The Yellow Dove/Chapter 17

 

CHAPTER XVII
LINDBERG

WHEN Hammersley entered the house with von Winden he was immediately aware that a crisis had come in his affairs, for in the hall leading to the living-room stood Captain Wentz and two soldiers, and when he was shown into von Stromberg’s presence, the Councilor stood with his back to the hearth, his long legs wide apart, his hands behind his back and the expression of his long, bony face was not pleasant to see. He smiled and frowned at the same time—a smile which possessed so few of the ingredients of humor that the tangled brows even seemed less ominous. Doris was nowhere to be seen. Hammersley made no sign of his prescience of trouble. He put his pipe in the pocket of his leather jacket, strolled forward into the room and stood at attention. “Search him!” snapped von Stromberg. And when von Winden had finished, “Leave us,” he said to the officer, “and keep within call, I shall need you presently.” He waited until the door was closed and then turned to Hammersley somberly.

“Your jig is danced, Herr Hammersley, Fräulein Mather has confessed.”

“Confessed what, Excellenz?” questioned Hammersley calmly.

“She has told the truth.”

“Of course, that was to be expected of her.”

“Bah!” roared the General. “There’s no need of more of that. She told me that you were an English spy.”

Hammersley started forward, the only expression on his face one of complete incredulity. “Fräulein Mather told you that? Impossible!”

“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me?”

Hammersley managed a smile.

“It would hardly be good ethics for me to say that. I simply repeat that it is impossible.”

“Why?” Von Stromberg sneered.

“Because it is morally impossible for her to tell an untruth.”

“Ach, so. But it is physically impossible for her to keep from not doing so.” He leaned forward, grinning craftily. “In the small games of life, in the things which amount to nothing, women lie with a careless skill that is amazing, but in a game of life and death, their little tricks are negligible. Pouf! Herr Hammersley, did you expect to match mere falsehood and such a tissue of flimsy evidence against a man of my experience? It was a desperate game from the beginning—one which could have had only one end. You have been clever—very, very clever. In time, perhaps, under proper guidance and with the necessary political opinions, you could have succeeded in becoming a very useful helper of the Universe, through the medium of the Secret Service Department of the German Empire. But such cleverness is superficial and quickly burns out in the hotter fire of genius. I would like you to know—”

“One moment, Excellenz,” put in Hammersley coolly. “Am I to understand from your attitude that you believe I am false to the Vaterland?”

Von Stromberg laughed.

“You still insist on acting out the part?”

Hammersley did not answer the question. Instead he asked, “Will you be good enough to tell me upon what new evidence you base your present position?”

The Councilor strode to the table and thrust the telegraphic message he had shown to the girl under Hammersley’s nose.

“This,” he growled. “I will read it to you. ‘Hammersley caused arrest of Byfield. Has informed on Rizzio and myself——’ It’s signed ‘Maxwell.’ What do you think of my evidence?” He grinned, “Convincing, nicht wahr?”

Hammersley looked up into von Stromberg’s face with a smile.

“Not even in code, Excellenz? It is a pity you did not write it in English. But under the circumstances you can’t expect me to take any interest in such a trick.”

“Not you, Herr Hammersley,” he chuckled. “It is not necessary that you should believe in it. In fact there are reasons why you shouldn’t believe in it, the most important reason being that Herr Maxwell is dead.”

“Dead!”

“Obviously. You condemned him and he was put in prison. If he is not dead it is through no fault of yours.”

Hammersley smiled. “You cannot get me to acquiesce in such strange statements.”

“I do not ask you to acquiesce. I could not expect to catch Herr Hammersley by a trick. But Miss Mather was less difficult.”

Hammersley’s jaws set. “I understand. But do you mean to say that I can be incriminated by a confession made under the stress of a terror artificially produced?”

“That is a clever turn of phrase, Herr Hammersley, worthy of the high regard with which I hold your abilities. In reply I can only say that in time of war my deductions in all matters connected with my department are final. You are an English spy, Herr Hammersley, and you are quite aware of the penalty.”

Hammersley raised his head and folded his arms. “Quite,” he replied, “if you choose to take that action. I can only say that the time will come when you will regret it.”

“I must take that chance, for there will be no trial.”

Hammersley shrugged his shoulders and turned aside. His face was white and the muscles at his jaws worked for a moment, but otherwise he gave no sign of emotion. General von Stromberg had gone back to his favorite pose by the mantel and Hammersley again heard his voice.

“It seems a pity, Herr Hammersley, that after all it should be you instead of Herr Rizzio who is the culprit. You are a type of young man very much to my liking, and the position of the young lady is unpleasant in the extreme. She has served her purpose here and I shall, of course, take immediate steps to have her returned to her own people.”

“Thanks,” said Hammersley dryly.

“But the thing that has interested me in your case from the first,” he continued with a return of his mastodonic playfulness, “and indeed still continues to interest me, is why you should choose to return to Germany when you knew that you were under suspicion. Surely you did not come here to pick cowslips in March? Come now, I could have you shot this afternoon if I chose. Tell me the truth and I will promise to postpone the affair until tomorrow.”

Hammersley studied the pattern in the rug thoughtfully for a moment, and at last he straightened and shrugged again.

“I don’t suppose there is any use playing the game further. Since I am to go, it doesn’t matter if I tell you. I have planned for some time to be able to get plans of the recent additions to the fortifications of Strassburg.”

“Ach, so. Strassburg! And what, may I ask, were to be your means of procuring them?”

“That, of course, since my utility has ceased, cannot possibly be of interest to you.”

Von Stromberg studied him narrowly for a long moment and then wagged his head sagely. It was an unnecessary suspicion that he had cherished. This had been a case with interesting aspects, but after all it was not much out of the usual way. An English spy betrayed by the simplest of tricks upon the credulity and affection of a woman. He thought that Hammersley had been after bigger game. Plans, fortifications—the same objects, the same methods. Von Stromberg had tried to puzzle out in the mazes of his wonderful brain the possible chance that this man could have had of learning of the whereabouts of Herr Gottschalk’s memoranda and of the momentous decision which had been reached in the Wilhelmstrasse with regard to them. He studied Hammersley closely, with something approaching regret that the contest between them could not have been waged at greater length and for higher stakes. He felt a genuine human sorrow at this moment over the impending fate of this handsome young man who was only doing his duty for the fatuous English. It was too bad. But there was much else to do. Tomorrow his mission in this part of the Empire would be ended and the Wilhelmstrasse was calling. He touched the bell upon the table and Captain Wentz entered.

“Herr Hammersley is to be taken to the room on the third floor. Tonight you will see that he is securely bound and a guard set over him, within the room. You will place another guard outside below his window. If he tries to escape, shoot him.”

Wentz spoke to the man in the hall and Hammersley, between them, was led to the foot of the steps, and followed his captors to the upper story. He knew, in view of the instructions that he had overheard, that any effort to escape would be fruitless. He sat on the edge of the bed submitting calmly while his feet and hands were bound under the direction of Captain Wentz; after which the officers went out, leaving a man to guard him, and locked the door. Hammersley rolled over on the bed and lay for a long while staring at the wall. The day was fading into dusk. Five o’clock, it might be, Hammersley guessed. Six hours or less remained to him in which to act. Six hours in which he must lie helpless while the one chance of intercepting the messenger from Berlin came and passed. He lay perfectly still as he had fallen, but his spirit writhed in agony.

Doris was in a room near him, likewise a prisoner, aware of the fate in store for him and able to do nothing but wait as he would wait until the shots were fired below there in the garden, which would be the end of all things for him. He found that he was thinking little of himself. It was Doris and what she must be suffering that occupied the moments of his thoughts which were not given to the remote chances of escape.

His bonds were tightly drawn—a rope tied with German thoroughness. He moved his hands behind him and tried to gain a little room for his present ease. If he was to be shot tomorrow morning it would have seemed indeed a small charity to have permitted him to pass his last night in some degree of comfort. Could it be that, after all, von Stromberg suspected the real object of his return? That hardly seemed possible; for his informant in Berlin, a woman close to those in high authority, had made every move with the utmost discretion and his own relations to Lindberg could not possibly be suspected.

Lindberg! Hammersley turned and looked at his guard who was standing motionless by the window, gazing out at the fading landscape. Lindberg was his one, his last desperate hope. Udo von Winden, his cousin—It was too much to hope that Udo would be of service to him. He had caught a glimpse of Udo’s face in the hallway downstairs when von Stromberg’s orders were given. He had gone pale and stared at him in pity and horror as Hammersley had gone up the stairs, but Hammersley knew that the ties of kinship, the memories of their boyhood together, were nothing beside the iron will and indomitable authority of the great man who had condemned him. Udo would suffer when Hammersley died, for there had been a time when the two had been much to each other, but he would do his duty, however painful, as a small unit of the relentless machine which Hammersley had had the temerity to oppose. What else could be expected?

A word, a sign, the slightest aid to such a prisoner, and he would be as guilty as his cousin. Hammersley knew that he did Udo no injustice in supposing that any help from such a source was out of the question. If Udo had been caught in England as Hammersley was caught in Germany, Hammersley knew that he could do nothing to save him.

But Lindberg! Here the case was different. It was Lindberg whose life Hammersley had saved three years ago in this very forest, when the Forester had stumbled and fallen in the path of an angry boar who would have gored him to death, if Hammersley had not shot the beast. Lindberg the Forester it was, who, in his hours off duty, had been Hammersley’s chosen companion in many a hunt up through the rocky gorges of these very mountains, every stick and stone of which he knew as he knew his own rugged face in the mirror. It was Lindberg who had been so useful in keeping him informed of the exact state of affairs at Blaufelden. It was Lindberg who had learned of the microphone that von Stromberg had installed and it was Lindberg who had listened at the receiver upstairs in von Stromberg’s room to the conversation when the Councilor had told Captain Wentz the nature of the documents from Berlin and the hour of their arrival.

Already Lindberg had repaid a hundredfold the debt of Hammersley’s service and it was quite possible, now that Hammersley’s actual mission had been discovered, that he would take to cover, his mind clear in the thought that he had done all that could be expected of him. But there was a warm affection between the two, born of many a long day in the open and many a night by the campfire where the old man had taught him the Foresters’ secrets of the trees, the birds in their branches and of the many four-legged things that scurried beneath them. They had often talked, too, of many other things, and Hammersley had learned that Lindberg’s politics were those that one learns under the open sky—the eternal peace of Nature, before which war and men, its armed instruments, were a blasphemy.

Perhaps Lindberg would find a way. But what way? How? Udo von Winden, too, was aware of the woodcraft fellowship, for often he had made their duet a trio. Hammersley knew that Udo von Winden as yet suspected nothing of the services Lindberg had rendered him and he wondered whether in this pass the ties of kinship would be strong enough to keep him silent as to the possible capabilities of the old Forester for mischief in Hammersley’s behalf.

Hammersley hoped. He clung to the thought of Lindberg’s fidelity and affection as a dying man clings to the hope of Heaven. He tried to analyze the old man’s capacities for sympathy and courage. To help a man in his position seemed to require larger stores of both of these qualities than human clay was molded for. Lindberg did not fear death, he knew, but the death he courted was the kind of death Hammersley had saved him from, a good death in a fair game with a noble enemy, not the kind of death that awaited Hammersley, a cold, machine-made death against a kitchen wall. And he must know as Hammersley knew that this was what would follow.

The dusk faded into dark and the soldier lit a candle. Hammersley turned his head and examined him attentively. His face was unfamiliar at Blaufelden, one of the men probably sent down at von Stromberg’s orders from the upper district to be useful in just this emergency. Von Stromberg would make no mistakes, of course. He never did make mistakes. He had enough men about him to cope with the situation safely. He would leave no opportunity for his plans to miscarry. Any opportunity, should there be one, must be created. Hammersley managed to wriggle into a sitting posture on the bed and spoke to his captor in German.

“You wouldn’t mind my having a smoke, would you?” he asked.

The man looked at him, debating the matter.

“Just get into the side pocket of my jacket and fish out my pipe and tobacco, mein junger. I need a smoke badly. And so would you if you were going to be shot in the morning.”

“Ach, wohl. I see no harm in that, mein Herr. You cannot smoke yourself away.”

He came over, brought out Hammersley’s short pipe, filled it from the pouch and stuck it between his lips. Then he got out a match and lighted it while Hammersley puffed.

“Ah!” said Hammersley contentedly. “You are a good fellow. Tomorrow morning I will give you my blessing.”

The man paced stolidly up and down beside the bed.

“I am sorry for you, mein Herr. But it is life. It is all decided for us beforehand. We are here a moment and then we are gone.”

Hammersley smiled.

“A fatalist! Then perhaps you can tell me if there is any chance of my escape.”

He was stopped abruptly.

“I can tell you that there is not,” he said severely.

“I would have said as much. But it was a pardonable curiosity, nicht wahr?”

“Pardonable, ja wohl,” the man replied, “but most unseemly under the circumstances.”

“You have a deep sense of your responsibilities.”

“Ja. I obey my orders, that is all. I do not care what others do.”

“Therefore you will shoot me tomorrow.”

“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “I am but an instrument of Providence.” He waved his hand. “But I talk too much, and so do you. It is not seemly in a soldier and a prisoner.”

Hammersley laughed. “You have a fine sense of the fitness of things.”

“Ja. It was so written.”

He relapsed into silence and in spite of efforts on Hammersley’s part refused to speak further. It was only after Hammersley badgered him for his unsociability that he spoke with some asperity.

“I will trouble you to be quiet. When I am relieved, my successor may let you speak and laugh as much as you please. But it is unnatural in a man at the point of death. It would be better if you were saying your prayers.”

“I am sure that you are right. But I still have a few hours. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me the hour at which you are to be relieved—the hour when we are both of us to be relieved?”

The man gazed at him uncomprehendingly.

“After supper.” He finished indifferently, “Eight o’clock, perhaps.”

Hammersley was silent. Two hours or more to wait before a change of guards, and then only a chance that Lindberg would be able to do something. Even then if he managed to get loose, there was left little more than an hour in which to reach the road by which the machine would come from Berlin, and even then what should he do without Doris? His case was desperate. Only a miracle it seemed could make a success of what had been a pitiful failure; only an act of Providence could save him from the discreditable end that awaited him.

He drew up his knees and studied the knots at his ankles. His guardian was the one who had tied them.

“You tie a good square knot, my friend. You were once a sailor?”

But nothing would induce the soldier to talk.

As the supper hour approached, Hammersley could hear the rattle of pans and dishes downstairs and noticed the odor of coffee. They would not starve him, of course. In a little while someone would come with food. After a while, which seemed interminable, the noise of the rattling dishes ceased and there was a sound at the door into the hall as the key turned in the lock and Captain Wentz entered. His sturdy back had never seemed so ugly nor so welcome, for the silence and the inaction were getting on Hammersley’s nerves. The officer came over to the bed and gravely examined the knots of the rope that bound the prisoner. Then, satisfied with the results of his inspection, he straightened and glanced around the room.

“Gut,” he muttered. And then to the soldier: “You will go down and tell Lindberg to bring Herr Hammersley’s supper. I will stay here in the meanwhile. You will then relieve the man at the door of his Excellenz.”

The man saluted and departed. They still trusted Lindberg. Then Udo had suspected nothing, or if he had suspected, had kept his thoughts to himself. Hammersley lay back on the pillow preparing a stolid indifference for Lindberg’s entrance. And when the meal was brought, Wentz untied his hands and stood over him with an automatic while he ate.

“Your weapon makes a poor relish, Herr Hauptmann,” said Hammersley with a laugh.

“I greatly regret its necessity,” replied Wentz with his machine-made politeness.

Hammersley ventured nothing further, eating silently, and with a surprising appetite, for good Lindberg’s face in the background had given him new courage. When the meal was done, he asked for his pipe again and Wentz ordered the Forester to fill it. Hammersley inhaled the smoke and exhaled a sigh.

“So far as I am concerned, Herr Hauptmann,” he said with a smile, “when this pipe is finished you may kill me at once.”

He extended his wrists behind him in silence while Captain Wentz took half a dozen turns of the rope and made it fast. Hammersley sat up in bed puffing at his pipe and wondering whether some miracle might not be induced that would kill Wentz. But he was quickly disillusioned, for when Lindberg took the dishes and moved toward the door, he heard Wentz’s crisp orders:

“You will send Max Senf to take the first night watch upon the prisoner. He is awaiting my orders in the guard room. Schnell.”

Without even a glance at the prisoner Lindberg saluted and went out and Hammersley’s spirits fell. Help from Lindberg was impossible. Von Stromberg was taking every precaution. There was no way out of it. Hammersley was doomed. But while Wentz was in the room he kept a cheerful countenance, though for the first time in his life that he could remember his pipe was acrid. He saw the new guard enter and heard the last orders of the officer.

“You will watch until one o’clock when your relief will be sent. The prisoner is to be allowed no privileges. Under no circumstances are his hands to be untied. If he wants water, you will give it to him with your own hands. Verstehen sie?”

The man stood erect and saluted. “Zu befehl, Herr Hauptmann,” he said.

Hammersley saw the door close and heard the key turn in the lock while Senf came forward into the room and stood by the foot of the bed. Hammersley studied him closely: a tall, loosely jointed man in his early thirties with the heavy brows and high cheekbones of the East Prussian, the face of a Slav, almost, with something of the thoughtful intensity of the South German mystic. His eyes were large, his nose thin and his face was bearded, but the lines of his mouth had a sensitive curve, belied by the big bony hands and broad shoulders. A sentimentalist, perhaps!

Hammersley determined to try him, for a plan had been forming in his mind. He had noticed with a glance which had included everything in the room when he entered, a Bible upon the mantelshelf, and in a tone which had in it a solemn sense of the doom which awaited him in the morning, he addressed his guardian quietly:

“Senf, you have a kind face. There is a small favor that you may do me.”

“If it does not conflict with my orders.”

“Not at all. Tomorrow morning I am to be shot. All I ask is that you will allow me to read for a while the Bible upon the chimneypiece.”

“Ach! I see no harm in that.”

He went over and got the book, opening the pages and looking through them.

“It is little enough for a dying man to ask,” he said.

“Danke,” said Hammersley quietly, his face solemn but his mind working rapidly. “It is but right to make one’s peace with the world at a time like this.”

“I am sorry, mein Herr,” said the man mournfully. “It is not good for a man to die in the first flush of youth.”

“If it could only have been in the open, Senf, a soldier’s death, but this—Ach, wohl—we can only go once. It doesn’t matter.” He gave a deep sigh and asked his guardian to light his pipe again and open the Book at the Psalms of David.

“I cannot turn the pages, my friend. It is a pity. But propped upon one elbow I can see quite well if you will but put the candle here upon the bed.”

The man did as requested and Hammersley thanked him.

“You are a kind fellow. It is bread upon the waters. You will find it after many days.”

“It is nothing. I would expect as much from another.”

“Now, if you will permit, I would prefer the solitude of my thoughts.”

The soldier turned slowly away and Hammersley bent his gaze upon the open page, but he did not read. He was thinking, planning, watching the movements of Max Senf. Eight o’clock was long past. It must be nearly nine. But two hours remained before the arrival of the messenger from Berlin. His guardian paced slowly up and down the room between the door and window, and Hammersley felt, if he did not see, his deep bovine gaze fixed upon him from time to time. Eight or ten times the man took the length of the room and then with a deep sigh he sank into the chair at the foot of the bed. Hammersley did not move his head, which remained bent forward over the book, but from the tail of his eye he noted that the tall footboard of the old-fashioned bed partially concealed him. Propped up as he was he could see the man’s head as far down as the tip of his nose, but all of his head was in shadow. Arguing from this, everything upon the bed below the line of the flame of the candle was invisible to him. But a quick glance showed Hammersley that the man was not looking at him. His dark eyes were peering straight before him at the opposite wall and his mind was wrapped in some gloomy vision.

The plan he had in mind required subtlety. He marked the shadows upon the ceiling and moved up in the bed so that his own shadow would be thrown behind the line of sight of his guardian. Then he paused again, his eyes fixed on the pages, waiting for Senf to look at him again. He heard the man move in his chair, which creaked as he settled more comfortably into it. And when Hammersley looked again, only his eyes were visible, their gaze fixed darkly ahead of him.

Hammersley now puffed a volume of smoke from his pipe and slowly wriggled his left arm forward under him, so that he could see the knot that tied his wrists. It was a large knot, but vulnerable. He puffed more smoke, meanwhile watching the top of the head of Senf. As it did not move, he lay over half upon his back, and, taking care not to disturb the book, slowly advanced his arms behind him toward the blaze of the candle. The knot of the rope caught and blazed, but the candle sputtered, and he quickly withdrew his hands, sending a volume of smoke from his pipe to neutralize the odor. Senf sniffed the air curiously.

“Something is burning,” Hammersley heard him mutter.

“My pipe,” he explained carefully. “It is a vile tobacco. But it will go out of the crack at the window.”

“Will you not try mine, Herr Hammersley? Perhaps it is better.”

“No, thanks. Nothing much matters to a dead man.”

His guardian settled back in his chair, and Hammersley repeated his maneuver more daringly, his own pipe seething like a furnace.

“You are a furious smoker, Herr Hammersley,” said Senf again.

“It is the way one smokes, mein Junger, when one smokes for the last time,” he replied.

But the fellow got up, sniffing and walking around the room.

“It is a most curious tobacco,” he muttered.

Hammersley’s wrists pained him where his bonds had cut, but he kept his gaze upon the page of the book, and Senf sat in his chair again. A strong pull of his arms and Hammersley felt the tension relax. His bonds came looser and after a few more efforts his wrists were free. His heart was jumping and he feared a stray glance of the watcher might see the throbbing of the blood at his temples, but he clasped his hands behind him and waited, slipping the sundered rope beneath a fold of the blanket.

Two—three minutes passed and Senf did not move. The untying of his feet might prove a difficult matter, but he made the venture, working slowly and patiently, his gaze on Senf’s head. Then, as the knot yielded a little to his prying fingers, his gaze quickly concentrated on it. In his efforts he must have made a sound or a suspicious movement of the shoulders, for when he looked up he saw the head of Max Senf projecting above the tailboard of the bed, his large eyes protruding with amazement. They gazed at each other for a tense fraction of a second and then sprang upright. Hammersley threw his feet out upon the floor and leaped for the man, catching him around the waist so that he could not draw a weapon. His legs were useless and the only chance he had, a desperate one at best, was to drag the man to the floor by sheer weight and there perhaps throttle him. Senf beat with his heavy fists on Hammersley’s head and shoulders, and finally forced him backwards upon the floor, falling with him, but Hammersley still clung with frantic grip which the man could not shake off. But at last he managed to get his fingers around Hammersley’s throat and tried to force his head back.

Hammersley gasped for breath, but still struggled gamely, though he realized that he had played his last card. Things got dark, and dimly he saw the door of the room open and someone enter. Wentz, of course. His game was up.

Senf was panting heavily. “He burnt the rope,” Hammersley heard him say. “Come and help me. He has a grip of iron.”

The figure from the door moved quickly around the squirming figures, and Hammersley saw the reflection of the candle on something bright. A knife. He heard a blow, and the mass of struggling flesh above him suddenly collapsed and smothered him with its weight. With an effort he struggled free and rolled aside, looking up into the grim face of Lindberg.

“Sh—” the man whispered. “I had to do it. There was no other way. I’ve been waiting outside.”

Hammersley tried to speak, but his throat closed, and while he struggled for his breath, he saw Lindberg go to the door and stand, his ear to the keyhole, listening. In a moment he came back.

“Ganz gut! They have heard nothing.”

“Are you sure?” Hammersley managed to gasp, as Lindberg cut the rope that bound his ankles.

“Yes. He was so sure of himself that he did not shout.”

He helped the prisoner to his feet and they clasped hands.

“Good Lindberg! My friend! I had given up.”

“I have waited until the beer was served. It is well. And now——” He looked around the room quickly. “You shall go.”

Hammersley had a sudden thought.

“Captain von Winden sent you?”

“No. He knows nothing. But he has not spoken. It is now after nine o’clock. By half past nine you must go.”

“Ja doch! But you——!”

“I shall remain.”

“No, no; I will not consent to that.”

“Yes, I have thought out a plan.”

“But they will suspect. They will shoot you.”

“No, they will not. Have I not told you that I have thought out a plan?”

“I will listen to it.”

Lindberg meanwhile had been unstrapping his pistol holster and put it on a chair.

Hammersley glanced over his shoulder at the door. “But they may come again,” he whispered.

“I think not. There is little time to lose. We will have to take the chance.”

“But if they return and find me free it will only cause your death and do me no good.”

“Herr Hammersley, you should know by this time that I do not waste words. Have I not told you that I have made a plan? Listen. This is my story for Herr Hauptmann Wentz. I happen to be in the hallway without, carrying a pitcher of water to the room of Miss Mather—the pitcher is outside on the table—when I hear the sounds of a commotion in this room. Fearing that the prisoner has by some miracle gotten free, I unlock the door with my pass-key and enter. You have burned your bonds and killed Senf. You spring on me and make me a prisoner——” He paused.

“And you——” Hammersley broke in. “You will be left here? No, I won’t leave you—not to that fate. I will not go unless you go with me. We will contrive a way to get out of the country.”

“Ach, nein! Will you not listen? Have I not told you that I have thought of everything? I have communicated with the lady. She is ready to go with you. Her room has a dormer window around the corner of the building, and there is a ledge along the roof. You will go to her. The distance to the roof of the kitchen is thirty feet. It will require four sheets, yours and hers. They are new ones and if well twisted will hold. If you get away safely you can reach the cave in the Thorwald. No one will ever find you there——”

“Yes, Lindberg—but you—what will you say to them?”

“It is no time to waste words. Even now the lady is waiting for you. Come, you must get ready at once.”

He walked to the bed and quickly stripped off the blankets, twisting the sheets and tying them together. Then he took his pistol belt and fastened it around Hammersley’s waist, slipping a handful of loose cartridges into the side pocket of his leather jacket.

Hammersley, bewildered by the devotion of his old friend and tossed between alternatives of duty, stood helplessly. At the moment when he needed resolution most he was supine. But the minutes were passing. The thought of his mission suddenly brought him to life, and his face grew hard, his eyes brilliant with purpose.

“Come, Lindberg. You must go with me.”

“No,” the man insisted. “My plan is the best.”

“No. You must come with me.”

“I have made other plans, Herr Hammersley,” he whispered gently. “You will go alone. I will give you a reason.” And before Hammersley could know what he meant to do, he drew his hunting-knife from its sheath in Hammersley’s belt and plunged it into his own shoulder.

Hammersley could scarcely restrain a cry, but Lindberg smiled at him and plucking the weapon out, put it in Hammersley’s outstretched hand.

“It is nothing,” he said. “It will bleed a little. The more it bleeds the better my case with Excellenz. They will be here in three hours, if not before. Now bind and gag me—quick. There is no time to lose.”

He lay flat upon the floor and as in a dream Hammersley obeyed him, tying his arms and legs. When he had finished, Hammersley bent over the man and touched his hand gently.

“Good-by, old friend. Whatever happens I will not forget. God bless you.”

There was a bright, keen look in the small gray eyes upturned to his.

That was all Hammersley could see of the swathed head, but it gave him a new idea of self-sacrifice.