"'It's a long lane that has no turning?'" quoted the officer; but Katje shook her head.
"'Where there's a will there's a way'," suggested Ross.
"Ah! That is it. I knew it was something about a road or a lane. Way, you call it. Very well; by next Friday you will find a way."
"Artful old baggage!" exclaimed the Flight-Sub when Katje had taken her departure. "She's mighty keen on the rhino. We'll have to have a whip round, Trefusis, and give a note of hand."
Their brothers in adversity willingly responded to the call, and before the eventful Friday a sum in English and Dutch coinage, equivalent to forty pounds, was ready to be handed to Jan van Beverwijk.
"I wouldn't pay cash on the nail if I were you," suggested the crippled officer who had been so useful in advising them before. "Half down, and the rest when you land in England. Jan might object, but he'll give in. No Dutchman of his standing would shut his eyes to twenty in hard cash."
At eight o'clock on Friday morning Katje's dog-team romped up; but, instead of the old vrouw, a lean, leather-faced man with a long coat reaching to his heels and a flat-topped peak cap strode beside the cart.
At the gate he stopped, and spoke at considerable length with the sentry. There was hardly any expression on the faces of the two men as they talked. Whether the soldier fell in with the suggestion, Ross, who was anxiously watching from the window, could not decide.
Presently Jan stooped to fasten the strap of one of his klompen, or wooden shoes; then shouting to the dogs he came towards the house. Before he had gone very far, the sentry bent and picked up something that was lying on the spot where Jan had been attending to his footgear.
"Palm oil!" remarked the Flight-Sub laconically.