Up to the present no alteration had taken place in his treatment. It seemed to him madness that the Germans should spare two men continuously to guard him and watch him; yet they did.
Then, inadvertently, he learned that the august personage with whom he had had such a long conversation on the night of his capture had given special orders concerning him, as it was his intention to speak with him again.
In view, however, of the significant words of the officer who had told him that some change would take place on the following morning, he imagined that this determination had been abandoned.
Bob's opportunity of escape seemed to him afterwards almost like a miracle. One night, as chance would have it, only one of the guards was on duty, and he determined to take advantage of the circumstance. If he were to escape, a bold, almost mad, endeavour must be made. Failure would mean death; but, with all the enthusiasm of youth, he decided to risk it.
The guard was a man about his own height and build, and, under ordinary circumstances, would be his match in physical strength.
Of course a hand-to-hand struggle was out of the question; a cry from the German soldier would mean arousing hundreds of others, and then Bob's fate would be sealed. But if——and his brain almost reeled at the madness of the plan which had been so suddenly born in his mind.
Seizing his opportunity, and taking full advantage of the fact that he had been allowed the use of his limbs, he suddenly struck his guard a heavy blow, which, for the time, stunned him; then, seizing the man's rifle, he struck him a blow on the head which left him senseless. Quick as lightning, he pulled the man's clothes from off his prostrate body, and a minute later he was himself, to all appearances, a German soldier.
As he reflected afterwards, the thing happened so quickly and under such strange circumstances, that it seemed to him impossible.
To overpower a German guard in the midst of thousands of German soldiers, and then to appear among the others in a German uniform, seemed absolutely impossible; yet he did it.
It was for him, now, to find his way through the German lines without revealing his identity. One thing was in his favour—that was a fact which he had kept rigorously secret—he spoke German almost like a German.