“I stood directly opposite.
“‘You see this revolver?’ He slipped a metal thing from its holster and placed it beside his plate. ‘I will shoot you if you move so much as a millimetre! Now we shall see who you are.’ He stared past me at the sentry. ‘Fetch the caretaker!’ he ordered.
“Then, monsieur, when we were alone together, the German became strangely quiet. He became as one who is puzzled and who wishes to believe something which he scarcely dares believe. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, almost gently.
“‘I am a Benedictine—Brother Jan Heynderyckx.’
“‘You are of this monastery?’
“‘I am of this monastery.’
“‘You know the monastery?’
“‘As I know my hand.’
“‘Why are you here?’
“‘My father-superior ordered me back from Malines to stay in the monastery—to care for it.’