. I was
pretty certain that my castrol was among them, for
that dream had taken an almighty hold on my mind.
Funnily enough, I was ceasing to think it a place of
evil omen, for one soon forgets the atmosphere of
nightmare. But I was convinced that it was a thing
I was destined to see, and to see pretty soon.

Darkness fell when we were some miles short of
the city; and the last part was difficult driving. On
both sides of the road transport and engineer's stores
were parked, and some of it strayed into the highway.
I noticed lots of small details — ^machine-gun detach-
ments, signalling parties, squads of stretcher-bearers —
which mean the fringe of an army, and as soon as the
night began the white fingers of searchlights began to
grope in the skies.

And then, above the hum of the roadside, rose the
voice of the great guns. The shells were bursting four
or five miles away, and the guns must have been as
many more distant. But in that upland pocket of
plain in the frosty night they sounded most intimately
near. They kept up their solemn litany, with a min-
ute's interval between each — ^no rafale which rumbles
like a drum, but the steady persistence of artillery ex-
actly ranged on a target. I judged they must be bom-
barding the outer forts, and once there came a loud
explosion and a red glare as if a magazine had suf-
fered.

It was a sound I had not heard for five months, and
it fairly crazed me. I remembered how I had first

261

GREENMANTLE

heard it on the ridge before Laventie. Then I had
been half afraid, half solemnised, but every nerve had
been quideened. Then it had been the new thing
in my life that held me breathless with antidpation;
now it was the old thing, the thing I had shared with
so many good fellows, my proper work, and the only
task for a man. At the sound of the guns I felt that
I was moving in natural air once more. I felt that I
was coming home.

We were stopped at a long line of ramparts, and a
German sergeant stared at us till he saw the lieutenant
beside me, when he saluted and we passed on. Almost
at once we dipped into narrow twisting streets, choked
with soldiers, where it was a hard business to steer.
There were few lights — only now and then the flare of
a torch which showed the grey stone houses, with every
window latticed and shuttered. I had put out my head-
lights and had only side lamps, so we had to pick our
way gingerly through the labyrinth. I hoped we would
strike Sandy's quarters soon, for we were all pretty
empty, and a frost had set in which made our thick
coats seem as thin as paper.

The lieutenant did the guiding. We had to present
our passports, and I anticipated no more difficulty
than in landing from the boat at Boulogne. But I
wanted to get it over, for my hunger pinched me, and
it was fearsome cold. Still the guns went on, like
hounds baying before a quarry. The dty was out
of range, but there were strange lights on the ridge to
the east.

At last we reached our goal and marched through a
fine old carved archway into a courtyard, and thenco
into a draughty hall.

*Tou must see the Sektionschef^^^ said our guide.

z6z

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON,

I looked round to see If we were all there, and
noticed that Hussin had disappeared. It did not mat*
ter, for he was not on the passports.

We followed as we were directed through an open
door. There was a man standing with his back to-
wards us looking at a wall map, a very big man with
a neck that bulged over his collar.

I would have known that neck among a million.
At the sight of it I made a half-turn to bolt back. It
was too late, for the door had closed behind us, and
there were two armed sentries beside it.

The man slewed round and looked into my eyes. I
had a despairing hope that I might bluff it out, for I
was in different clothes and had shaved my beard. But
you cannot spend ten minutes in a death-gripple with-
out your adversary getting to know you.

He went very pale, then recollected himself and
twisted his features into the old grin.

"So," he said, "the little Dutchman I We meet
after many days."

It was no good lying or saying anytliing. I shut my
teeth and waited.

"And you, Herr Blenkiron? I never liked the look
of you. You babbled too much, like all your damned
Americans."

"I guess your personal dislikes haven't got any-
thing to do with the matter," said Blenkiron, calmly.
"If you're the boss here, I'll thank you to cast your eye
over these passports, for we can't stand waiting for
ever."

This fairly angered hint. "I'll teach you manners,"
he cried, and took a step forward to reach for his
shoulder — the game he had twice played with me.

Blenkiron never took his hands from his coat

Z63

GREENMANTLE

pockets* **Kccp your distance," he drawled in a new
voice. **I'vc got you covered, and 1*11 make a hole
in your bullet head if you lay a hand on me,"

With an effort Stumm recovered himself. He rang
a bell and fell to smiling. An orderly appeared to
whom be spoke in Turkish, and presendy a file of
soldiers entered Ac room.

"Fm going to have you disarmed, gendemen," he
said. **We can conduct our conversation more pleas-
antly without pistols."

It was idle to resist. We surrendered our arms,
Peter almost in tears with vexation. Stunun swung
his legs over a diair, rested his chin on the back and
looked at me.

**Your game is up, you know," he said. "These
fools of Turkish police said the Dutchmen were dead,
but I had the happier inspiration. I believed the good
God had spared them for me. When I got Rasta's
telegram I was certain, for your doings reminded me
of a little trick you once played me on the Schwandorf
road. But I didn't think to find this plump old part-
ridge," and he smiled at Blenkiron. "Two eminent
American engineers and' their, servant bound for Meso-
potamia on business of high Government importance I
It was a good lie ; but if I had been in Constantinople it
would have had a short life. Rasta and his friends
are no concern of mine. You can trick them as you
please. But you have attempted to win the confidence
of a certain lady, and her interests are mine. Like*
wise you have offended me, and I do not forgive. By
God," he cried, his voice growing shrill with passion,
"by the time I have done with you your mothers in
their graves will weep that they ever bore you !"
It was Blenkiron who spoke. His voice was as

264

^JLf-m

TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

level as the chairman's of a bogus company and it fell
on that turbid atmosphere like acid on grease.

"I don't take no stock in high-falutin*. If you're
trying to scare me by that dime-novel talk I guess
you've hit the wrong man. You're like the sweep that
stuck in the chimney, a bit too big for your job. I
reckon you've a talent for ro-mance that's just wasted
in soldiering. But if you're going to play any ugly
games on me I'd like you to know that I'm an Ameri-
can citizen, and pretty well considered in my own
country and in yours, and you'll sweat blood for it
later. That's a fair warning. Colonel Stumm."

I don't know what Stumm's plans were, but that
speech of Blenkiron's put into his mind just the needed
amount of uncertainty. You see, he had Peter and me
right enough, but he hadn't properly connected Blen-
kiron with us, and was afraid either to hit out at all
three, or to let Blenkiron go. It was lucky for us
that the American had cut such a dash in the Father-
land.

"There is no hurry," he said blandly. "We shall
have long happy hours together. I'm going to take
you all home with me, for I am a hospitable soul. You
will be safer with me than in the town gaol, for it's a
trifle draughty. It lets things in, and it might let
things out."

Again he gave an order, and we were marched out,
each with a soldier at his elbow. The three of us
were bundled into the back seat of the car, while two
men sat before us with their rifles between their knees,
one got up behind on the baggage rack, and one sat be-
side Stumm's chauffeur. Packed like sardines we
moved into the bleak streets, above which the stars
twinkled in ribbons of sky.

265

GREENMANTLE

Hussin had disappeared from the face of the earth,
and quite right too. He was a good fellow, but he
had no call to mix himself up in our troubles.

2€6

CHAPTER XVIII

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

I'VE often regretted," said Blenkiron, "that miracle*
have left off happening."

He got no answer, for I was feeling the walls for
something in the nature of a window.

"For I reckon," he went on, "that it wants a good
old-fashioned copper-bottomed miracle to get us out of
this fix. It's plumb against all my principles. I've
spent my life using the talents God gave me to keep
things from getting to the point of rude violence, and
so far I've succeeded. But now you come along.
Major, and you hustle a respectable middle-aged dti"*
zen into an abori^nal mix-up. It's mighty indelicate.
I reckon the next move is up to you, for I'm no good
at the housebreaking stunt."

"No more am I," I answered; "but I'm hanged if
I'll chuck up the sponge. Sandy's somewhere outside,
and he's got a hefty crowd at his heels."

I simply could not feel the despair which by every
law of common sense was due to the case. The guns
had intoxicated me. I could still hear their deep voices,
though yards of wood and stone separated us from
the upper air.

What vexed us most was our hunger. Barring a few
mouthfuls on the road we had eaten nothing since the
morning, and as our diet for the past days had not

267

GREENMANTLE

been generous we had some leeway to make up. Stumm
had never looked near us since we were shoved into
the car. We had been brought to some kind of house
and bundled into a place like a wine-cellar. It was
pitch dark, and after feeling round the walls, first on
my feet and then with Peter on my back, I dedded
that there were no windows. It must have been lit and
ventilated by some lattice in the ceiling. There was
not a stick of furniture in the place : nothing but a damp
earth floor and bare stone sides. The door was a relic
of the Iron Age, and I could hear the paces of a sentry
outside it.

When things get to the pass that nothing you can do
can better them, the only thing is to live for the mo-
ment. All three of us sought in sleep a refuge from
our empty stomachs. The floor was the poorest kind
of bed, but we rolled up our coats for pillows and made
the best of it. Soon I heard by Peter's regular breath-
ing that he was asleep, and I presendy followed
him. • • .

I was awakened by a light touch on my cheek. I
thought it was Peter, for it was the old hunter's tridc
of waking a man so that he makes no noise. But
another voice spoke in my ear. It told me that there
was no time to lose and to rise and follow, and the
voice was the voice of Hussin. (

Peter was awake, and we stirred Blenkiron out of
heavy slumber. We were bidden take oflF our boots
and hang them by their laces round our neck as coun-
try boys do when they want to go barefoot. Then
we tiptoed to the door, which was ajar.

Outside was a passage with a flight of steps at one
end which led to the open air. On these steps lay a
faint shine of starlight, and by its help I saw a man

268

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

huddled up at the foot of them. It was our sentry,
neatly and scientifically gagged and tied up.

The steps brought us to a little courtyard about
which the walls of the houses rose like cliffs. We
halted while Hussin listened intently. Apparently
the coast was dear and our guide led us to one side,
which was clothed by a stout wooden trellis. Once It
may have supported fig-trees, but now the plants were
dead and only withered tendrils and rotten stumps re-
mained.

It was child's play for Peter and me to go up that
trellis, but it was the deuce and all for Blenkiron.
He was in poor condition and puffed like a grampus,
and he seemed to have no sort of head for heights.
But he was as game as a buffalo, and started in gal-
lantly till his arms gave out and he fairly stuck. So
Peter and I went up on both sides of him, taking an
arm apiece, as I had once seen done to a man with
vertigo in the Kloof Chimney on Table Mountain. I
was mighty thankful when I got him panting on the
top and Hussin had shinned up beside us.

We crawled along a broadish wall, with an inch or
two of powdery snow on it, and then up a sloping but-
tress on to the flat roof of the house. It was a miser-
able business for Blenkiron, who would certainly have
fallen if he could have seen what was below him, and
Peter and I had to stand to attention all the time.
Then began a more difficult job. Hussin pointed out
a ledge which took us past a stack of chimneys to an-
other building slightly lower, this being the route he
fancied. At that I sat down resolutely and put on my
boots, and the others followed. Frost-bitten feet would
be a poor asset in this kind of travelling.

It was a bad step for Blenkiron, and we only got

269

GREENMANTLE

him past it by Peter and I spread-eagling ourselves
against the wall and passing him in front of us with
his face towards us. We had no grip, and if he had
stumbled we should all three have been in the court-
yard. But we got it over, and dropped as softly as
possible on the roof of the next house. Hussin had
his finger to his lips, and I soon saw why. For there
was a lighted window in the wall we had descended.

Some imp prompted me to wait behind and explore.
The others followed Hussin and were soon at the far
end of the roof, where a kind of wooden pavilion
broke the line, while I tried to get a look inside. The
window was curtained, and had two folding sashes
which clasped in the middle. Through a gap in the
curtain I saw a little lamp-lit room and a big man sit-
ting at a table littered with papers.

I watched him, fascinated, as he turned to consult
some paper and made a marking on the map before
him. Then he suddenly rose, stretched himself, cast
a glance at the window, and went out of the room,
making a great clatter in descending the wooden stair-
case. He left the door ajar and the lamp burning.

I guessed he had gone to have a look at his prisoners,
in which case the show was up. But what filled my
mind was an insane desire to get a sight of his map.
It was one of those mad impulses which utterly cloud
right reason, a thing independent of any plan, a crazy
leap in the dark. But it was so strong that I would
have pulled that window out by its frame, if need be,
to get to that table.

There was no need, for the flimsy clasp gave at the
first pull, and the sashes swung open. I scrambled in,
after listening for steps on the stairs. I crumpled up
the map and stuck it in my pocket, as well as the paper

270

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

from which I had seen him copying. Very carefully
I removed all marks of my entry, brushed away the
snow from the boards, pulled back the curtain and got
out and refastened the window. Still there was no
sound of his return. Then I started off to catch up to
the others.

I found them shivering in the roof pavilion.
**WeVe got to move pretty fast," I said, "for Fvc
just been burgling old Stumm's private cabinet. Hus-
sin, my lad, d'you hear that? They may be after us
at any moment, so I pray Heaven we soon strike bet-
ter going."

Hussin understood. He led us at a smart pace
from one roof to another, for here they were all of the
same height, and only low parapets and screens di-
vided these. We never saw a soul, for a winter's
night is not the time you choose to saunter on your
house-top. I kept my cars open for trouble behind
us, and in about five minutes I heard it. A riot of
voices broke out, with one louder than the rest, and,
looking back, I saw lanterns waving. Stumm had
realised his loss and found the tracks of the thief.

Hussin gave one glance behind and then hurried us
on at a break-neck pace, with old Blenkiron gasping
and stumbling. The shouts behind us grew louder, as if
some eye quicker than the rest had caught our move-
ment in the starlit darkness. It was very evident that
if they kept up the chase we should be caught, for
Blenkiron was about as useful on a roof as a hippo.

Presently we came to a big drop, and with a kind of
ladder down it, and at the foot a shallow ledge running
to the left into a pit of darkness. Hussin gripped my
arm and pointed down it. "Follow it," he whispered,
"and you will reach a roof which spans a street.

271

GREENMANTLE

Cross it, and on the other side is a mosque. Turn to
the right there and you will find easy going for fifty
metres, well screened from the higher roofs. For Al-
lah's sake keep in the shelter of the screen. Some-
where there I will join you."

He hurried us along the ledge for a bit and then
went back, and with snow from the comers covered
up our tracks. After that he went straight on him-
self, taking strange short steps like a bird. I saw his
game. He wanted to lead our pursuers after him, and
he had to multiply the tracks, and trust to Stumm's
fellows now spotting that they all were made by one
man.

But I had quite enough to think of in getting
Blenkiron . along that ledge. He was pretty nearly
foundered, he was in a sweat of terror, and as a mat-
ter of fact he was taking one of the biggest risks
of his life, for we had no rope and his neck depended
on himself. But he ventured gallantly, and we got
to the roof which ran across the street. That was
easier, though ticklish enough, but it was no joke
skirting the cupola of that infernal mosque. Then
we found the parapet and breathed more freely, for
we were now under shelter from the direction of
danger. I spared a moment to look round, and
thirty yards off, across the street, I saw a weird
spectacle.

The hunt was proceeding along the roofs parallel
to the one we were lodged on. I saw the flicker of
the lanterns, waved up and down as the bearers
slipped in the snow, and I heard their cries like hounds
on a trail. Stumm was not among them : he had
not the shape for that sort of business. They passed
us and continued to our left, now hid by a jutting

272

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

chimney, now clear to view against the sky line. The
roofs they were on were perhaps six feet higher than
ours, so even from our shelter we could mark their
course. If Hussin were going to be hunted across
Erzerum it was a bad look-out for us, for I hadn't
the foggiest notion where we were or where we were
going to.

But as we watched we saw something more. The
wavering lanterns were now three or four hundred
yards away, but on the roofs just opposite us across
the street there appeared a man's figure. I thought
it was one of the hunters, and we all crouched lower,
and then I recognised the lean agility of Hussin. He
must have doubled back, keeping in the dusk to the
left of the pursuit, and taking big risks in the open
places. But there he was now, exactly in front of
us, and separated only by the width of the narrow
street.

He took a step backward, gathered himself for a
spring, and leaped clean over the gap. Like a cat
he lighted on the parapet above us, and stumbled
forward with the impetus right on our heads. ,

"We are safe for the moment," he whispered, "but
when they miss me they will return. We must make
good haste."

The next half-hour was a maze of twists and turns,
slipping down icy roofs and climbing icier chimney-
stadcs. The stir of the city had gone, and from the
black streets below came scarcely a sound. But al-
ways the great tattoo of guns beat in the east. Gradu-
ally we descended to a lower level, till we emerged
on the top of a shed in a courtyard. Hussin gave
an odd sort of cry, like a demented owl, and some-
thing began to stir below us.

GREENMANTLE

It was a big covered wagon, full of bundles of
forage, and drawn by four mules. As we descended
from the shed into the frozen litter of thfe yard, a
man came out of the shade and spoke low to Hussin.
Peter and I lifted Blenkiron into the cart, and scram-
bled in beside him, and I never felt anything more
blessed than the warmth and softness of that place
after the frosty roofs. I had forgotten all about my
hunger, and only yearned for sleep. Presently the
wagon moved out of the courtyard into the dark
streets.

Then Blenkiron began to laugh, a deep internal
rumble which shook him violently and brought down
a heap of forage on his head. I thought it was hys-
terics, the relief from the tension of the past hour.
But it wasn't. His body might be out of training,
but there was never anything the matter with his
nerves. He was consumed with honest merriment.

"Say, Major," he gasped, "I don't usually cherish
dislikes for my fellow men, but somehow I didn't cot-
ton to Colonel Stumm. But now I almost love him.
You hit his jaw very bad in Germany, and now you've
annexed his private file, and I guess it's important or
he wouldn't have been so mighty set on steeple-chasing
over those roofs. I haven't done such a thing since
I broke into neighbour Brown's woodshed to steal his
tame 'possum, and I guess that's forty years back.
It's the first piece of genooine amusement I've struck
in this game, and I haven't laughed as much since
old Jim Hooker told the tale of 'Cousin Sally Dillard*
when we were hunting ducks in Michigan and his wife's
brother had an apoplexy in the night and died of it."

To the accompaniment of Blenkiron's chuckles I

274

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

did what Peter had done in the first minute, and fell
asleep.

When I woke it was still dark. The wagon had
stopped in a courtyard which seemed to be shaded
by great trees. The snow lay deeper here, and by
the feel of the air we had left the city and climbed
to higher ground. There were big buildings on one
side, and on the other what looked like the side of a
hill. No lights were shown, the place was in pro-
found gloom, but I felt the presence near me of others
besides Hussin and the driver.

We were hurried, Blenkiron only half awake, into
an outbuilding, and then down some steps to a roomy
cellar. There Hussin lit a lantern, which showed what
had once been a storehouse for fruit. Old husks
still strewed the floor and the plade smelt of apples.
Straw had been piled in comers for beds, and there
was a rude table and a divan of boards covered with
sheepskins.

*'Where are we ?" I asked Hussin.

"In the house of the Master," he said. "You will
be safe here, but you must keep still till the Master
comes."

"Is the Prankish lady here?" I asked.

Hussin nodded, and from a wallet brought out some
food — raisins and cold meat and a loaf of bread. We
fell on it like vultures, and as we ate Hussin disap-
peared. I noticed that he locked the door behind
him.

As soon as the meal was ended the others returned
to their interrupted sleep. But I was wakeful now
and my mind was sharp-set on many things. I got
Blenkiron's electric torch and lay down on the divan
to study Stumm's map.

275

GREENMANTLE

The first glance showed me that I had lit on a treas-
ure. It was the staff map of the Erzerum defences,
showing the forts and the field trenches, with little
notes scribbled in Stumm's neat small handwriting. I
got out the big map which I had taken from Blen-
kiron, and made out the general lie of the land. I saw
the horseshoe of Deve Boyun to the east which the
Russian guns were battering. It was just like the kind
of squared artillery map we used in France, i in
10,000, with spidery red lines showing the trenches,
but with the difference that it was the Turkish trenches
that were shown in detail and the Russian only roughly
indicated. The thing was really a confidential plan of
the whole Erzerum enceinte, and would be worth un-
told gold to the enemy. No wonder Stumm had been
in a wax at its loss.

The Deve Boyun lines seemed to me monstrously
strong, and I remembered the merits of the Turk
as a fighter behind strong defences. It looked as if
Russia were up against a second Plevna or a new
Gallipoli.

Then I took to studying the flanks. South lay the
Palantuken range of mountains, with forts defending
the passes, where ran the roads to Mush and Lake
Van. That side, too, looked pretty strong. North
in the valley of the Euphrates I made out two big
forts, Tafta and Kara Gubek, defending the road
from Olti. On this part of the map Stumm's notes
were plentiful, and I gave them all my attention. I
remembered Blenkiron's news about the Russians ad-
vancing on a broad front, for it was clear that Stumm
was taking pains about the flank of the fortress.

Kara Gubek was the point of interest. It stood
on a rib of land between two peaks, which from the

276

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

contour lines rose very steep. So long as it was held
it was clear that no invader could move down the
Euphrates glen. Stumm had appended a note to the
peaks — ''not fortified"; and about two miles to the
north-east there was a red cross and the name ''PrjevaU
sky" I assumed that to be the farthest point yet
reached by the right wing of the Russian attack.

Then I turned to the paper from which Stumm had
copied the jottings on to his map. It was typewritten,
and consisted of notes on different points. One was
headed ''Kara Gubek" and read: "No time to fortify
adjacent peaks. Difficult for enemy to get batteries
there, but not impossible. This is the real point of
danger, for if Prjevalsky wins the peaks Kara Gubek
and Tafta must fall, and enemy will be on left rear of
Deve Boyun main position."

I was soldier enough to see the tremendous impor-
tance of this note. On Kara Gubek depended the
defence of Erzerum, and it was a broken reed if one
knew where the weakness lay. Yet, searching the
map again, I could not believe that any mortal com-
mander would see any chance in the adjacent peaks,
even if he thought them unfortified. That was infor-
mation confined to the Turkish and German staff. But
if it could be conveyed to the Grand Duke he would
have Erzerum in his power in a day. Otherwise he
Vould go on battering at the Deve Boyun ridge for
weeks, and long ere he won it the Gallipoli divisions
would arrive, he would be outnumbered by two to
one, and his chance would have vanished^

My discovery set me pacing up and down that cellar
in a perfect fever of excitement. I longed for wire-
less, a carrier pigeon, an aeroplane — anything to
bridge over that space of half a dozen miles between

277

GREENMANTLE

■

me and the Russian lines. It was maddening to have
stumbled on vital news and to be wholly unable to
use it. How could three fuptives in a cellar, with
the whole hornet's nest of Turkey and Germany stirred
up against them, hope to send this message of life
and death ?

I went back to the map and examined the near-
est Russian positions. They were carefully marked.
Prjevalsky in the north, the main force beyond Deve
Bo}ain, and the southern column up to the passes of
the Palantuken but not yet across them. I could not
know which was nearest to us till I discovered where
we were. And as I thought of this I began to see
the rudiments of a desperate plan. It depended on
Peter, now slumbering like a tired dog on a couch
of straw.

Hussin had locked the door and I must wait for
information till he came back. But suddenly I no-
ticed a trap in the roof, which had evidently been used
for raising and lowering the cellar's stores. It looked
ill-fitting and might be unbarred, so I pulled the table
below it, and found that with a little effort I could
raise the flap. I knew I was taking immense risks,
but I was so keen on my plan that I disregarded them.
After some trouble I got the thing prised open, and
catching the edges of the hole with my fingers raised
my body and got my knees on the edge.

It was the outbuilding of which our refuge was
the cellar, and it was half filled with light. Not a
soul was there, and I hunted about till I found what
I wanted. This was a ladder leading to a sort of
loft, which in turn gave access to the roof. Here I
had to be very careful, for I might be overlooked from
the high buildings. But by good luck there was a

3^78

SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS

trellis for grape vines across the roof, which gave
a kind of shelter. Lying flat on my face I stared
over a great expanse of country.

Looking north I saw the city in a haze of morning
smoke, and beyond, the plain of the Euphrates and
the opening of the glen where the river left the hills.
Up there, among the snowy heights, were Tafta and
Kara Gubek. To the east was the ridge of Deve
Boyun, where the mist was breaking before the win-
ter's sun. On the roads up to it I saw transport mov-
ing, I saw the circle of the inner forts, but for a
moment the guns were silent. South rose a great
wall of white mountain, which I took to be the Palan-
tuken. I could see the roads running to the passes,
and the smoke of camps and horse-lines right under
the cliffs.

I had learned what I needed. We were in the
purlieus of a big country house two or three miles
south of the city. The nearest point of the Russian
front was somewhere in the foothills of the Palantuken.

As I descended I heard, thin and faint and beau-
tiful, like the cry of a wild bird, the muezzin from
the minarets of Erzerum.

When I dropped through the trap the others were
awake. Hussin was setting food on the table, and
viewing my descent with anxious disapproval.

"It's all right," I said; "I won't do it again, for
I've found out all I wanted. Peter, old man, the big-
gest job of your life is before you I'*

279

CHAPTER XIX

GREENMANTLE

PETER scarcely looked up from his breakfast.
"Fm willing, Dick," he said. "But you mustn't
ask me to be friends with Stumm. He makes my
stomach cold, that one."

"Not to be friends with him, but to bust him and all
his kind."

"Then Tm ready," said Peter cheerfully. "What
is it?"

I spread out the map on the divan. There was no
light in the place but Blenkiron's electric torch, for
Hussin had put out the lantern. Peter got hi-s no«e
into the things at once, for his intelligence work in
the Boer War had made him handy with maps. It
didn't want much telling from me to explain to him
the importance of the one I had looted.

"That news is worth many million pounds," said he,
wrinkling his brows, and scratching delicately the tip
of his left ear. It was a way he had when he was
startled.

"How can wc get it to our friends?"

Peter cogitated. "There is but one way. A man
must take it. Once, I remember, when we fought the
Matabele it was necessary to find whether the chief
Makapan was living. Some said he had died, others
that he'd gone over the Portuguese border, but I bc-

280

GREENMANTLE

lieved he lived. No native could tell us, and since
his kraal was well defended no runner could get
through. So it was necessary to send a man."

Peter lifted up his head and laughed. **The man
found the chief Makapan. He was very much alive,
and made good shooting with a shot-gun. But the
man brought the chief Makapan out of his kraal and
handed him over to the Mounted Police. You re-
member Captain ArcoU, Dick — ^Jim ArcoU? Well,
Jim laughed so much that he broke open a wound
in his head, and had to have the doctor."

**You were that man, Peter," I said.

"Ja. I was the man. There are more ways of get-
ting into kraals than there are ways of keeping people
out."

**Will you take this chance?"

"For certain, Dick, I am getting stiff with doing
nothing, and if I sit in houses much longer I shall
grow old. A man bet me five pounds on the ship that
I could not get through a trench-line, and if there
had been a trench-line handy I would have taken him
on. I will be very happy, Dick, but I do not say I
will succeed. It is new country to me, and I will be
hurried, and hurry makes bad stalldng."

I showed him what I thought the likeliest place —
in the spurs of the Palantuken mountains. Peters' way
of doing things was all his own. He scraped earth and
plaster out of a corner and sat down to make a little
model of a landscape on the table, following the
contours of the map. He did it extraordinarily
neatly, for, like all great hunters, he was as deft as a
weaver-bird. He puzzled over it for a long time,
and conned the map till he must have got it by heart.
Then he took his field-glasses — a very good single

281

GREENMANTLE

Zeiss which was part of the spoils from Rasta's
motor-car — and announced that he was going to follow
my example and get on the house-top. Presently his
legs disappeared through the trap, and Blenkiron and
I were left to our reflections.

Peter must have found something uncommon Inter-
esting, for he stayed on the roof the better part of
the day. It was a dull job for us, since there was no
light, and Blenkiron had not even the consolation of
a game of Patience. But for all that he was in good
spirits, for he had had no dyspepsia since we left Con-
stantinople, and announced that he believed he was
at last getting even with his darned duodenum. As
for me I was pretty restless, for I could not imagine
what was detaining Sandy. It was clear that our pres-
ence must have been kept secret from Hilda von
Einem, for she was a pal of Stumm's, and he must
by now have blown the gaff on Peter and me. How
long could this secrecy last? I asked myself. We had
now no sort df protection in the whole outfit. Rasta
and the Turks wanted our blood: so did Stumm and
the Germans; and once the lady found we were de-
ceiving her she would want it most of all. Our only
help was Sandy, and he gave no sign of his existence.
I began to fear that with him, too, things had mis-
carried.

And yet I wasn't really depressed, only impatient.
I could never again get back to the beastly stagna-
tion of that Constantinople week. The guns kept me
cheerful. There was the devil of a bombardment
all day, and the thought that our Allies were thun-
dering there half a dozen miles off gave me a perfectly
groundless hope. If they burst through the defence
Hilda von Einem and her prophet and all our enemies

282

GREENMANTLE

would be overwhelmed in the deluge. And that blessed
chance depended very much on old Peter, now brood-
ing like a pigeon on the house-tops.

It was not till the late afternoon that Hussin ap-
peared again. He took no notice of Peter's absence,
but lit a lantern and set it on the table. Then he
went to the door and waited. Presently a light step
fell on the stairs, and Hussin drew back to let some
one enter. He promptly departed and I heard the
key turn in the lock behind him.

Sandy stood there, but a new Sandy who made Blen-
kiron and me jump to our feet. The pelts and skin-cap
had gone, and he wore instead a long linen tunic
clasped at the waist by a broad girdle. A strange
green turban^ adorned his head, and as he pushed it
back I saw that his hair had been shaved. He looked
like some acolyte — a weary acolyte, for there was no
spring in his walk or nerve in his carriage. He
dropped numbly on the divan and laid his head in his
hands. The lantern showed his haggard eyes with
dark lines beneath them.

"Good God, old man, have you been sick?'* I cried.

"Not sick," he said hoarsely. "My body is right
enough, but the last few days I have been living in
hell."

Blenkiron nodded sympathetically. That was how
he himself would have described the company of the
lady.

I marched across to him and gripped both his
wrists.

"Look at me," I said, "straight in the eyes."

His eyes were like a sleep-walker's, unwinking, un-
seeing. "Great heavens, man, you've been drugged 1"
I said.

283

GREENMANTLE

"Drugged," he cried, with a weary laugh. "Yes,
I have baen drugged, but not by any physic. No
one has been doctoring my food. But you can't go
through hell without getting your eyes red-hot."

I kept my grip on his wrists. "Take your time,
old chap, and tell us about it. Blenkiron and I are
Here, and old Peter's on the roof not far off. We'll
look after you."

"It does me good to hear your voice, Dick," he
said. "It reminds me of clean, honest things."

"They'll come back, never fear. We're at the last
lap now. One more spurt and it's over. You've got
to tell me what the new snag is. Is it that woman?"

He shivered like a frightened colt. "Woman 1"
he cried. "Does a woman drag a man through the
nether-pit? She's a she-devil. Oh, it isn't madness
that's wrong with her. She's as sane as you and as
cool as Blenkiron. Her life is an infernal game of
chess, and she plays with souls for pawns. She is evil
—evil — evil. . . ." And once more he buried his
head in his hands.

It was Blenkiron who brought sense into this hectic
atmosphere. His slow, beloved drawl was an anti-
septic against nerves.

"Say, boy," he said, "I feel just like you about
the lady. But our job is not to investigate her char-
acter. Her Maker will do that good and sure some
day. We've got to figure how to circumvent her, and
for that you've got to tell us what exactly'® been oc-
curring since we parted company."

Sandy pulled himself together with a great effort.

"Greenmantle died that night I saw you. Wc
buried him secretly by her order in the garden of
the villa. Then came the trouble about his suc-

2S4

GREENMANTLE

cessor. . . . The four Ministers would be no party
to a swindle. They were honest men, and vowed that
their task now was to make a tomb for their master
and pray for the rest of their days at his shrine. They
were as immovable as a granite hill, and she knew
it. . . . Then they too died."

"Murdered?" I gasped.

"Murdered ... all four in one morning. I do
not ^ know how, but I helped to bury them. Oh, she
has Germans and Kurds to do her foul work, but their
hands were clean compared to hers. Pity me, Dick,
for I have seen honesty and virtue put to the sham^
bles and have abetted the deed when it was done. It
will haunt me till my dying day."

I did not stop to console him, for my mind was
on fire with his news.

"Then the prophet is gone, and die humbug is
over," I cried. #

"The prophet still lives. She has found a suc-
cessor."

He stood up in his linen tunic.

"Why do I wear these clothes? Because I am
Greenmantle, I am the Kaaba-i-hurriyeh for all Islam.
In three days' time I will reveal myself to my people
and wear on my breast the green ephod of the
prophet."

He broke off with an hysterical laugh.

"Only you see, I won't. I will cut my throat, first."

"Cheer up!" said Blenkiron soothingly. "We'll
find some prettier way than that."

"There is no way," he said; "no way but death.
We're done for, all of us. Hussin got you out of
Stumm's clutches, but you're in danger every moment.

285

GREENMANTLE

At the best you have three days, and then you, too,
will be dead."

I had no words to reply. This change in the bold
and unshakable Sandy took my breath away.

"She made me her accomplice," he went on. "I
should have killed her on the graves of those innocent
men. But instead I did all she asked, and joined in
her game. . . . She was very candid, you know. . . .
She cares no more than Enver for the faith of Islam.
She can laugh at it But she has her own dreams,
and they consume her as a saint is consumed by his
devotion. She has told me them, and if the day in
the garden was hell, the days since have been the in-
nermost fires of Tophet. I think — it is horrible to
say it — ^that she has got some kind of crazy liking for
me. When we have reclaimed the East I am to be
by her side when she rides on her milk-white horse
into Jerusalem. . . . And there have been moments
—only moments, I swear to God — when I have been
fired myself by her madness. . . ."

Sandy's figure seemed to shrink and his voice grew
shrill and wild. It was too much for Blenkiron. He
indulged in a torrent of blasphemy such as I believe
had never before passed his lips.

"I'm damned if I'll listen to this God-darned stuff.
It isn't delicate. You get busy, Major, and pump
some sense into your afflicted friend."

I was beginning to see what had happened. Sandy
was a man of genius — more than anybody I ever
struck — ^but he had the defects of such high-strung,
fanciful souls. He would take more than mortal risks,
and you couldn't scare him by any ordinary terror.
But let his old conscience get cross-eyed, let him find
himself in some situation which in his eyes involved

286

GREENMANTLE

his honour, and he might go stark crazy. The woman,
who roused in me and Blenkiron only hatred, could
catch his imagination and stir in him— for the mo-
ment only — an unwilling response. And then came
bitter and morbid repentance, and the last despera-
tion.

It was no time to mince matters. "Sandy, you old
fool," I cried, "be thankful you have friends to keep
you from playing the fool. You saved my life at
Loos, and I'm jolly well going to get you through this
show. I'm bossing the outfit now, and for all your
damned prophetic manners you've got to take your
orders from me. You aren't going to reveal your-
self to your' people, and still less are you going to
cut your throat. Greenmantle will avenge the mur-
der of his forerunners, and make that bedlamite
woman sorry she was bom. We're going to get clear
away, and inside of a week we'll be having tea with
the Grand Duke Nicholas."

I wasn't bluffing. Puzzled as I was about ways and
means I had still the blind belief that we should win
out And as I spoke two legs dangled through the
trap and a dusty and blinking Peter descended in our
midst.

I took the maps from him and spread them on the
table.

"First, you must know that we've had an almighty
piece of luck. Last night Hussin took us for a walk
over the roofs of Erzerum, and by the blessing of
Providence I got into Stumm's room and bagged his
staff map. . . . Look there . . . d'you see his notes ?
That*s the danger-point of the whole defence. Once
the Russians get that fort, Kara Gubek, they've turned
the main position. And it can be got; Stumm knows

287

GREENMANTLE

it can; for these two adjacent hills are not held. • . .
It looks a mad enterprise on paper, but Stumm knows
that it is possible enough. The question is: Will the
Russians guess that? I say no, not unless some one
tells them. Therefore we've by hook or by croak
got to get that information through to them."

Sandy's interest in ordinary things was beginning
to flicker up again. He studied the map and began
to measure distances.

"Peter's going to have a try for it He thinks
there's a sporting chance of his getting through the
lines. If he does — ^if he gets this map to the Grand
Duke's staff — ^then Stumm's goose is cooked. In
three days the Cossacks will be in the streets of
Erzerum."

"What are the chances?" Sandy asked.

I glanced at Peter. "We're hard-bitten fellows and
can face the truth. I think the chances against suc-
cess are about five to one."

"Two to one," said Peter modestly. "Not worse
than that. I don't think you're fair to me, Dick,
my old friend."

I looked at that lean, tight figure and the gentle,
resolute face, and I changed my mind. "I'm hanged
if I think there are any odds," I said. "With any-
body else it would want a miracle, but with Peter I
believe the chances are level."

"Two to one," Peter persisted. "If it was evens
I wouldn't be interested."

"Let me go," Sandy cried. "I talk the lingo, and
can pass as a Turk, and I'm a million times likelier
to get through. For God's sake, Dick, let me go."

"Not you. You're wanted here. If you disappear
the whole show's busted too soon, and the three of

288

GREENMANTLE

as left behind will be strung up before morning. • . .
No, my son. You're going to escape, but it will be in
company with Blenkiron and me. We've got to blow
the whole Greenmantle business so high that the bits

of it will never come to earth again First, tell

me how many of your fellows will stick by you? I
mean the Companions."

"The whole half-dozen. They are very worried
already about what has happened. She made me
sound them in her presence, and they were quite ready
to accept me as Greenmantle's successor. But they
have their suspicions about what happened at the
villa, and they've no love for the woman. . . . They'd
follow me through hell if I bade them, but they would
rather it was my own show."

"That's all right," I cried. "It is the one thing
I've been doubtful about. Now observe this map.
Erzerum isn't invested by a long chalk. The Rus-
sians are round it in a broad half-moon. That means
that all the west, south-west, and north-west is open
and undefended by trench-lines. There are flanks far
away to the north and south in the hills which can be
turned, and once we get round a flank there's noth-
ing between us and our friends. . . . I've figured out
our road," and I traced it on the map. "If we can
make that big circuit to the west and get over that
pass unobserved we're bound to strike a Russian
column the next day. It'll be a rough road, but I
fancy we've all ridden as bad in our time. But one
thing we must have, and that's horses. Can we and
your six ruflians slip off in the darkness on the best
beasts in this township? If you can manage that,
we'U do the trick."

Sandy sat down and pondered. Thank Heaven, he

2«9

GREENMANTLE

was thinking now of action and not of his own con-
science.

**It must be done," he said at last, "but it won't
be easy. Hussm*s a great fellow, but as you know
well, Dick, horses right up at the battle-front arc not
easy to come by. To-morrow I've got some kind of
infernal fast to observe, and the next day that woman
will be coaching me for my part. We'll have to give
Hussin time. ... I wish to Heaven it could be to-
night." He was silent again for a bit, and then he
said: "I believe the best time would be the third night,
the eve of the Revelation. She's bound to leave me
alone that night."

"Right-o," I said. "It won't be much fun sitting
waiting in this cold sepulchre; but we must keep our
heads and risk nothing by being in a hurry* Besides,
if Peter wins through, the Turk will be a busy man
by the day after to-morrow."

The key turned in the door and Hussin stole in like
a shade. It was the signal for Sandy to leave.

"You fellows have given me a new lease of life,*'
ht said. "I've got a plan now, and I can set my teeth
and stick it out."

He went up to Peter and gripped his hand. "Good
luck. You're the bravest man I've ever met, and I've
seen a few." Then he turned abruptly and went
out, followed by an exhortation from Blenkiron tq
"Get busy about the quadrupeds."

« • . . .

Then we set about equipping Peter for his crusade
It was a simple job, for we were not rich in prop*
erties. His get-up, with his thick fur-collared great*
coat, was not unlike the ordinary Turkish officer seen
in a dim light. But Peter had no intention of pass-

290

GREENMANTLE

ing for a Turk, or indeed of giving anybody the
chance of seeing him, and he was more concerned to
fit in with the landscape. So he stripped off the great-
coat and pulled a grey sweater of mine over his
jacket, and put on his head a woollen helmet of the
same colour. He had no need of the map, for he
had long since got his route by heart, and what was
once fixed in that mind stuck like wax; but I made
him take Stumm's plan and paper, hidden below his
shirt. The big difficulty, I saw, would be getting to
the Russians without being shot, assuming he passed
the Turkish trenches. He could only hope that he
would strike some one with a smattering of English
or German. Twice he ascended to the roof and came
back cheerful, for there was promise of wild weather.

Hussin brought in our supper, and Peter made up
a parcel of food. Blenkiron and I had both small
flasks of brandy and I gave him mine.

Then he held out his hand quite simply, like a good
diild who is going off to bed. It was too much for
Blenkiron. With large tears rolling down his face
he announced that if we all came through, he was
going to fit him into the softest berth that money could
buy. I don't think he was iinderstood, for old Peter's
eyes had now that faraway absorption of the hunter
who has found game. He was thinking only of his
job.

Two legs and a pair of very shabby boots vanished
through the trap, and suddenly I felt utterly lonely
and desperately sad. The guns were beginning to roar
again in the east, and in the intervals came the whistle
of the rising storm.

291

CHAPTER XX

PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

THIS chapter is the tale that Peter told me — ^long
after, sitting beside a stove in the hotel at Ber-
gen, where we were waiting for our boat.

He climbed on the roof and shinned down the
broken bricks of the outer walls. The outbuilding
we were lodged in abutted on a road, and was out-
side the proper enceinte of the house. At ordinary
times I have no doubt there were sentries, but Sandy
and Hussin had probably managed to clear them off
this end for a little. Anyhow he saw nobody as he
crossed the road and dived into the snowy fields.

He knew very well that he must do the job in the
twelve hours of darkness ahead of him. The inune-
diate front of a battle is a bit too public for any one
to lie hidden in by day, especially when two or three
feet of snow make everything kenspeckle. Now hurry
in a job of this kind was abhorrent to Peter's soul,,
for, like all Boers, his tastes were for slowness and
sureness, though he could hustle fast enough when
haste was needed. As he pushed through the winter
fields he reckoned yp the things in his favour, and
found the only one the dirty weather. There was
a high, gusty wind, blowing scuds of snow but never
coming to any great fall. The frost had gone, and

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«.

PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

the lying snow was as soft as butter. That was all
to the good, he thought, for a clear, hard night would
have been the devil.

The first bit was through farmlands, which were
seamed with little snow-filled water-furrows. Now
and then would come a house and a patch of fruit
trees, but there was nobody abroad. The roads were
crowded enough, but Peter had no use for roads. I
can picture him swinging along with his bent back,
stopping every now and then to sniff and listen, alert
for the foreknowledge of danger. When he chose
he could cover country like an antelope.

Soon he struck a big road full of transports. It
was the road from Erzerum to the Palantuken pass,
and he waited his chance and crossed it. After that
the ground grew rough with boulders and patches of
thorn-trees, splendid cover where he could move fast
without worrying. Then he was pulled up suddenly
on the bank af a river. The map had warned him
of it, but not that it would be so big.

It was a torrent swollen with melting snow and
rains in the hills, and it was running fifty yards wide.
Peter thought he could have swum it, but he was
very averse to a drenching. "A wet man makes too
much noise,'* he said, and besides, there was the off-
chance that the current would be too much for him.
So he moved up stream to look for a bridge.

In ten minutes he found one, a new-made thing of
trestles, broad enough to take transport wagons. It
was guarded, for he heard the tramp of a sentry, and
as he pulled himself up the bank he observed a couple
of long wooden huts, obviously some kind of billets.
These were on the near side of the stream, about
a dozen yards from the bridge. A door stood open

293

GREENMANTLE

and a light showed in it, and from within came the
sound of voices. . . . Peter had a sense of hearing
like a wild animal, and he could detect even from the
confused gabble that the voices were German.

As he lay and listened some one came over the
bridge. It was an officer, for the sentry saluted. The
man disappeared in one of the huts. Peter had struck
the billets and repairing-shop of a squad of German
sappers.

He was just going ruefully to retrace his steps and
try to find a good place to swim the stream when it
struck him that the officer who had passed him wore
clothes very like his own. He, too, had had a grey
sweater and a Balaclava helmet, for even a German
officer ceases to be dressy on a mid-winter's night in
Anatolia. The idea came to Peter to walk boldly
across the bridge and trust to the sentry not seeing
the difference.

He slipped round a comer of the hut and marched
down the road. The sentry was now at the far end,
which was lucky, for if the worst came to the worst
he could throttle him. Peter, mimicking the stiff Ger-
man walk, swung past him, his head down as if to
protect him from the wind.

The man saluted. He did more, for he offered con-
versation. The officer must have been a genial soul.
"It's a rough night, Captain," he said in German.
"The wagons are late. Pray God, Michael hasn't
got a shell in his lot. They've begun putting over
some big ones."

Peter grunted good-night in German and strode on.
He was just leaving the road when he heard a great
huUoo behind him.

The real officer must have appeared on his heels,

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PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

and the sentry's doubts had been stirred. A whistle
was blown, and, looking back, Peter saw lanterns wav-
ing in the gale. They were coming out to look for
the duplicate.

He stood still for a second, and noticed the lights
spreading out south of the road. He was just about
to dive off it on the north side when he was aware
of a difficulty. On that side a steep bank fell to a
ditch, and the bank beyond bounded a big fiood. He
could see the dull ruffle of the water under the wind.

On the road itself he would soon be caught; south
of it the sr^rrii was beginning; and the ditch itself
was no place to hide, for he saw a lantern moving
up it. Peter dropped into it all * the same and made
a p|an. The side uelow the road was a little under-
cut and very steep. He resolved to plaster himself
against it, for he would be hidden from the road,
and a searcher in the ditch would not be likely to
explore the unbroken sides. It was always a maxim
of Peter's that the best hiding-place was the worst,
the least obvious to the minds of those who were
looking for you.

He waited till the lights both in the road and the
ditch came nearer, and then he gripped the edge with
his left hand, where some stones gave him purchase,
dug the toes of his boots into the wet soil, and stuck
like a limpet. It needed some strength to keep the
position for long, but the muscles of his arms and
legs were like whipcord.

The searcher in the ditch soon got tired, for the
place was very wet, and joined his comrades on the
road. They came along, running, flashing the lan-
terns into the trench, and exploring all the inmiediate
countryside.

295

GREENMANTLE

Then rose a noise of wheels and horses from the
opposite direction. Michael and the delayed wagons
were approaching. They dashed up at a great pace,
driven wildly, and for one horrid second Peter thought
they were going to spill into the ditch at the very spot
where he was concealed. The wheels passed so dose
to the edge that they almost grazed his fingers. Some-
body shouted an order and they pulled up a yard or
two nearer the bridge. The others came up and there
was a consultation.

Michael swore he had passed no one on the road.

*^That fool Hannus has seen a ghost/' said the
officer testily. "It's too cold for this child's play."

Hannus, almost in tears, repeated his tale. "The
man spoke to me in good German," he cried.

"Ghost or no ghost he is safe enough up the road,"
said the officer. "Kind God, that was a big one!"
He stopped and stared at a shell-burst, for the bom-
bardment from the east was growing fiercer.

They stood discussing the fire for a minute and
then moved off. Peter gave them two minutes' law
and then clambered back to the highway and set
off along it at a run. The noise of the shelling and
the wind, together with the thick darkness, made it
safe to hurry.

He left the road at the first chance and took to the
broken country. The ground was now rising towards
a spur of the Palantuken, on the far slope of which
were the Turkish trenches. The night had begun by
being pretty nearly as black as pitch; even the smoke
from the shell explosions, which is often visible in
darkness, could not be seen. But as the wind blew
the snow-clouds athwart the sky patches of stars came
out Peter had a compass, but he didn't need to use

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PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

it, for he had a kind of "feel" for landscape, a special
sense which is bom in savages and can be acquired
after long experience by the white man. I believe he
could smell where the north lay. He had settled
roughly which part of the line he would try, merely
because of its nearness to the enemy. But he might
see reason to vary this, and as he moved he began
to think that the safest place was where the shelling
was hottest. He didn't like the notion, but it sounded
sense.

Suddenly he began to puzzle over queer things in
the ground, and, as he had never seen big guns be-
fore, it took him a moment to fix them. Presently one
went off at his elbow with a roar like the Last Day.
These were the Austrian howitzers — ^nothing over
8-inch, I fancy, but to Peter they looked like leviathans.
Here, too, he saw for the first time a big and quite
recent shell-hole, for the Russian guns were searching
out the position. 'He was so interested in it all that
he poked his nose where he shouldn't have been, and
dropped plump into the pit behind a gun-emplace-
ment.

Gunners all the world over are the same — shy
people, who hide themselves in holes and hibernate
and mortally dislike being detected.

A gruff voice cried *'JVer daf^ and a heavy hand
seized his neck.

Peter was ready with his story. He belonged to
Michael's wagon-team and had been left behind. He
wanted to be told the way to the sappers' camp. He
was very apologetic, not to say obsequious.

"It is one of those Prussian swine from the Marta
Bridge," said a gunner. "Land him a kick to teach

297

GREENMANTLE

him sense. Bear to your right, mannikin, and you
will find a road. And have a care when you get there,
•for the Russkoes are registering on it."

Peter thanked them ^nd bore off to the right.
After that he kept a wary eye on the howitzers, and
was thankful when he got out of their area on to
the slopes up the hill. Here was the type of country
that was familiar to him, and he defied any Turk or
Boche to spot him among the scrub and boulders.
He was getting on very well, when once more, close
to his ear, came a sound like the crack of doom.

It was the field-guns now, and the sound of a field-
gun close at hand is bad for the nerves if you aren't
expecting it. Peter thought he had been hit, and
lay flat for a little to consider. Then he found the
right explanation, and crawled forward very warily.

Presently he saw his first Russian shell. It dropped
half a dozen yards to his right, making a great hole
in the snow and sending up a mass of mixed earth,
snow, and broken stones. Peter spat out the dirt and
felt very solemn. You must remember that never in
his life had he seen big shelling, and was now being
landed in the thick of a first-class show without any
preparation. He said he felt cold in his stomach,
and very wishful to run away, if there had been any-
where to run to. But he kept on to the crest of the
ridge, over which a big glow was broadening like
a sunrise. There he got his face between two boulders
and looked over into the true battle-field.

He told me it was exactly what the predikant used
to say that Hell would be like. About fifty yards
down the slope lay the Turkish trenches — ^they were
quite dark against the snow, and now and then a
black figure like a devil showed for an instant and dis-

298

PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

appeared. The Turks clearly expected an infantry
attack, for they were sending up calcium rockets and
Verey flares- The Russians were battering their line
and spraying all the hinterland, not with shrapnel,
but with good, solid high-explosives. The place would
be as bright as day for a moment, all smothered in
a scurry of smoke and snow and debris, and then
a black pall would fall on it, when only the thunder
of the guns told of the battle.

Peter felt very sick. He had not believed there
could be so much noise in the world, and the drums
of his ears were splitting. Now, for a man to whom
courage is habitual, the taste of fear — naked, utter
fear — is a horrible thing. It seems to wash away all
his manhood. Peter lay on the crest, watching the
shells burst, and confident that any moment he might
be a shattered remnant. He lay and reasoned with
himself, calling himself every name he could think
of, but conscious that nothing would get rid of that
lump of ice below his heart.

Then he could stand it no longer. He got up and
ran for his life.

But he ran forward.

It was the craziest performance. He went hell-for-
leather over a piece of ground which was being wa-
tered with H.E., but by the mercy of Heaven noth-
ing hit him. He took some fearsome tosses in shell-
holes, but partly erect and partly on all fours he did
the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish trench right
on the top of a dead man.

The contact with that body brought him to his
senses. That men could die at all seemed a comfort-^
ing, homely thing after that unnatural pandemonium.

299

GREENMANTLE

The next moment a crump took the parapet of the
trench some yards to his left, and he was half buried
in an avalandie.

He crawled out of that, pretty badly cut about the
head. He was quite cool now and thinking hard about
his next step. There were men all around him, sullen
dark faces as he saw them when the fiares went up.
They were manning the parapets and waiting tenseljr
for something else than the shelling. They paid no
attention to him, for I fancy in that trench units were
pretty well mixed up, and under a bad bombardment
no one bothers about his neighbour. He found him-
self free to move as he pleased. The ground of the
trench was littered with empty cartridge-cases, and
there were many bodies.

The last shell, as I have said, had played havoc with
the parapet. In the next spell of darkness Peter
crawled through the gap and twisted among some
snowy hillocks. He was no longer afraid of shells,
any more than he was afraid of a veld thunder-storm.
But he was wondering very hard how he should ever
get to the Russians. The Turks were behind him
now, but there was the biggest danger in front.

Then the artillery ceased. It was so sudden that
he thought he had gone deaf, and could hardly realise
the blessed relief of it. The wind, too, seemed to have
fallen, or perhaps he was sheltered by the lee of the
hill. There were a lot of dead here also, and that
he couldn't understand, for they were new dead. Had
the Turks attacked and been driven back? When he
had gone about thirty yards he stopped to take his
bearings. On the right were the ruins of a lat^e
building set on fire by the guns. There was a blur
of woods and the debris of walls round it. Away

300

^ETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

to the left another hill ran out farther to the east,
and the place he was in seemed to be a kind of cup
between die spurs. Just before him was a little ruined
building, with the sky seen through its rafters, for the
smouldering ruin on the right gave a certain light. He
wondered if the Russian firing-line lay there.

Just then he heard voices — smothered voices — ^not
a yard away and apparently below the ground. He
instantly jumped to what this must mean. It was
a Turkish trench— -a communication trench. Peter
didn't know much about modem war, but he had read
in the papers, or heard from me, enough to make him
draw the right moral. The fresh dead pointed to
the same conclusion. What he had got through were
the Turkish support trenches, not their firing-line.
That was still before him.

He didn't despair, for the rebound from panic had
made him extra courageous. He crawled forward, an
inch at a time, taking no sort of risks, and presently
found himself looking at the parados of a trench.
Then he lay quiet to think out the next step.

The shelling had stopped, and there was that queer
kind of peace which falls sometimes on two armies
not a quarter of a mile distant. Peter said he could
hear nothing but the far-off sighing of the wind.
There seemed to be no movement of any kind in the
trench before him, which ran through the ruined build-
ing. The light of the burning was dying, and he could
just make out the mound of earth a yard in front.
He began to feel hungry, and got out his packet of
food and had a swig at the brandy fiask. That com-
forted him, and he felt a master of his fate again.
But the next step was not so easy. He must find out
what lay behind that mound of earth.

301

GREENMANTLE

Suddenly a curious sound fell on his ears. It wat
so faint that at first he doubted the evidence of his
senses. Then as the wind fell it came louder. It was
exactly like some hollow piece of metal being struck
by a stick, musical and oddly resonant.

He concluded it was the wind blowing a branch of
a tree against an old boiler in the ruin before him.
The trouble was that there was scarcely enough wind
now for that in this sheltered cup.

But as he listened he caught the note again. It
was a belly a fallen bell, and the place before him
must have been a chapel. He remembered that an
Armenian monastery had been marked on the big map,
and he guessed it was the burned building on his
right.

The thought of a chapel and ti bell gave him the
notion of some human agency. And then suddenly
the notion was confirmed. The sound was regular and
concerted — dot, dash, dot — dash, dot, dot. The
branch of a tree and the wind may play strange
pranks, but they do not produce the longs and shorts
of the Morse Code.

This was where Peter's intelligence work in the
Boer War helped him. He knew the Morse, he could
read it, but he could make nothing of the signalling.
It was either in some special code or in a strange
language.

He lay still and did some calm thinking. There
was a man in front of him, a Turkish soldier, who
was in the enemy's pay. Therefore he could frater-
nise with him, for they were on the same side. But
how was he to approach him without getting shot in
the process? Again, how could a man send signals
to the enemy from a firing-line without being detected?

302

PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

Peter found an answer in the strange configuration
of the ground. He had not heard a sound till he
was a few yards from the place, and they would be
inaudible to men in the reserve trenches and even in
the communication trenches. If somebody moving up
the latter caught the noise, it would be easy to explain
it naturally. But the wind blowing down the cup would
carry it far in the enemy's direction.

There remained the risk of being heard by those
parallel with the bell in the firing trenches. Peter
concluded that that trench must be very thinly held,
probably only by a few observers, and the nearest
might be a dozen yards off. He had read about that
being the French fashion under a big bombardment.

The next thing was to find out how to make him-
self known to this ally. He decided that the only way
was to surprise him. He might get shot, but
he trusted to his strength and agility against a man
who was almost certainly wearied. When he had got
him safe, explanations might follow.

Peter was now enjoying himself hugely. If only
those infernal guns kept silent he would play out the
game in the sober, decorous way he loved. So very
delicately he began to wriggle forward to where the
sound was.

The night was now as black as ink round him, and
very quiet, too, except for soughings of the dying
gale. The snow had drifted a little in the lee of the
ruined walls, and Peter's progress was naturally very
slow. He could not afford to dislodge one ounce of
snow. Still the tinkling went on, now in greater vol-
ume, and Peter was in terror lest it should cease
before he got his man.

Presently his hand clutched at empty space. He

303

GREENMANTLE

was on the lip of the front trench. The sound was
now a yard to his right, and with infinite care he
shifted his position. Now the bell was just below him,
and he felt the big rafter of the woodwork from which
it had fallen. He felt something else — a stretch of
wire fixed in the ground with the far end hanging
in the void. That would be the spy*s explanation if
any one heard the sound and came seeking the
cause.

Somewhere in the darkness before and below him
was the man, not a yard off. Peter remained very
still, studying the situation. He could not see, but
he could feel the presence, and he was trying to de-
cide the relative position of man and bell and their
exact distance from him. The thing was not so easy
as it looked, for if he jumped for where he believed
the figure was^ he might miss it and get a bullet in
the stomach. A man who played so risky a game
was probably handy with his firearms. Besides, if
he should hit the bell, he would make a hideous row
and alarm the whole front.

Fate suddenly gave him the right chance. The un-
seen figure stood up and moved a step, till his back
was against the parados.' He actually brushed against
Peter's elbow, who held his breath.

There is a catch which the Kaffirs have which would
need several diagrams to explain. It is partly a neck
hold, and partly a paralysing backward twist of the
right arm, but if it is practised on a man from be-
hind, it locks him as sure as if he were handcuffed.
Peter slowly got his body raised and his knees drawn
under him, and reached for his prey.

He got him. A head was pulled backward over
the edge of the trench, and he felt in the air the mo-

304

PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

tion of the left arm pawing feebly but unable to reach
behind.

"Be still," whispered Peter in German; "I mean
you no harm. We are friends of the same purpose.
Do you speak German?"

^'Nein/^ said a muffled voice.

"English?"

"Yes," said the voice.

"Thank God," said Peter. "Then we can under-
stand each other. Fve watched your notion of sig-
nalling, and a very good one it is. Fve got to get
through to the Russian lines somehow before morn-
ing, and I want you to help me. Fm English —
a kind of English, so weVe on the same side. If I
let go your neck will you be good and talk reason-
ably?"

The voice assented. Peter let go, and in the same
instant slipped to the side. The man wheeled round
and flung out an arm but gripped vacancy.

"Siteady, friend," said Peter; "you mustn't play
tricks with me or FU be angry."

"Who are you? Who sent you?" asked the puz-
zled voice.

Peter had a happy thought. "The Companions of
the Rosy Hours," he said.

"Then are we friends indeed," said the voice.
"Come out of the darkness, friend, and I will do you
no harm. I am a good Turk, but I fought beside the
English in Kordofan, and I learned their tongue. I
live only to see the ruin of Enver, who has beggared
my family and slain my twin brother. Therefore I
serve the Muscov ghiaours/*

"I don't know what the Musky Jaws are, but if
you mean the Russians Fm with you. Fve got news

305

GREENMANTLE

for them which will make Envcr green. The ques-
tion is, how I'm to get to them, and that is where
you shall help me, my friend."

"How?"

"By playing that little tune of yours again. Tell
them to expect within the next half-hour a deserter
with an important message. Tell them, for God's
sake, not to fire at anybody till they've made certain
it isn't me."

The man took the blunt end of his bayonet and
squatted beside the bell. The first stroke brought
out a clear, searching note which floated down the
valley. He struck three notes at slow intervals. For
all the world, Peter said, he was like a telegraph oper-
ator calling up a station.

"Send the message in English," said Peter.

"They may not understand it," said the man.

"Then send it anyway you like. I trust you, for
we are brothers."

After ten minutes the man ceased and listened.
From far away came the sound of a trench-gong,
the kind of thing they used on the Western Front to
give the gas-alarm.

"They say they will be ready," he said. "I cannot
take down messages in the darkness, but they have
given me the signal which means ^Consent.' '*

"Come, that is pretty good," said Peter. "And now
I must be moving. You take a hint from me. When
you hear big firing up to the north get ready to beat
a quick retreat, for it will be all up with that city
of yours. And tell your folk, too, that they're making
a bad mistake letting these fool Germans rule their
land. Let them hang Enver and his little friends,
and we'll all be happy once more."

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PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

"May Satan receive his soul 1" said the Turk.
"There is wire before us, but I will show you a way
through. The guns this evening made many rents in
it. But haste, for a working party may be here pres-
ently to repair it. Remember there is much wire be-
fore the other lines."

Peter, with certain directions, found it pretty easy
to make his way through the entanglement. There
was one bit which scraped a hole in his back, but
very soon he had come to the last posts and found
himself in the open country. The place, he said,
was a graveyard of the unburied dead that smelt
horribly as he crawled among them. He had no in-
ducements to delay, for he thought he could hear
behind him the movement of the Turkish working
party, and was in terror that a flare might reveal him
and a volley accompany his retreat.

From one shell-hole to another he wormed his way,
till he struck an old ruinous communication trench
which led in the right direction. The Turks must
have been forced back in the past week, and the Rus-
sians were now in their former trenches. The thing
was half full of water, but it gave Peter a feeling
of safety, for it enabled him to get his head below
the level of the ground. Then it came to an end
and he found before him a forest of wire.

The Turk in his signal had mentioned half an hour,
but Peter thought it was nearer two hours before he
got through that noxious entanglement. Shelling had
made little difference to it. The uprights were all
there, and the barbed strands seemed to touch the
ground. Remember, he had no wire-cutter; nothing
but his bare hands. Once again fear got hold of him.
He felt caught in a net, with monstrous vultures wait-

307

GREENMANTLE

ing to pounce on him from above. At any moment
a flare might go up and a dozen rifles find their mark.
He had altogether forgotten about the message which
had been sent, for no message could dissuade the ever-
present death he felt around him. It was, he said,
like following an old lion into bush when there was
but one narrow way in, and no road out.

The guns began again — the Turkish guns from be-
hind the ridge — and a shell tore up the wire a short
way before him. Under cover of the burst he made
good a few yards, leaving large portions of his cloth*
ing in the strands. Then quite suddenly, when hope
had almost died in his heart, he felt the ground rise
steeply. He lay very still, a star-rocket from the Turk-
ish side lit up the place, and there in front was a
rampart with the points of bayonets showing beyond
it. It was the Russian hour for stand-to.
. He raised his cramped limbs from the ground and
shouted, "Friend! English 1"

A face looked down at him, and then the darkness
again descended.

"Friend," he said hoarsely. "English."

He heard speech behind the parapet. An electric
torch was flashed on him for a second. A voice spoke,
a friendly voice, and the sound of it seemed to be
telling him to come over.

He was now standing up^ and as he got his hands
on the parapet he seemed to feel bayonets very near
him. But the voice that spoke was kindly, so with a
heave he scrambled over and flopped into the trench.
Once more the electric torch was flashed and revealed
to the eyes of the onlookers an indescribably dirty,
lean, middle-aged man with a bloody head, and scarcely

308

PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS

a rag of shirt on his back. The said man, seeing
friendly faces arOund him, grinned cheerfully.

"That was a rough trek, friends," he said; "I want
to see your general pretty quick, for I've got a present
for him."

He was taken to an officer in a dug-out, who
addressed him in French, which he did not understand.
But the sight of Stumm's plan worked wonders. After
that he was fairly bundled down communication
trenches and then over swampy fields to a farm among
trees. There he found staff officers, who looked at
him and looked at his map, and then put him on a
horse and hurried him eastwards. At last he came
to a big ruined house, and was taken into a room
which seemed to be full of maps and generals.

The conclusion must be told in Peter's words.

'^There was a big man sitting at a table drinking
coffee, and when I saw him my heart jumped out of
my skin. For it was the man I hunted with on the
Pungwe in '98 — him whom the Kaffirs called 'Buck's
Horn,' because of his long curled moustaches. He was
a prince even then, and now he is a very great general.
When I saw him, I ran forward and gripped his hand
and cried, ''Hoe gat hat, Mynheerf and he knew me
and shouted in Dutch, 'Damn, if it isn't old Peter
Pienaar I' Then he gave me coffee and ham and good
bread, and he looked at my map.

What is this ?' he cried, growing red in the face.
'It is the staff-map of one Stumm, a German
skellum who commands in yon city,' I said.

"He looked at it close and read the markings, and
then he read the other paper which you gave me,
Dick. And then he fiung up his arms and laughed.
He took a loaf and tossed it into the air so that it

309

GREENMANTLE

fell on the head of another general. He spoke to
them in their own tongue, and they too laughed, and
one or two ran out as if on some errand. I have never
seen such merrymaking. They were clever men, and
knew the worth of what you gave me.

^^Then he got to his feet and hugged me, all dirty
as I was, and kissed me on both cheeks.

** 'Before God, Peter,' he said, 'you're the mightiest
hunter since Nimrod. YouVe often found me game^
but never game so big as thisT "

310

CHAPTER XXI

THE LITTLE HILL

IT was a wise man who said that the biggest kind
of courage was to be able to sit still. I used to feel
that when we were getting shelled in the reserve
trenches before Vermelles. I felt it before we went
over the parapets at Loos, but I never felt it so much
as on the last two days in that cellar. I had simply
to set my teeth and take a pull on myself. Peter
had gone on a crazy errand which I scarcely believed
could come off. There were no signs of Sandy; some-
where within a hundred yards he was fighting his
own battles, and I was tormented by the thought that
he might get jumpy again and wreck everything. A
strange Companion brought us food, a man who spoke
only Turkish and could tell us nothing; Hussin, I
judged, was busy about the horses. If I could only have
done something to help on matters I could have scotched
my anxiety, but there was nothing to be done, nothing
but wait and brood. I tell you I began to sympathise
with the general behind the lines in a battle, the fellow
who makes the plan which others execute. Leading a
charge can be nothing like so nerve-shaking a business
as sitting in an easy-chair and waiting on the news
of it.

It was bitter cold, and we spent most of the day
wrapped in our greatcoats and buried deep in the

311

GREENMANTLE

straw. Blenkiron was a marvel. There was no light
for him to play Patience by, but he never complained.
He slept a lot of the time, and when he was awake
talked as cheerily as if he were starting out on a holi-
day. He had one great comfort, his dyspepsia was
gone. He sang hymns constantly to the benign Provi-
dence that had squared his duo-denum.

My only occupation was to listen for the guns. The
first day after Peter left they were very quiet on
the front nearest us, but in the late evening tiiey started
a terrific racket. The next day they never stopped
from dawn to dusk, so that it reminded me of that
tremendous forty-eight hours before Loos. I tried to
read into this some proof that Peter had got through,
but it would not work. It looked more like the oppo-
site, for this desperate hammering must mean that the
frontal assault was still the Russian game.

Two or three times I climbed on the housetop for
fresh air. The day was foggy and damp, and I could
see very little of the countryside. Transport was still
bumping southward along the road to the Palantuken,
and the slow wagon4oads of wounded returning. One
thing I noticed, however. There was a perpetual
coming and going between the house and the city.
Motors and mounted messengers were constantly ar-
riving and departing, and I concluded that Hilda von
Einem was getting ready for her part in the defence
of Erzerum.

These ascents were all on the first day after Peter*s
going. The second day, when I tried the trap, I found
it closed and heavily weighted. This must have been
done by our friends, and very right too. If the house
were becoming a place of public resort, it would never
do for me to be journeying roofward.

312

THE LITTLE HILL

Late on the second night Hussin reappeared. It
was after supper, when Blenkiron had gone peace-
fully to sleep and I was beginning to count the hours
till the morning. I could not close an eye during these
days and not much at night.

Hussin did not light a lantern. I heard his key in
the lock, and then his light step close to where we lay.

"Are you asleep?" he said, and when I answered
he sat down beside me.

**The horses are found," he said, "and the Master
bids me tell you that we start in the morning three
hours before dawn."

It was welcome news. "Tell me what is happen-
ing," I begged; "we have been lying in this tomb for
three days and heard nothing."

"The guns are busy," he said. "The AUemans come
to this place every hour, I know not for what. Also
there has been a great search for you. The searchers
have been here, but they were sent away empty. . . .
Sleep, my lord, for there is wild work before us."

I did not sleep much, for I was strung too high
with expectation, and I envied Blenkiron his now
eupeptic slumbers. But for an hour or so I dropped
off, and my old nightmare came back. Once again
I was in the throat of a pass, hotly pursued, strain-
ing for some sanctuary which I knew I could not
reach; But I was no longer alone. Others were with
me : how many I could not tell, for when I tried to
see their faces they dissolved in mist. Deep snow was
underfoot, a grey sky was over us, black peaks were
on all sides, but ahead in the mist of the pass was
that curious castrol which I had first seen in my dream
on the Erzerum road.

I saw it distinct in every detail. It rose to the

313

GREENMANTLE

left of the road through the pass^ above a hollow
where great boulders stood out in the snow. Its sides
were steep, so that the snow had slipped off in patches,
leaving stretches of glistening black shale. The kranz
at the top did not rise sheer, but sloped at an angle
of forty-five, and on the very summit there seemed
a hollow, as if the earth within the rock-rim had been
beaten by weather into a cup. That is often the way
with a South African castrol, and I knew it was so
with this. We were straining for it, but the snow
clogged us, and our enemies were very close behind.

Then I was awakened by a figure at my side. "Get
ready, my lord," it said; "it is the hour to ride."

Like sleep-walkers we moved into the sharp air.
Hussin led us out of an old postern and then through
a place like an orchard to the shelter of some tall
evergreen trees. There horses stood, diamping qui-
etly from their nose-bags. "Good," I thought; "a
feed of oats before a big effort."

There were nine beasts for nine riders. We
mounted without a word and filed through a grove
of trees to where a broken paling marked the be^n-
ning of cultivated land. There for the matter of
twenty minutes Hussin chose to guide us through deep,
\ clogging snow. He wanted to avoid any sound till

we were well beyond earshot of the house. Then we
struck a by-path which presently merged in a hard high-
way, running, as I judged, south-west by west. There
we delayed no longer, but galloped furiously into
the dark.

I had got back all my exhilaration. Indeed I was
intoxicated with the movement, and could have laughed
out loud and sung. Under the black canopy of the

314

THE LITTLE HILL

night perils are either forgotten or terribly alive.
Mine were forgotten. The darkness I galloped into
led me to freedom and friends. Yes, and successi
which I had not dared to hope and scarcely even to
dream of.

Hussin rode first, with me at his side. I turned my
head and saw Blenkiron behind me, evidently mor-
tally unhappy about rfie pace we rode and the mount
he sat. He used to say that horse-exercise was good
for his liver, but it was a gentle amble and a short
gallop that he liked, and not this mad helter-skelter.
His thighs were too round to fit a saddle-leather. We
passed a fire in a hollow, the bivouac of some Turk-
ish unit, and all the horses shied violently. I knew
by Blenkiron^s oaths that he had lost his stirrups and
was sitting on his horse's neck.

Beside him rode a tall figure swathed to the eyes
in wrappings, and wearing round his neck some kind
of shawl whose ends floated behind him. Sandy, of
course, had no European ulster, for it wM months
since he had worn proper clothes. I wanted to speak
to him, but somehow I did not dare. His stillness for-
bade me. He was a wonderful fine horseman, with
his firm English hunting seat, and it was as well, for
he paid no attention to his beast. His head was still
full of unquiet thoughts.

Then the air around me began to smell acrid am]
raw, and I saw that a fog was winding up from the
hollows.

"Herc*s the devil's own luck," I cried to Hussin.
"Can you guide us in a mist?"

"I do not know." He shook his head. "I had
counted on seeing the shape of the hills."

GREENMANTLE

"We've a map and a compass, anyhow. But those
make slow travelling. Pray God it lifts 1''

Presently the black vapour changed to grey, and
the day broke. It was little comfort. The fog rolled
in waves to the horses' ears, and riding at the head
of the party I could but dimly see the next rank.

"It is time to leave the road," said Hussin, "or we
may meet inquisitive folk."

We struck to the left, over ground which was for
all the world like a Scotch moor. There were pools
of rain on it, and masses of tangled snow-laden juni-
pers, and long reefs of wet slaty stone. It was bad
going, and the fog made It hopeless to steer a good
course. I had out the map and the compass, and
tried to fix our route so as to round the flank of a
spur of the mountains which separated us from the
valley we were aiming at.

"There's a stream ahead of us," I said to Hussin.
"Is it fordable?"

"It is only a trickle," he said, coughing. "This
accursed mist is from Eblis." But I knew long be-
fore we reached it that it was no trickle. It was a
hill stream coming down in spate, and, as I soon
guessed, in a deep ravine. Presently we were at its
edge, one long whirl of yeasty falls and brown rapids.
We could as soon get horses over it as to the top-
most cliffs of the Palaiituken.

Hussin stared at it in consternation. "May Allah
forgive my folly, for I should have known. We must
return to the highway and find a bridge. My sorrow,
that I should have led my lords so ill."

Back over that moor we went with my spirits badly
damped. We had none too long a start, and Hilda
von Einem would rouse heaven and earth to catch

316

THE LITTLE HILL

us up. Hussin was forcing the pace, for his anxiety
was as great as mine.

Before we reached the road the mist blew back and
showed a wedge of country right across to the hills
beyond the river. It was a clear view, every object
standing out wet and sharp in the light of morning.
It showed the bridge with horsemen drawn up across
it, and it showed, too, cavalry pickets moving down
the road.

They saw us at the same instant. A word was
passed down the road, a shrill whistle blew, and the
pickets put their horses at the bank and started across
the moor.

"Did I not say this mist was from Eblis ?" growled
Hussin, as we swung round and galloped on our
tracks. "These cursed Zaptiehs have seen us, and
our road is cut.'*

I was for trying the stream at all costs, but Hussin
pointed out that it would do us no good. The cavalry
beyond the bridge were moving up the other bank.
"There is a path through the hills that I know, but
it must be travelled on foot. If we can increase
our lead and the mist cloaks us, there is yet a chance."

It was a weary business plodding up to the skirts of
the hills. We had the pursuit behind us now, and that
put an edge on every difficulty. There were long banks
of broken screes, I remember, where the snow slipped
in wreaths from under our feet. Great boulders had
to be circumvented, and patches of bog, where the
streams from the snows first made contact with the
plains, mired us to our girths. Happily the mist was
down again, but this, though it hindered the chase,
lessened the chances of Hussin finding the .path.

He found it neV^ertheless. There was the gully and

317

GREENMANTLE

the rough mule-track leading upwards. But there also
had been a landslip, quite recent from the marks. A
large scar of raw earth had broken across the hill-
side, which with the snow above it looked like a slice
cut out of an iced chocolate-cake.

We stared blankly for a second, till we recognised
its hopelessness.

"I'm for trying the crags," I said. "Where there
once was a way another can be found.'*

"And be picked off at their leisure by these marks-
men," said Hussin grimly. "Lookl"

The mist had opened again, and a glance behind
showed me the pursuit closing up on us. They were
now less than three hundred yards off. We turned
our horses and made off eastward along the skirts
of the cliffs.

Then Sandy spoke for the first time. "I don't know
how you fellows feel, but I'm not going to be takeni.
There's nothing much to do except to find a good place
and put up a fight. We can sell our lives dearly."

"That's about all," said Blenkiron cheerfully. He
had suffered such tortures on that gallop that he wel-
comed any kind of stationary fight.

"Serve out the arms," said Sandy.

The Companions all carried rifles slung across their
shoulders. Hussin, from a deep saddle-bag, brought
out rifles and bandoliers for the rest of us. As I
laid mine across my saddle-bow I saw it was a Ger-
man Mauser of the latest pattern.

"It's hell-for-leather till we find a place for a stand,"
said Sandy. "The game's against us this time."

Once more we entered the mist, and presently found
better going on a long stretch of even slope. Then
came a^ rise, and on the crest of it I saw the sun. Pres*

318

.AE^

jiir.

THE LITTLE HILL

ently we dipped into bright daylight and looked down
on a broad glen, with a road winding up it to a pass
in the range. I had expected this. It was one way
to the Palantuken pass, some miles south of the house
where we had been lodged.

I And then, as I looked southward, I saw what I had
been watching for for' days. A little hill split the val-
ley, and on its top was a kranz of rocks. It was the
castrol of my persistent dream.

On that I promptly took charge. "There's our
fort," I cried. **If we once get there we can hold
it for a week. Sit down and ride for it."

We bucketed down that hillside like men possessed,
even Blenkiron sticking on manfully among the twists
and turns and slithers. Presently we were on the road
and were racing past marching infantry and gun teams
and empty wagons. I noted that all seemed to be
moving downward and none going up. Hussin
screamed some words in Turkish that secured us a
passage, but indeed our crazy speed left them staring.
Out of a comer of my eye I saw that Sandy had flung
off most of his wrappings and seemed to be all a daz-
zle of rich colour. But I had thought for nothing ex-
cept the little hill, now almost fronting us across the
shallow glen.

No horses could breast that steep. We urged them
into the hollow, and then hastily dismounted, humped
the packs, and began to struggle up the side of the
castrol. It was strewn with great boulders, which gave
a kind of cover that very soon was needed. For,
snatching a glance back, I saw that our pursuers were
on the road above us and were getting ready to
shoot.

At normal times we would have been easy marks,

319

GREENMANTLE

but, fortunately, wisps and streamers of mist now
clung about that hollow. The rest could fend for
themselves, so I stuck to Blenkiron and dragged him,
wholly breathless, by the least exposed route. Bullets
spattered now and then against the rocks, and one
sang unpleasantly near my head. In this way we
covered three-fourths of the distance, and had only the
bare dozen yards where the gradient eased o£f up to
the edge of the kranz.

Blenkiron got hit in the leg, our only casualty.
There was nothing for it but to carry him, so I swung
him on my shoulders, and with a bursting heart did
that last lap. It was hottish work, and the bullets
were pretty thick about us, but we all got safely to the
kranz and a short scramble took us over the edge. I
laid Blenkiron inside the castrol and started to pre-
pare our defence.

We had little time to do it. Out of the thin fog
figures were coming, crouching in cover. The place
we were in was a natural redoubt, except that there
were no loopholes or sandbags. We had to show
our heads over the rim to shoot, but the danger was
lessened by the superb field of fire given by those last
dozen yards of glacis. I posted the men and waited,
and Blenkiron, with a white face, insisted on taking^his
share, announcing that he used to be handy with at
gun.

I gave the order that no man was to shoot till the
enemy had come out of the rocks on to the glacis.
The thing ran right round the top, and we had to
watch all sides to prevent them getting us in flank or
rear. Hussin's rifle cracked out presently from the
back, so my precautions had not been needless.

We were all fair shots, though none of us up to

320

THE LITTLE HILL

Peter's miraculous standard, and even the Companions
made good practise. The Mauser was the weapon
I knew best, and I didn't miss much. The attackers
never had a chance, for their only hope was to rush
us by numbers, and, the whole party being not above
two dozen^ they were far too few. I think we killed
three, for their bodies were left lying, and wounded at
least six, while the rest fell back towards the road.
In a quarter of an hour it was all over.

"These are dogs of Kurds," I heard Hussin say
fiercely. "Only a Kurdish ghiaour would fire on the
livery of the Kaaba."

Then I had a good look at Sandy. He had dis-
carded shawls and turban and wrappings, and stood
up in the strangest costume man ever wore in battle.
Somehow he had procured field^boots and an old pair
of riding-breeches. Above these, reaching well below
his middle, he had a wonderful silken jibbah or ephod
of a bright emerald. I call it silk, but it was like no
silk I had ever known, so exquisite in the mesh, with
such a sheen and depth in it. Some strange pattern
was woven on the breast, which in the dim light I
could not trace. I'll warrant no rarer or costlier gar-
ment was ever exposed to lead on a bleak winter hill.

Sandy seemed unconscious of his garb. His eye,
listless no more, scanned the hollow. "That's only the
overture," he cried. "The opera will soon begin. We
must put a breastwork up in these gaps or they'll pick
us off from a thousand yards."

I had meantime roughly dressed Blenkiron's wound
with a linen rag which Hussin provided. It was a
ricochet bullet which had chipped into his left shin.
Then I took a hand with the others in getting up
our earthwork to complete the circuit of the defence.

35ti

GREENMANTLE

It was no easy job, for we wrought only with our
knives and had to dig deep down below the snowy
gravel. As we worked I took stock of our refuge.

The castrol was a rough circle about ten yards in
diameter, its interior filled with boulders and loose
stones, and its parapet about four feet high. The
mist had cleared for a considerable space, and I could
see the immediate surroundings. West, beyond the
hollow was the road we had come, where now the
remnants of the pursuit were clustered. North, the
hill fell steeply to the valley bottom, but to the south,
after a dip, there was a ridge which shut the view.
East lay another fork of the stream, the chief fork
I guessed, and it was evidently followed by the main
road to the pass, for I saw it crowded with transport.
The two roads seemed to converge somewhere farther
south out of my sight.

I guessed we could not be very far from the front,
for the noise of guns sounded very near, both the
sharp crack of the field-pieces and the deeper boom
of the howitzers. More, I could hear the chatter of
the machine-guns, a magpie note among the baying
of hounds. I even saw the bursting of Russian shells,
evidently trying to reach the main road. One big
fellow — an 8-inch — landed not two yards from a con-
voy to the east of us, and another in the hollow
through which we had come. These were clearly rang-
ing shots, and I wondered if the Russians had observa-
tion-posts on the heights to mark them. If so, they
might soon try a curtain, and we would be very near
its edge. It would be an odd irony if we were the
target of friendly shells.

''By the soul of my ancestors,'' I heard Sandy say,

322

THE LITTLE HILL

"if we had a brace of machine-guns we could hold
this place against a division."

"What price shells?" I asked. "If they get a gun
up they can blow us to atoms in ten minutes."

"Please God the Russians keep them too busy for
that," was his answer.

With anxious eyes I watched our enemies on the
road. They seemed to have grown in numbers. They
were signalling, too, for a white flag fluttered. Then
the mist rolled down on us again, and our prospect was
limited to ten yards of vapour.

"Steady," I cried; "they may try to rush us at any
moment. Every man keep his eye on the edge of the
fog, and shoot at the first sign."

For nearly half an hour by my watch we -waited
in that queer white world, our eyes smarting with the
strain of peering. The sound of the guns seemed to
be hushed, and everything grown deathly quiet. Blen-
kiron^s squeal, as he knocked his wounded leg against
a rock, made every man start.

Then out of the mist there came a voice.

It was a woman's voice, high, penetrating, and
sweet, but it spoke in no tongue I knew. Only Sandy
understood. He made a sudden movement as if to
defend himself against a blow.

The speaker came into clear sight on the glacis a
yard or two away. Mine was the first face she saw.

• "I Jome to offer terms," she said in English. "Will
you permit me to enter?"

I cduld do nothing except take off my cap and say,
"Yes, ma'am." Blenkiron, snuggled up against the
parapet, was cursing furiously below his breath.

She climbed up the kranz and stepped over the

323

GREENMANTLE

edge as lightly as a deer. Her clothes were strange
—spurred boots and breeches over which fell a short
green kirtle. A little cap skewered with a jewelled
pin was on her head, and a cape of some coarse coun-
try cloth hung from her shoulders. She had rough
gauntlets on her hands, and she carried for weapon a
riding-whip. The fog-crystals clung to her hair I
remember, and a silvery film of fog lay on her
garments.

I had never before thought of her as beautiful.
Strange, uncanny wonderful, if you like, but the word
beauty had too kindly and human a sound for such a
face. But as she stood with heightened colour, her
eyes like stars, her poise like a wild bird's, I had to
confess that she had her own loveliness. She might
be a devil, but she was also a queen. I considered
that there might be merits in the prospect of riding
by her side into Jerusalem.

Sandy stood rigid, his face very grave and set. She
held out both hands to him, speaking softly in Turkish.
I noticed that the six Companions had disappeared
from the castrol and were somewhere out of sight on
the farther side.

I do not know what she said, but from her tone,
and above all from her eyes, I judged that she was
pleading — ^pleading for his return, for his partnership
in her great adventure; pleading, for all I knew, for
his love.

His expression was like a death-mask, his brows
drawn tight in a little frown and his jaw rigid.

**Madam," he said, "I ask you to tell your business
quick and to tell it in English. My friends must hear
it as well as me."

"Your friends 1" she cried. "What has a prince to

33^4

THE LITTLE HILL

do with these hirelings? Your slaves, perhaps, but
not your friends."

"My friends," Sandy repeated grimly. "You must
know, Madam, that I am a British officer."

That was beyond doubt a clean, staggering stroke.
What she had thought of his origin God knows, but
she had never dreamed of this. Her eyes grew larger
and more lustrous, her lips parted as if to speak, but
her voice failed her. Then by an effort she recovered
herself, and out of that strange face went all the
glow of youth and ardoun It was again the unholy
mask I had first known.

"And these others?" she asked in a level voice.

"One is a brother officer of my regiment. The
other is an American. But all three of us are on the
same errand. We came east to destroy Greenmantle
and your devilish ambitioris. You have yourself de-
stroyed your prophets, and now it is your turn to
fail and disappear. Make no mistake, Madam, that
folly is over. I wi^l tear this sacred garment into a
thousand pieces and scatter them on the wind. The
people wait to-day for the revelation, but none will
come. You may kill us if you can, but we have at least
crushed a lie and done service to our country."

I would not have taken my eyes from her face for
a king's ransom. I have written that she was a queen,
and of that there is no manner of doubt. She had
the soul of a conqueror, for not a flicker of weakness
or disappointment marred her air. Only pride and
the stateliest resolution looked out of her eyes.

"I said I came to offer terms. I wiU still offer
them, though they are other than I thought. For
the fat American, I will send him home safely to his
own country. I do not make war on such as he. He

325

GREENMANTLE

Is Germany^s foe, not mine. You,*' she said, turning
fiercely on me, "I will hang before dusk."

Never in my life had I been so pleased. I had
got my revenge at last. This woman had singled me
out above the others as the object of her wrath, and I
almost loved her for it. She turned to Sandy, and
the fierceness went out of her face.

"You seek truth," she said. "So also do I, and
if we use a lie it is only to break down a greater.
You are of my household in spirit, and you alone of
all men I have seen are fit to ride with me on my
mission. Germany may fail, but I shall not fail. I
offer you the greatest career that mortal has known.
I offer you a task which will need every atom of brain
and sinew and courage. Will you refuse that
destiny?"

I do not know what effect this vapouring might
have had in hot scented rooms, or in the languor of
some rich garden; but up on that cold hill-top it was
as unsubstantial as the mist around us. It sounded
not even impressive, only crazy.

"I stay with my friends," said Sandy.

"Then I will offer more. I will save your friends.
They, too, shall share in my triumph."

This was too much for Blenkiron. He scrambled
to his feet to speak the protest that had been wrung
from his soul, forgot his game leg, and rolled back on
the ground with a groan.

Then she seemed to make a last appeal. She spoke
in Turkish now, and I do not know what she said,
but I judged it was the plea of a woman to her lover.
Once more she was the proud beauty, but there was
a tremor in her pride — I had about written tenderness.
To listen to her was like horrid treachery, like eaves-

326

THE LITTLE HILL

dropping on something pitiful. I know my checks
grew scarlet and Blenkiron turned away his head.

Sandy's face did not move. He spoke in English.

"You can offer me nothing that I desire," he said.
"I am the servant of my country, and her enemies
are mine. I can have neither part nor lot with you.
That is my answer, Madam von Einem."

Then her steely restraint broke. It was like a dam
giving before a pent-up mass of icy water. She tore
off one of her gauntlets and hurled it in his face. Im-
placable hate looked out of her eyes.

"I have done with you," she cried, "You have
scorned me, but you have dug your own grave."

She leaped on the parapet and the next second was
on the glacis. Once more the mist had fled, and across
the hollow I saw a field-gun in place and men around
it who were not Turkish. She waved her hand to them,
and hastened down the hillside.

But at that moment I heard the whistle of a long-
range shell. Among the boulders there was the dull
shock of an explosion and a mushroom of red earth.
It all passed in an instant of time : I saw the gunners
on the road point their hands and I heard them cry;
I heard too a kind of sob from Blenkiron — all this
before I realised myself what had happened. The
next thing I saw was Sandy, already beyond the glacis,
leaping with great bounds down the hill. They were
shooting at him, but he heeded them not. For the
space of a minute he was out of sight, and his where-
abouts was shown only by the patter of bullets.

Then he came back — ^walking quite slowly up the
last slope, and he was carrying something in his arms.
The enemy fired no more; they realised what had
happened.

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GREENMANTLE

He laid his burden down gently in a comer of the
castroL The cap had fallen off, and the hair was
breaking loose. The face was very white but there
was no wound or bruise on it.

"She was killed at once," I heard him saying. "Her
back was broken by a shell-fragment. Dick, we must
bury her here. ... You see, she • • • she liked me.
I can make her no return but this."

We set the Companions to guard, and with infinite
slowness, using our hands, and our knives, we made a
shallow grave below the eastern parapet. When it
was done we covered her face with the linen doak
which Saildy had worn that morning. He lifted the
body and laid it reverently in its place.

"I did not know that anything could be so light,**
he said.

It wasn't for me to look on at that kind of scene.
I went to the parapet with Blenkiron's field-glasses
and had a look at our friends on the road. There
was no Turk there, and I guessed why, for it would
not be easy to use the men of Islam against the wearer
of the green ephod. The enemy were German or
Austrian, and they had a field-gun. They seemed to
have got it laid on our fort; but they were waiting.
As I looked I saw behind them a massive figure I
seemed to recognise. Stumm had come to see the
destruction of his enemies.

To the east I saw another gun in the fields just
below the main road. They had got us on both sides,
and there was no way of escape. Hilda von Einem
was to have a noble pyre and goodly company for the
dark road.

Dusk was falling now, a clear bright dusk where

328

THE LITTLE HILL

the stars pricked through a sheen of amethyst. The
artillery were busy all around the horizon, and towards
the pass on the other road, where Fort Palantuken
stood, there was the dust and smoke of a furious bom-
bardment. It seemed to me, too, that the guns on the
I other fronts had come nearer. Deve Boyun was
hidden by a spur of hill, but up in the north, white
clouds, like the streamers of evening, were hanging
over the Euphrates glen. The whole firmament
hummed and twanged like a taut string that has been
struck. . . .

As I looked, the gun to the west fired — the gun
where Stumm was. The shell dropped ten yards to
our right. A second later another fell behind us.

Blenkiron had dragged himself to the parapet. I
don*t suppose he had ever been shelled before, but his
face showed curiosity rather than fear.

"Pretty poor shooting, I reckon," he said.

"On the contrary," I said, "they know their busi-
ness. They're bracketing. . . ."

The words were not out of my mouth when one fell
right among us. It struck the far rim of the castrol,
shattering the rock, but bursting mainly outside. We
all ducked, and barring some small scratches no one
was a penny the worse. I remember that much of
the debris fell on Hilda von Einem's grave.

I pulled Blenkiron over the far parapet, and called
on the rest to follow, meaning to take cover on the
rough side of the hill. But as we showed ourselves
shots rang out from our front, shots fired from a
range of a few hundred yards. It was easy to see
what had happened. Riflemen had been sent to hold
us in rear. They would not assault so long as we
remained in the castrol, but they would block any

329

GREENMANTLE

attempt to find safety outside it. Stumm and his gun
had us at their mercy.

We crouched below the parapet again. "We may
as well toss for it," I said. "There's only two ways
— to stay here and be shelled or try to break through
those fellows behind. Either's pretty unhealthy."

But I knew there was no choice. With Blenkiron
crippled we were pinned to the castrol. Our numbers
were up all right.

330

CHAPTER XXII

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

BUT no more shells fell.
The night grew dark and showed a field of
glittering stars, for the air was sharpening again
towards frost. We waited for an hour, crouching just
behind the far parapets, but never came that ominous
familiar whistle.

Then Sandy rose and stretched himself. "I'm
hungry," he said. "Let's have out the food, Hussin.
We've eaten nothing since before' daybreak. I wonder
what is the meaning of this respite?"

I fancied I knew. "It's Stumm's way. He wants
to torture us. He'll keep us hours on tenterhooks,
while he sits over yonder exulting in what he thinks
we're enduring. He has just enough imagination for
that. . . . He would rush us if he had the men. As
it is, he's going to blow us to pieces, but to do it slowly
and smack his lips over it."

Sandy yawned. "We'll disappoint him, for we
won't be worried, old man. We three are beyond
that kind of fear."

"Meanwhile we're going to do the best we can,"
I said. "He's got the exact range for his whizz-
bangs. We've got to find a hole somewhere just out-
side the castrol, and some sort of head-cover. We're
bound to. get damaged whatever happens, but we'll

331

GREENMANTLE

stidc It out to the end. When they think they have
finished with us and rush the place, there may be one
of us alive to put a bullet through old Stumm. What
do you say?*'

They agreed, and after our meal Sandy and I
crawled out to prospect, leaving the others on guard
in case there should be an attack. We found a hollow
in the glacis a little south of the castrol, and, working
very quietly, managed to enlarge it and cut a kind of
shallow cave in the hill. It would be no use against
a direct hit, but it would give some cover from flying
fragments. As I read the situation, Stumm' could land
as many shells as he pleased in the castrol and wouldn't
bother to attend to the flanks. When the bad shelling
began there would be shelter for one or two in the
cave.

Our enemies were watchful. The riflemen on the
cast burnt Verey flares at intervals, and Stumm's lot
sent up a great star-rocket I remember that just
before midnight hell broke loose round Fort Palan-
tuken. No more Russian shells came into our hollow,
but all the road to the east was under fire, and at the
Fort itself there was a shattering explosion and a queer
scarlet glow which looked as if the magazine had been
hit. For about two hours the firing was intense, and
then it died down. But it was towards the north that
I kept turning my head. There seemed to be some-
thing different in the sound there, something sharper
in the report of the guns, as if shells were dropping in
a narrow valley whose rock walls doubled the echo.
Had the Russians by any blessed chance worked round
that flank?

I got Sandy to listen, but he shook his head. "Those
guns are a dozen miles off," he said. "They're no

33a

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

nearer than three days ago. But it looks as if the
sportsmen on the south might have a chance. When
they break through and stream down the valley, they'll
be puzzled to account for what remains of us. . . .
We're no longer three adventurers in the enemy's
country. We're the advance guard of the Allies.
They don't know about us, and we're going to be cut
oS, which has happened to advance guards before
now. But all the same, we're in our own battle-line
again. Doesn't that cheer you, Dick?"

It cheered me wonderfully, for I knew now what
had been the weight on my heart ever since I accepted
Sir Walter's mission. It was. the loneliness of it. I
was fighting far away from my friends, far away from
the true fronts of battle. It was a side-show which,
whatever its importance, had none of the exhilaration
of the main effort. But now we had come back (o
familiar ground. We were like the Highlanders cut
off at Cite St. Auguste on the first day of Loos, or
those Scots Guards at Festubert of whom I had heard.
Only, the others did not know of us, would never hear
of it. If Peter succeeded he might tell the tale, but
most likely he was lying dead somewhere in the no-
man's-land between the lines. We should never be
heard of again any more, but our work remained. Sir
Walter would know that, and he would tell our few
belongings that we had gone out in our country's
service.

We were in the castrol again, sitting under the para-
pets. The same thought must have been in Sandy's
mind, for he suddenly laughed.

"It's a queer ending, Dick. We simply vanish into
the infinite. If the Russians get through they will
never recognise what is left of us among so much of

333

GREENMANTLE

the wreckage of battle. The snow will soon cover
us, and when the spring comes there will only be a
few bleached bones. Upon my soul it is the kind of
death I always wanted." And he quoted softly to
himself a verse of an old Scots ballad:

"Mony's the ane for him maks mand,
But nane sail ken wha he is gane.
Ower his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sail blaw for evermair."

"But our work lives," I cried, with a sudden great
gasp of happiness. "It's the job that matters, not the
men that do it. And our job's done. We have won,
old chap — won hands down — and there is no going
back on that. We have won anyway; and if Peter
has had a slice of luck, we've scooped the pool. . . .
After all, we never expected to come out of this thing
with our lives."

Blenkiron, with his leg stuck out stiffly before him,
was humming quietly to himself, as he often did when
he felt cheerful. He had only one tune, "John
Brown's Body" ; usually only a line at a time, but now
he got as far as a whole verse:

"He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so true,
And he frightened old Virginny till she trembled through

and through.
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul goes marching along."

"Feeling good?" I asked.

"Fine. I'm about the luckiest man on God's earth,
Major. I've always wanted to get into a big show,
but I didn't see how it would come the way of a homely
citizen like me, living in a steam-warmed house and

334

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

going down town to my office every morning. I used
to envy my old dad that fought at Chattanooga, and
never forgot to tell you about it. But I guess Chatta-
nooga was like a scrap in a Bowery bar compared to
this. When I meet the old man in Glory he'll have
to listen some to me. . • /'

It was just after Blenkiron spoke that we got a
reminder of Stumm's presence. The gun was well
laid, for a shell plumped on the near edge of the
castroL It made an end of one of the Companions
who was on guard there, badly wounded another,
and a fragment gashed my thigh. We took refuge in
the shallow cave, but some wild shooting from the
east side brought us back to the parapets, for we
feared an attack. None came, nor any more shells,
and once again the night was quiet.

I asked Blenkiron if he had any near relatives.

"Why, no, except a sister's son, a coUege-boy who
has no need of his uncle. It's fortunate that we three
have no wives. I haven't any regrets, neither, for
I've had a mighty deal out of life. I was thinking
this morning that it was a pity I was going out when
I had just got my duo-denum to listen to reason. But
I reckon that's another of my mercies. The good
God took away the pain in my stomach so that I
might go to Him with a clear head and a thankful
heart."

"We're lucky fellows," said Sandy; "we've all had
our whack. When I remember tEe good tipaes I've
had I could sing a hymn of praise. We've lived long
enough to know ourselves, and to shape ourselves into
some kind of decency. But think of those boys who
have given their lives freely when they scarcely knew

335

GREENMANTLE

what life meant. They were just at the beginning
of the road, and they didn't know what dreary bits
lay before them* It was all sunshiny and bright-col-
oured, and yet they gave it up without a moment's
doubt. And think of the men with wives and diil-
dren and homes which were the biggest things in life
to them. For fellows like us to shirk would be black
cowardice. It's small credit for us to stick it out.
But when those others shut their teeth and went for-
ward, they were blessed heroes. . . ."

After tibat we fell silent. A man's thoughts at a
time like that seem to be double-powered, and the
memory becomes very sharp and clear. I don't know
what was in the others' minds, but I know what filled
my own. • . .

I don't think it is the men who get most out of the
world and are always buoyant and cheerful that most
fear to die. Rather it is the weak-engined souls, who
go about with dull eyes, that ding most fiercely to
life. They have not the joy of being alive which
is a kind of earnest of immortality. ... I know that
my thoughts were chiefly about the jolly things that I
had seen and done; not regret, but gratitude. The
panorama of blue moons on the veld unrolled itself
before me, and hunter's nights in the bush, the taste
of food and sleep, the bitter stimulus of dawn, the
joy of wild adventure, the voices of old staunch friends.
Hitherto the war had seemed to make a break with
all that had gone before, but now the war was only
part of the picture. I thought of my battalion, and
the good fellows there, many of them who had fallen
on the Loos parapets. I had never looked to come
out of that myself. But I had been spared, and given
the chance of a greater business, and I had succeeded*

336

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

That was the tremendous fact, and my mood was hum-
ble gratitude to God and exultant pride. Death was
a small price to pay for it. As Blenkiron would have
said, I had got good value in the deal! . . .

The night was getting bitter cold, as happens be-
fore dawn. It was frost again, and the sharpness of
It woke our hunger. I got out the remnants of the
food and wine and we had a last meal. I remember
pledged each other as we drank.

"We have eaten our Passover Feast," said Sandy.
"When do you look for the end?**

"After dawn," I said. "Stumm wants daylight to
get the full savour of his revenge."

Slowly the sky passed from ebony to grey, and
black shapes of hill outlined themselves against it.
A wind blew down the valley, bringing the bitter smell
of burning, but something too of the freshness of
morn. It stirred strange thoughts in me, and woke
the old morning vigour of the blood which was never
to be mine again. For the first time in that long vigil
I was torn with a sudden regret.

"We must get into the cave before it is full light,"
I said. "We had better draw lots for the two to go."

The choice fell on one of the Companions and
Blenkiron.

"You can count mc out," said the latter. "If it's
your wish to find a man to be alive when our friends
come up to count their spoil, I guess I'm the worst
of the lot. Fd prefer, if you don't mind, to stay here.
I've made my peace with my Maker, and I'd like to
wait quietly on His caU. I'll play a game of Patience
to pass the time."

337

GREENMANTLE

He would take no denial, so we drew again, and the
lot fell to Sandy.

"If I'm the last to go," he said, "I promise I don't
miss. Stumm won't be long in following me."

He shook hands with his cheery smile, and he and
the Companion slipped over the parapet in the final
shadows before dawn.

Blenkiron spread his Patience cards on a flat rock,
and dealt out for the Double Napoleon. He was per-
fectly calm, and hummed to himself his only tune. For
myself I was drinking in the last draught of the hill
air. My contentment was going. I suddenly felt
bitterly loth to die.

I stood close to the parapet, watching every detail
of the landscape as shown by the revealing daybreak.
Up on the shoulders of the Palantuken, snowdrifts
lipped over the edges of the cliffs. I wondered when
they would come down as avalanches. There was
a kind of croft on one hillside, and from a hut the
smoke of breakfast was beginning to curl. Stunmi's
gunners were awake and apparently holding council.
Far down on the main road a convoy was moving —
I heard the creak of the wheels two miles away, for
the air was deathly still.

Then, as if a spring had been loosened, the world
suddenly leaped to a hideous life. With a growl the
guns opened round all the horizon. They were espe-
cially fierce to the south, where a rafale beat as I had
never heard it before. The one glance I cast behind
me showed the gap in the hills choked with fumes
and dust.

But my eyes were on the north. From Erzenim
city tall tongues of flame leaped from a dozen quar-

338

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

tcrs. Beyond, toward the opening of the Euphrates
glen, there was the sharp crack of field-guns. I
strained eyes and ears, mad with impatience, and I
read the riddle.

"Sandy," I yelled, "Peter has got through. The
Russians have won the flank. The town is burning.
Glory to God, we've won, we've won 1"

And as I spoke the earth seemed tO/ split beside
me, and I was flung forward on the gravel which
covered Hilda von Einem's grave.

As I picked myself up, and to my amazement found
myself uninjured, I saw Blenkiron rubbing the dust
out of his eyes and arranging a disordered card. He
had stopped humming, and was singing aloud:

^'He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so true,
And he frightened old Virginny . . .

"Say, Major," he cried, "I believe this game of
mine is coming out."

I was now pretty well mad. The thought that old
Peter had won, that we had won beyond our wildest
dreams, that if we died there were those coming who
would exact the uttermost vengeance, rode my brain
like a fever. I sprang on the parapet and waved
my hand to Stumm, shouting defiance. Rifle shots
cracked out from behind, and I leaped back just tn.
time for the next shell.

The charge must have been short, for it was a bad
miss, landing somewhere on the glacis. The next was
better and crashed on the near parapet, carving a great
hole in the rocky kranz. This time my arm hung limp,
broken by a fragment of stone, but I felt no pain.
Blenkiron seemed to bear a charmed life, for he was

339

GREENMANTLE

smothered in dust, but unhurt. He blew the dust away
from his cards very gingerly and went on playing.

Then came a dud which dropped neatly inside in
the soft ground. I was determined to break for the >
open and chance the rifle fire, for if Stumm went on
shooting the castrol was certain death.. I caught Blen-
kiron round the middle, scattering his cards to the
winds, and jumped over the parapet.

"Don't apologise, Major," said he. "The game
was as good as won. But for God's sake drop me,
for if you wave me like the banner of freedom I'll
get plugged sure and good."

My one thought was to get cover for the next min-
utes, for I had an instinct that our vigil was near its
end. The defences of Erzerum were crumbling like
sand-castles, and it was a proof of the tenseness of
my nerves that I seemed to be deaf to the sound.
Stumm had seen us cross the parapet, and he started
to sprinkle all the surroundings of the castrol. Blen-
kiron and I lay like a working-party between the lines
caught by machine-guns, taking- a pull on Ourselves
as best we could. Sandy had some kind of cover,
but we were on the bare farther slope, and the rifle-
men on that side might have had us at their mercy.

But no shots came from them. As I looked east,
the hillside, which a little before had been held by
our enemies, was as empty as the desert; and then I
saw on the main road a sight which for a second time
made me yell like a maniac. Down the glen came a
throng of men and galloping limbers — a crazy, jostling
crowd, spreading away beyond the road to the steep
slopes, and leaving behind it many black dots to darken
the snows. The gates of the South had yielded, and
our friends were through them.

340

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

At that sight I forgot all about our danger. I
didn't give a cent for Stumm's shells. I didn't be-
lieve he could hit me. The fate which had mercifully
preserved us for the first taste of victory would see
us through to the end.

I remember bundling Blenkiron along the hill to find
Sandy. But our news was anticipated. For down on
our side-glen came the same broken tumult of men.
More; for on their backs, far up at the throat of the
pass, I saw horsemen — ^thc horsemen of the pursuit.
Old Nicholas had flung his cavalry in.

Sandy was on his feet, with his lips set and his eye
abstracted. If his face hadn't been burned black by
weather it would have been pale as a dish-clout. A
man like him doesn't make up his mind for death and
then be given his life again without being wrenched
out of his bearings. I thought he didn't understand
what had happened, so I beat him on the shoulders.

"Man, d'you see?" I cried. "The Cossacks 1 The
Cossacks t God I how they're taking that slope!
They're into them now. By Heaven, we'll ride with
them ! We'll get the gun horses I"

A little knoll prevented Stumm and his men from
seeing what was happening farther up the glen, till
the first wave of the rout was on them. He had gone
on bombarding the castrol and its environs while the
world was cracking over his head. The gun team was
in the hollow below the road, and down the hill among
the boulders we crawled, Blenkiron as lame as a duck,
and me with a limp left arm.

The poor beasts were straining at their pickets and
sniffing at the morning wind, which brought down the
thick fumes of the great bombardment and the inde-
scribable babbling cries of a beaten army. Before

341

GREENMANTLE

we reached them that maddened horde had swept
down on them, men panting and gasping in their flight,
many of them bloody from wounds, many tottering
in the first stages of collapse and death. I saw the
horses seized by a dozen hands, and a desperate fight
for their possession. But as we halted there our eyes
were fixed on the battery on the road above us, for
round it was now sweeping the van of the retreat.

I had never seen a rout before, when strong men
come to the end of their tether and only their broken
shadows stumble towards the refuge they never find.
No more had Stumm, poor devil. I had no ill-will
left for him, though coming down that hill I was
rather hoping that the two of us might have a final
scrap. He was a brute and a bully, but, by God 1 he
was a man. I heard his great roar when he saw the
tumult, and the next I saw was his monstrous figure
working at the gun. He swung it south and turned
it on the fugitives.

But he never fired it. The press was on him, and
the gun was swept sideways. He stood up, a foot
higher than any of them, and he seemed to be trying
to check the rush with his pistol. There is power
in numbers, even though every unit is broken and flee-
ing. For a second, to that wild crowd Stumm was
the enemy, and they had strength enough to crush
him. The wave flowed found and then over him. I
saw the butt-ends of rifles crash on his head and
shoulders, and the next second the stream had passed
over his body. ...

That was God^s judgment on the man who had set
himself above his kind.

Sandy gripped my shoulder and was shoutmg in my
ear:

34*

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

"They're coming, Dick. Look at the grey devils 1
• . . Oh, God be thanked it's our friends 1"

The next minute we were tumbling down the hill-
side, Blenkiron hopping on one leg between us. I
heard dimly Sandy qrying, **0h, well done our sideT*
and Blenkiron declaiming about Harper's Ferry, but
I had no voice at all and no wish to shout. I know
that tears were in my eyes, and that if I had been
left alone I would have sat down and cried with pure
thankfulness. For sweeping down the glen came a
cloud of grey cavalry on little wiry horses, a cloud
which stayed not for the rear of the fugitives, but
swept on like a flight of rainbows, with the steel of
their lance-heads glittering in the winter sun. They
were riding for Erzerum.

Remember that for three months we had been with
the enemy and had never seen the face of an Ally in
arms. We had been cut off from the fellowship of
a great cause, like a fort surrounded by an army. And
now we were delivered, and there fell round us the
warm joy of comradeship as well as the exultation of
victory.

We flung caution to the winds and went stark mad.
Sandy, still in his emerald coat, was scrambling up
the farther slope of the hollow, yelling greetings in
every language known to man. The leader saw him,
checked his men for a moment, with a word — it was
marvellous to see the horses reined in in such a break-
neck ride — and from the squadrons half a dozen
troopers swung loose and wheeled towards us. Then
a man in a grey overcoat and a sheepskin cap was on
the ground beside us wringing our hands.

*'You are safe, my old friends" — it was Peter's

343

GREENMANTLE

voice that spoke — "I will take you back to our army,
and get you breakfast."

"No, by the Lord, you won't,'* cried Sandy. "We've
had the rough end of the job and now we'll have the
fun. Look after Blenkiron and these fellows of mine.
I'm going to ride knee by knee with your sportsmen
for the city."

Peter spoke a word, and two of the Cossacks dis-
mounted. The next I knew I was mixed up in the
cloud of greycoats, galloping down the road up which
the morning before we had strained to the castroL

That was the great hour of my life, and to live
through it was worth a dozen years of slavery. With
a broken left arm I had little hold on my 1)east, so
I trusted my neck to him and let him have his will.
Black with dirt and smoke, hatless, with no kind of
uniform, I was a wilder figure than any Cossack. I
soon was separated from Sandy, who had two hands
and a better beast, and seemed resolute to press for-
ward to the very van. That would have been suicide
for me, and I had all I could do to keep my place
in the bunch I rode with.

But, great God ! what an hour it was I There
was loose shooting on our flank, but nothing to
trouble us, though the gun team of some Austrian
howitzer, struggling madly at a bridge, gave us a bit
of a scrap. Everything flitted past me like smoke, or
like the mad finale of a dream just before waking.
I knew the living movement under me, and the com-
panionship of men, but all dimly, for at heart I was
alone, grappling with the realisation of a new world.
I felt the shadows of the Falantuken glen fading, and
the great burst of light as we emerged on the wider
valley. Somewhcrfc before us was a pall of smoke

344

THE GUNS OF THE NORTH

seamed with red flames, and beyond the darkness of
still higher hills. All that time I was dreaming, croon-
ing daft catches of song to myself so happy, so de-
liriously happy that I dared not try to think. I kept
muttering to myself a kind of prayer made up of Bible
words to Him who had shown me His goodness in the
land of the living.

But as we drew clear of the skirts of the hills and
began the long slope to the city, I woke to clear con-
sciousness. I felt the smell of sheepskin and lathered
horses, and above all the bitter smell of fire. Down
in the trough lay Erzerum, now burning in many places,
and from the east, past the silent forts, horsemen were
drawing in on it. I yelled to my comrades that we
were nearest, that we would be first in the city, and
they nodded happily and shouted their strange war-
cries. As we topped the last ridge I saw below me
the van of our charge — a dark mass on the snow —
while the broken enemy on both sides were flinging
away their arms and scattering in the fields.

In the very front, now nearing the city ramparts,
was one man. He was like the point of the steel
spear soon to be driven home. In the clear morning
air I could see that he did not wear the uniform of
the invaders. He was bare-headed, and rode like one
possessed, and against the snow I caught the dark
sheen of emerald. As he rode it seemed that the flee-
ing Turks were stricken still, and sank by the road-
side with eyes strained after his unheeding figure. . . .

Then I knew that the prophecy had been true, and
that their prophet had not failed them. The long-
looked-for revelation had come. Greenmantle had ap-
peared at last to an awaiting people.

THE END

345

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djhe «---.• t^- 3 2044 024 474 579

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