"I wonder what he was to do with these."
José Medina had opened the door of the saloon once more. A beam of sunlight shot through the doorway, and enveloped Hillyard's arm and hand. The tiny slim phial glittered like silver; and to all of them in the cabin it became a sinister engine of destruction.
"That, as you say, is your affair. I must go," said José, and he shook hands with Hillyard and Fairbairn, and went out on to the deck. "Hasta luego!"
"Hasta ahora!" returned Hillyard; and José Medina walked down the steps of the ladder to his felucca. The blue sea widened between the two vessels; and in a week, Hillyard descended from a train on to the platform of the Quai D'Orsay station in Paris. He had the tubes in his luggage, and one box of them he took that morning to Commandant Marnier at his office on the left bank of the river with the letter which gave warning of their arrival.
"You see what the letter says," Hillyard explained. "These tubes have been very successful in France."
Marnier nodded his head:
"If you will leave them with me, I will show them to our chemists, and perhaps, in a few days, I will have news for you."
For a week Hillyard took his ease in Paris and was glad of the rest in the midst of those strenuous days. He received one morning at his hotel, a batch of letters, many of which had been written months before. But two were of recent date. Henry Luttrell wrote to him:
"My battalion did splendidly and our debt to old Oakley is great. There is only a handful of us left and we are withdrawn, of course, from the lines. By some miracle I escaped without a hurt. Everybody has been very generous, making it up to us for our bad times. The Corps Commander came and threw bouquets in person, and we hear that D.H. himself is going out of his way to come and inspect us. I go home on leave in a fortnight and hope to come back in command of the battalion. Perhaps we may meet in London. Let me hear if that is possible."
The second letter had been sent from Rackham Park, and in it Millie Splay wrote: