Greenmantle

cretions

hen Stumm entered. He strode up to me and stared me in the face. I was half a head shorter than him to be

elieve that you are

g with cold, and the German idea of a towel is a po

ated. 'You and th

at surliness I ask

o German. Apparently your friend knows

me back

ould talk it a bit. I told you that yesterday at the sta

ed, for his tone beca

If one of you is a scoun

had made at the start. 'I have known him for years as a great hunter and a brave man. I knew he fought we

g on the telephone. While telling it he was

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 every three years, and it always happened for the same reason. Peter, bored and solitary in a town, went

bjected to his talking so loud, and Peter had replied insolently in respectable German. After that things became mixed. There was some kind of a fight, during which Peter calumniated the German army and all its female anc

my clothes on now and felt more courageous. 'It is all a pl

torm as I expec

an with a rifle. Cannon-fodder, nothing else. Do you imagine, you fool, that this great Empire i

folly is true I have no part in it. But he was my companio

a notion that there is more at the back of this than appears. We will investigate t

ave done, for what with anxiet

h cause to love you. For the last two days I've had nothing from you but suspicion and insult. The only decent man I've met is Herr Gaudian. It's because I believe tha

ounds like honesty,' he said at last in a civil voi

on. 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 throu

ised me to mind my own business, but I remembered that last night he had talked o

chauffeur. It was a morning 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

one had a sort of feel of Christmas. You could see girls carrying evergreens, and when we stopped at a station the soldiers on leave had all the air of holiday making. The middle of Germany was a cheerier place than Berlin or the western p

r 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 his kind. He may have p

fficers entered. Stumm got up and saluted and went aside to talk to them. Then he came back and made me follow him to a waitin

nd 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

ve got bigger in the interval and to carry his hea

hrough 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

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 i

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 som

fectly cool and most desperately interested. For su

e Dutchman I spoke o

oes he speak?' t

but being a South African

t over the face before me. Th

il it as a good omen. I would have given your race its freedom, but there were fools and traitors among you who mi

t 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 i

htmare. 'That is well,' he said. 'Some Englishman once said that he would call in the New World to redress the balance of the

'Did you fight in the

he commando of that Smuts who h

untrymen's losses?

eld some twenty thousand. But many more by sicknes

of pain cros

. 'A mere handful. Today we lose as ma

roke out

of England and Russia, but England most of all. God will yet avenge it. He that takes the sword will perish by the

d knows it, s

n man, for in his presence I felt an attraction which was not merely the mastery of one used to command. That would not have impressed 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 men. That was the irony of it. Stumm would not have car

for him, was very pleasant. His imperial master must have been gracious to him, and he pa

s merciful, as I t

ed wit

id sententiously, 'but for us lesser folks

d my ap

at 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

that these were

boor of the veld ... Not but what,' he added, 'there is metal i

showed, and, looking out at one station I saw a funny church with a thing like an onion on top of its spire. It might almost have b

ould not make out. The station-master was waiting, bowing and saluting, and outside was a motor-car with big head-lights. Next minute we were sliding

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 was very noble and ancient. St

anelling-and found some cold meats on the 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 drin

the study for the rest of the evening. 'You can lock up and go to bed when you

st 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 fri

the ceiling, and the walls were full of little recesses with statues in them. A thick grey carpet 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 in

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

oked uncommonly like a bull in a china-shop. He seemed to bask in the comfort of it, and sniffed lik

is card,' and he lifted a square piece of grey pasteboard with a big stamp at the corner and some code words stencilled on it, 'will be your passport. You will show

he envelope and put t

go after Egy

, the man you will meet, will direct you. Egypt is a nest of our agen

said. 'But how d

oute,' and he took a paper from his pocket. 'Your pass

take weeks, and God knows how I would get from Egypt to Constantinople. I saw all my p

terpreted the look

ifficult to have that kind of a 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 t

f 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

baffled, like a rat in a trap. There seemed nothing for it but to go back to L

I will tell you one thing for your comfort. There is nothing in the world to be feared except m

. Then he put out his hands and gripped my

llet low down at the back of my neck. The wound had healed well enough, but I h

given up the game, but the sudden ache of my shoulders gave me purpose

el has found its master. Stand still, vermin. Smile, look ple

I was choking in my throat and could no

e go, grinnin

e and gave him my le

suppose anyone had dared to lift a hand to him since he was a c

'I am going to kill you,' and he f

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

lighter on my legs than him, and I had a good eye. Black Monty at Kimberley had taught me to fight a bit, but there is no

soft carpet. He had no notion of guardin

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 st

was looking for the right kind of chance. The risk was

m did not know any rules to this game, and I forgot to allow for that. Suddenly, when I was watching his eyes, he launched a mighty kick at my stomach. If he ha

was sick with pain and stumbled. Then I was on my feet again but with a n

tire, and I danced round and dotted his face till it was streaming with blo

nal cad,' I said in good round English, 'I'm going to knock t

the chin, and put every ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow. He crumpled up in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a

anger had completely gone and I had no particular ill-will left against Stumm. He was a man of remarkable qualities, whi

the door behind me, and started ou