"My friends," he said, "but wait. Here is Mr. Cresswell."
The poet came to them with outstretched hands.
"My heartiest congratulations!" he exclaimed, pausing before Harvey Grimm. "You will be able to write a ballad of the Bow Street cells. Perhaps I will collaborate. It will mean immortality for you. Where do I sit?"
A place was found for him. He, too, raised the wine-glass which he found in front of him, to his lips, but was checked by De Floge.
"We will, with your permission," the latter proposed, "drink to the happiness of my dear sister, Henriette, and your friend—and mine, too, that is to be," he added, with a bow—"Mr. Aaron Rodd. They are to be married this month, and if you would care for a wonderful entertainment during the service of our luncheon, they shall recount their adventures of the last six days. I promise you, Mr. Harvey Grimm, that yours will seem to you monotonous."
They listened to the story, told by one and supplemented by the other. It was all amazing. The poet was frankly envious.
"After all," he grumbled, "it seems to me that I am the one who treads the dreary path of commonplace life."
De Floge leaned across towards him.
"Sir," he said, "that is not wholly true, for both you and I, along different paths, are pledged to the greatest and most wonderful adventure the world can offer. We have drunk to the happiness of my sister and Mr. Aaron Rodd. I drank to you a short while ago, Mr. Harvey Grimm, full of respect for that sporting spirit which kept you silent in captivity. We will drink now, all of us, to the common cause, to the great adventure of life and death, to the end which is written in letters of blood across the scarred face of Europe—to Vengeance and Victory!"
THE END