"Ask the commandant!" she answered. "The poor fool thinks he will marry her! Little she knows of the German method! I am alone! I have not even a servant any longer! I have walked through the shadows from the commandant's house, only lighting this lantern after I was inside the hedge. Nobody knows I am here. One watchman was asleep; the others did not see me. All you need fear is those Greeks. As long as they don't suspect I am here we can talk safely."
I tumbled out of bed on the far side, and went to waken the other two. After a hurried consultation we decided my tent was the best for the interview, because of the light that had burned in it nearly always while I was so deathly ill. We wrapped ourselves in blankets, and Fred went and shook Simba awake.
"Watch those Greeks!" he ordered him. "If they show signs of life, come and give the alarm!"
Then we set Lady Waldon's lantern on the ground in the back of my tent, closed the tent up, and foregathered. There was one chair. We three sat on the bed.
"Before we begin," said Fred, "we'd like some kind of proof, Lady
Waldon, that your overture is honest! I've no need to labor the point.
Until now you have been our implacable enemy. Why should we believe
you are our friend to-night?"
She sighed. "I don't expect friendship," she answered. "You and I are in deep water, and must find a straw that may float us all! If I can help you to escape out of the country I will. If you can help me, you must! If you don't escape there are worse things in store for you than you imagine! If you tell your secret now, they intend to prevent your telling it to any one else afterward! And unless you tell they intend to take terrible steps to compel you! As for me—they have discovered that after all I know nothing, and am of no further use to them! They have not said so, but it is very clear to me how the land lies. Professor Schillingschen is drunk to-night; he came home with his car and mouth bleeding, and has plied the whisky bottle freely ever since until he fell asleep an hour and a half ago. He boasted over his cups. They are simply using this long wait for Major Schunk, who is supposed to be coming from the coast, to gather additional evidence against you. They have men out following your trail back by the way you came, and if they can find no genuine evidence they will invent what they need; the purpose is to get you legally behind the bars; and if you ever come out again alive that would not be their fault!"
"What do you propose?" asked Fred.
"Escape!" she answered excitedly. Then another thought made her clench her fists. "Is it possible you told Professor Schillingschen your secret to-day? Did one of you tell him? Is that why he is drunk?"
She saw by our faces that that fear was groundless, but a greater one, that she might not be able to convince us, seized her next and she made such an excited gesture that the shawl she wore over her head and shoulders fell away and her long hair came tumbling down like a witch's.
"Listen! There is nothing that you men from your point of view could say too bad about me! I know! I have been in the pay of Germany for many years, but what you don't know is how they got me in the toils and kept me in, dragging me down from one degradation to another! They have dragged me down so far at last that I am not much more use to them. If we were in British territory they would simply expose me to the British government and save themselves the trouble of ending my career. They did that to Mrs. Winstin Willoughby, and Lord James Rait, and fifty others; it was so easy to put incriminating evidence against them in the hands of the public prosecutor. Lord James Rait died in Dartmoor Prison—a common felon. I shall not! But believe me—I am certain as I sit here that they only wait for my return to British East! To have me murdered here might start inconvenient rumors that would lead to unanswerable questions! It was proposed to me to-day that I should return to British East on the launch!"