"A long day," he muttered. "I am weary. Where do you go tonight?"
Markov halted Fra Umberto and throwing the reins over the donkey's back strode forward determinedly.
"We will come to an agreement here and now, Herr Hochwald," he said with grim politeness. "Our ways hare parted--yonder. The night is fine--your robe heavy. You will sleep quite comfortably under the stars. As for us--whither we go is no concern of yours. Is it understood?"
Hochwald looked up at the tall figure for a moment, then shrugged.
"As you please. Drive on, Herr Musician."
Markov examined the man a moment in silence, and then obeyed, but as they approached Weingarten Herr Markov reported the dark figure a threatening shade in the gloom following at a distance behind them.
But they reached the Waldhaus without further incident. It was an inn, built in a much earlier day, at some distance from the high road and situated at the edge of a thick forest of well-grown pine trees. The proprietor was a compatriot of Herr Markov's, a small man with an expansive smile and a huge paunch upon which the privations of the war had made little impression. When Fra Umberto had been put into a stable and the packages of notes brought into the house and safely hidden in a room up-stairs, Tanya and Markov breathed more freely, for though nothing had been seen of the black cassock of Herr Hochwald for an hour or more, Tanya knew that he could not be far away.
When all their arrangements for the night had been completed, Markov despatched Herr Zweisler to the telegraph office for messages for Herr Liedenthal, the name that he and Rowland had agreed upon when they had arranged their code.
It was midnight before Herr Zweisler returned but he brought the message, which Markov and Tanya eagerly deciphered by the light of the kitchen lamp.
In English it would have read somewhat as follows: