"Our sudden isolation here?"
"Exactly."
"She doesn't seem to like it.... Tell me something, Smith?"
"What?"
"Do you know why Thusis and Clelia and Josephine Vannis and Raoul Despres are here?"
"I can guess," he replied, coolly.
"They came here," said I, "to nab Tino and that murderous ass, Ferdinand, and spirit them across the frontier into France."
"I believe so," he said in a serene but preoccupied voice.
"Now they can't do it," I added, "because the only way out of this valley is blocked."
"Quite so."