“All right!” The interpreter took his knife from his pocket and began to cut the almost new rope, when the German, swearing, stopped him.
Then one might have seen a sight, the contemplation of which would have been sweet to every prisoner. In the black night a German adjutant undoing with his own hands and by the orders of a superior officer the bonds of a hated Englishman, whom he would have liked to see perish with pain and cold, and this under the contemptuous eyes of a Frenchman whom he had hoped to summon before a war-council, and to send to shiver on the straw of a cell.
The work finished, the Boche, full of rage and shame, rolled up the rope. Then he went away, and the dark, frosty night swallowed him up.
The unhappy Scotsman, worn out and frozen, could scarcely stand. The pains caused by the returning circulation were intolerable. The interpreter offered him the help of his arm and insisted on accompanying him to his tent.
Both were astonished and delighted at the happy end to this adventure, which might have been tragic. Phlegmatic, the Scotsman seemed already to have forgotten his sufferings. At the door of his tent he shook hands heartily with the interpreter, assuring him of his gratitude, and offered him a woodbine, concluding with the words, “All’s well that ends well.”
