On and on we sped. We must, I gathered, have travelled well over an hour, and now be far out in the country. There was no light inside the car, and though still covered by the sheet, I somehow seemed to feel that the night was very dark. In what direction had we come? Whereabouts, outside Paris, was that long hill up which we had travelled so slowly?
Suddenly someone inside the car moved. An instant later the sheet over my face was pulled back. In the darkness I could still see nothing, but I felt that someone was staring down at me. How many occupants the car contained, of course I could not tell. Still no one spoke, and for five minutes or more the car tore faster and faster along the straight country road.
Then, all at once, a light flashed in my eyesthe light of an electric torch.
"You have but a few minutes to live," a man's voice exclaimed in a low tone. "If you want to say your prayers, you had better do so now."
The voice was clearly Gastrell's. Now I realized that two men besides myself were in the closed car. The light from the electric torch still shone down upon my face. My eyes grew gradually accustomed to the bright light, which had at first dazzled them.
"This is to be your fate," Gastrell continued a minute later. "At a spot that we shall presently come to, far out in the country, fifty miles from Paris, you will be taken out, bound as you are, and shot through the head. The revolver has your initials on itlook."
He held something before my eyes, in such a way that I could see it clearly in the disc of light. It was a pistol's grip. On it shone a little metal plate on which I could distinctly see the engraved initials"M.B."
"When you are dead, your wrists and legs will be released, and you will be left by the roadside in the forest we are now in, the revolver, with its one discharged chamber, on the ground beside you. Look, whose handwriting is this?"
A letter was passed into the ring of light. I started, for the writing was apparently my own, though certainly I had not written the letter. It was written on notepaper with the Continental Hotel heading, and my handwriting and signature had been forgeda wonderful facsimile of both. On the envelope, which was stamped, were written, also apparently by me, the name and address:
"Miss DULCIE CHALLONER,
Holt Manor,
Holt Stacey,
Berkshire, England."