I pointed out to him that I was entirely without food and asked him whether he could not arrange to bring or send me something to eat while I remained in the house.
"I'm sorry, O'Brien," he replied, "but I'm afraid you'll have to get along as best you can. When I brought you your breakfast this morning I took a desperate chance. If I had been discovered by one of the German soldiers entering this house with food in my possession, I would not only have paid the penalty myself, but you would have been discovered, too. It is too dangerous a proposition. Why don't you go out by yourself and buy your food at the stores? That would give you confidence, and you'll need plenty of it when you continue your journey to the border."
There was a good deal of truth in what he said, and I really could not blame him for not wanting to take any chances to help me, in view of the relations between us.
"Very well," I said; "I've gone without food for many hours at a time before and I suppose I shall be able to do so again. I shall look for you to-morrow evening."
The next evening he came and I accompanied him to another house not very far from the one in which I had been staying and not unlike it in appearance. It, too, was a substantial dwelling-house which had been untenanted since the beginning, save perhaps for such occasional visits as Huyliger and his associates made to it.
Huyliger let himself in and conducted me to a room on the second floor, where he introduced me to two men. One, I could readily see by the resemblance, was his own brother. The other was a stranger.
Very briefly they explained to me that they had procured another passport for me—a genuine one—which would prove far more effective in helping to get me to the frontier than the counterfeit one they had manufactured for me.
I think I saw through their game right at the start, but I listened patiently to what they had to say.
"Of course, you will have to return to us the passport we gave you before we can give you the real one," said Huyliger's brother.