"Oh, damn," said the young man, "I thought you had
dropped that rot. I've simply got to go. You can have
my address, and I'll give any security you like."

"No," I said, "you must stay."

At that I think they must have realized that the game
was desperate. Their only chance had been to
convince me that I was playing the fool, and that had
failed. But the old man spoke again.

"I'll go bad for my nephew. That ought to content you,
Mr. Hannay." Was it fancy, or did I detect some halt in
the smoothness of that voice?

There must have been, for as I glanced at him, his
eyelids fell in that hawk-like hood which fear had
stamped on my memory.

I blew my whistle.

In an instant the lights were out. A pair of strong arms
gripped me round the waist, covering the pockets in
which a man might be expected to carry a pistol.

"Schnell, Franz," cried a voice, "das Boot, das Boot!" As
it spoke I saw two of my fellows emerge on the
moonlit lawn.

The young dark man leapt for the window, was
through it, and over the low fence before a hand could
touch him. I grappled the old chap, and the room
seemed to fill with figures. I saw the plump one
collared, but my eyes were all for the out-of-doors,
where Franz sped on over the road towards the railed
entrance to the beach stairs. One man followed him,
but he had no chance. The gate of the stairs locked
behind the fugitive, and I stood staring, with my hands
on the old boy's throat, for such a time as a man might
take to descend those steps to the sea.

Suddenly my prisoner broke from me and flung
himself on the wall. There was a click as if a lever had
been pulled. Then came a low rumbling far, far below
the ground, and through the window I saw a cloud of
chalky dust pouring out of the shaft of the stairway.
Some one switched on the lights.

The old man was looking at me with blazing eyes.

 "He is safe," he cried. "You cannot follow in time  .... He
is gone  .... He has triumphed  .... Der schwarze Stein ist
in der Siegeskrone."

There was more in those eyes than any common
triumph. They had been hooded like a bird of prey, and
now they flamed with a hawk's pride. A white fanatic
heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time the
terrible thing, I had been up against. This man was
more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot.

As the handcuffs clinked on his wrists I said my last
word to him.

"I hope Franz will bear his triumph well. I ought to tell
you that the Ariadne for the last hour has been in our
hands."

Seven weeks later, as all the world knows, we went to
war. I joined the New Army the first week, and owing
to my Matabele experience got a captain's commission
straight off. But I had done my best service, I think,
before I put on khaki.

[End.]
.