"Yes," said the girl in a low voice, "the evidence lies at your feet."
"Surely, surely," he muttered, his fixed gaze lost on the crimson celestial conflagration. She said, thinking aloud, and her clear eyes on him:
"Then, of the Great Secret, we have learned this much anyway—that there exists in Switzerland a secret canton called Les Errues; that it is practically Hun territory; that it masks what they call their Great Secret; that their ownership or domination of Les Errues is probably a price paid secretly by the Swiss government for its national freedom and that this arrangement is absolutely unknown to anybody in the world outside of the Imperial Hun government and the few Swiss who have inherited, politically, a terrible knowledge of this bargain dating back, probably, from 1870."
"That is the situation we are confronting," admitted McKay calmly.
She said with perfect simplicity: "Of course we must go into Les
Errues."
"Of course, comrade. How?"
He had no plan—could have none. She knew it. Her question was merely meant to convey to him a subtle confirmation of her loyalty and courage. She scarcely expected to escape a dreadful fate on this quest—did not quite see how either of them could really hope to come out alive. But that they could discover the Great Secret of the Hun, and convey to the world by means of their pigeons some details of the discovery, she felt reasonably certain. She had much faith in the arrangements they had made to do this.
"One thing worries me a lot," remarked McKay pleasantly.
"Food supply?"
He nodded.