Reinecke had not spoken during the meal, complete ab ovo usque ad mala. Now, however, having gulped down his coffee, and the liqueur which the admirable Mirami served as usual, though with shaking hand, he cleared his throat and hesitatingly put a question.
"Where are you--are we--going?"
"That you will see."
The German, primed to attempt a parley, sat back in his chair, and said, in the manner of one appealing to good sense:
"The frontier is closed. It would be madness to attempt to cross the Neu Langenburg road."
"You might be shot by your own countrymen, you mean?"
"What I mean," rejoined Reinecke, generously ignoring the insinuation, "is that you are playing a fool's game. You have the whip hand now; you have, I suppose, raised a mutiny among my people----"
"Our people, they used to be: they are mine now."
"Ach! what folly it is!" said Reinecke, with a gesture of impatience. "You are in German country; within a few miles there are hundreds of well-trained troops; are you mad enough to think that these raw blacks, who hardly know one end of a rifle from the other, can reach British territory? It is impossible--impossible."
"Well?"