Greenmantle

ssen

n played about the doors and told stories at night round the fire. Stumm's myrmidons no doubt beset every road and troubl

old place, but the woman of the cottage had heaped deerskins and blankets on my bed and kept me warm. She came in now and then, and once she brought me a bre

er 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 locked. He didn't seem to be a creatur

st farce. The three words Harry Bullivant had scribbled had danced through my head in a c

Kasredin-there was nothing to be got out of that. Cancer-there were t

for von, and I had considered the German names beginning with I-Ingolstadt, Ingeburg, Ingenohl, and

I as the numeral One. Idly, not thinkin

light I had found. Harry Bullivant knew that some man or woman called von Einem was at the heart of the mystery. Stumm had spoken of the same personage with respect and in connection with the work I proposed to do in raising the M

esday, the 29th of December-I was well enough to get up. When the dark had fallen and it was too

t 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 a

thout 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 innocent go free. It was our business to thank God and keep our hands clean from the ugly blunders

wives get in England. The children 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 a

. 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, a

. '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 will change it for you. But I a

t off down the clearing. They had cried 'Auf wiederseh

drifted in my eyes. After half an hour's steady trudge the trees thinned, and presently I came out on a knuckle o

e 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 I could not get to Sir Walter. I was to go o

ort 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 suggest

s due in Constantinople on the 17th of January. Constantinople! I had thought

, where the water slipped round a corner of hill, there was a long trail of smoke. The streamers thinned out, and seemed to come from some

been much less than 1,000 tons-and after came a string of barges. I counted no less than six besides the tug. They

ng pretty short in his first supply. Sandy said that they wanted the railway, but they wanted still more the river, and they could make certain of that in a week. He told us how endless strings of barges, loaded up at the big factories of Westphalia, were moving through the canals from the Rhine or the Elbe to the Danube.

s going snugly off to the enemy. I calculated they would give our poor chaps hell in Galli

gh. 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 spe

safer, I replied to myself, once I get there. If you are looking for a deserter you don't seek him at the favourite reg

not stop once in a hundred miles, and Stumm would get me long before I struck a halting

s 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

ame over a low rise, I saw on my left a straggling village with a church, and a small landing-stage. The h

s enough depth of water. 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

. I watched the procession move towards the village and I reckoned they would take some time there, thoug

the most monstrous bluff. If the whole countryside was hunting for Richard Hannay, Richard Hannay would walk through as a pal of the hunte

hey 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 igno

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.

nches 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 b

by two and I was thankful to see that they had no villagers with them. I walked to

mb over his shoulder. The others wore thick jerseys and k

n with a weather-beaten

n?' I said, with what I hoped was a judi

is companion,

sked rather

face at once took on that curious look which one person in authority always wears

observe your credential

bound for Constan

k,' he replied. 'There the stuf

each Rustc

ccidents. Let us sa

imes to make journeys by other than the common route. That is now my desire. I have the r

ly he did

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 tak

ou have been bu

of a boy from Hamburg. I have just come from wiring to my owners for a fresh man, but even

light

or behold, Herr Captain, I am an engineer, and will gla

at me do

nd. Mining was my branch, but I had a good general training, and I know enou

d what he was, an honest, good

will let the telegraph sleep. I require authority from the Governm

en minutes later we were out in mid-stream and our tows were lumbering into line. Coffee was being made ready

moving rapidly. They seemed to wear uniform. On the next parallel road, the one that ran through the villa

hat not one of the villagers had seen me. I had not got away