 CHAPTER XIV Since that first night I had never clapped eyes on Sandy. He had gone clean out of the world, and Blank Iron and I waited anxiously for a word of news. Our own business was in good trim, for we were presently going east towards Mesopotamia, but unless we learned more about Green Mantle our journey would be a grotesque failure. And learn about Green Mantle we could not, for nobody by word or deed suggested his existence, and it was impossible of course for us to ask questions. Our only hope was Sandy, for what we wanted to know was the Prophet's whereabouts and his plans. I suggested to Blank Iron that we might do more to cultivate Frau von Einem, but he shot his jaw like a rat trap. There's nothing doing for us in that quarter, he said, that's the most dangerous woman on earth, and if she got any kind of notion that we were wise about her pet schemes, I reckon you and I would very soon be in the Bosphorus. Well this was all very well, but what was going to happen if the two of us were bundled off to Baghdad with instructions to wash away the British? Our time was getting pretty short, and I doubted if we could spin out more than three days more in Constantinople. I felt just as if I had felt with stum that last night when I was about to be packed off to Cairo and find no way of avoiding it. Even Blank Iron was getting anxious. He played patience incessantly and was disinclined to talk. I tried to find out something from the servants, but they either knew nothing or wouldn't speak. The former, I think. I kept my eyes lifting too as I walked about the streets, but there was no sign anywhere of the skin coats or the weird stringed instruments. The whole company of the rosy hours seemed to have melted into the air, and I began to wonder if they had ever existed. Anxiety made me restless, and restlessness made me want exercise. It was no good walking about the city. The weather had become foul again, and I was sick of the smells and the squalor and the fleabiton crowds. So Blank Iron and I got horses, Turkish cavalry mounts with heads like trees, and went out through the suburbs into the open country. It was a gray, drizzling afternoon, with the beginnings of a sea fog which hid the Asiatic shores of the straits. It wasn't easy to find open ground for a gallop, for there were endless small patches of cultivation and the gardens of country houses. We kept on the high land above the sea, and when we reached a bit of downland came on squads of Turkish soldiers digging trenches. Before we let the horses go, we had to pull up sharp for a digging party or a stretch of barbed wire. Coils of the beastly thing were lying loose everywhere, and Blank Iron nearly took a nasty toss over one. Then we were always being stopped by sentries and having to show our passes. Still, the ride did us good and shook up our livers, and by the time we turned for home I was feeling more like a white man. We jogged back in the short winter twilight, past the wooded grounds of white villas, held up every few minutes by transport wagons and companies of soldiers. The rain had come on in real earnest, and it was two very bedraggled horsemen that crawled along the muddy lanes. As we passed one villa, shut in by a high white wall, a pleasant smell of wood smoke was wafted towards us, which made me sick for the burning veld. My ear, too, caught the twanging of his zither, which somehow reminded me of the afternoon in Caprasa's garden-house. I pulled up and proposed to investigate, but Blank Iron very testily declined. Zithers are as common here as fleas, he said. You don't want to be fosticking around somebody's stables and find a horse boy entertaining his friends. They don't like visitors in this country, and you'll be asking for trouble if you go inside those walls. I guess it's some old buzzard's harem. Buzzard was his own private peculiar name for the Turk, for he said he had as a boy a natural history book with a picture of a bird called the turkey buzzard, and couldn't get out of the habit of applying it to the Ottoman people. I wasn't convinced, so I tried to mark down the place. It seemed to be about three miles out from the city at the end of a steep lane on the inland side of the hill coming from the Bosporus. I fancied somebody of distinction live there. For a little farther on, we met a big, empty motor car snorting its way up, and I had a notion that the car belonged to the walled villa. Next day Blank Iron was in grievous trouble with his dyspepsia. About midday he was compelled to lie down, and having nothing better to do, I had out the horses again and took Peter with me. It was funny to see Peter in a Turkish army saddle riding with the long, bower stirrup and the slouch of the backfell. That afternoon was unfortunate from the start. It was not the mist and drizzle of the day before, but a stiff northern gale which blew sheets of rain in our faces and numbed our bridle hands. We took the same road, but pushed west of the trench digging parties and got to a shallow valley with a white village among the cypresses. Beyond that there was a very respectable road which brought us to the top of a crest that in clear weather must have given a fine prospect. Then we turned our horses, and I shaped our course so as to strike the top of the long lane that abutted on the down. I wanted to investigate the white villa, but we hadn't gone far on our road back before we got into trouble. It arose out of a sheepdog, a yellow mongrel brute that came at us like a thunderbolt. It took a special fancy to Peter and bit savagely at its horse's heels and sent it capering off the road. I should have warned him, but I did not realize what was happening till too late. For Peter, being accustomed to mongrels and kaffir crawls, took a summery way with the pest. Since it despised his whip he out with his pistol and put a bullet through its head. The echoes of the shot had scarcely died away when the row began. A big fellow appeared running towards us shouting wildly. I guessed he was the dog's owner and proposed to pay no attention, but his cries summoned two other fellows, soldiers by the look of them, who closed in on us on slinging their rifles as they ran. My first idea was to show them our heels, but I had no desire to be shot in the back, and they looked like men who wouldn't stop short of shooting. So we slowed down and faced them. They made a savage-looking trio as you would want to avoid. The shepherd looked as if he had been dug up, a dirty ruffian with matted hair and a beard like a bird's nest. The two soldiers stood staring with sullen faces, lingering their guns, while the other chap raved and stormed and kept pointing at Peter, whose mild eyes stared unwinkingly at his assailant. The mischief was that neither of us had a word of Turkish. I tried German, but it had no effect. We sat looking at them, and they stood storming at us, and it was fast getting dark. Once I turned my horse round as if to proceed, and the two soldiers jumped in front of me. They jabbered among themselves, and then once said very slowly, he want pounds, and he held up five fingers. They evidently saw by the cut of our jib that we weren't Germans. I'll be hanged if he gets a penny, I said angrily, and the conversation languished. The situation was getting serious, so I spoke a word to Peter. The soldiers had their rifles loose in their hands, and before they could lift them, we had the pair covered with our pistols. If you move, I said you are dead. They understood that all right, and stood stock still, while the shepherd stopped his raving, and took to muttering like a gramophone when the record is finished. Drop your guns, I said sharply, quick or we shoot. The tone, if not the words, conveyed by meaning. Still staring at us, they let the rifles slide to the ground. The next second we had forced our horses on the top of them, and the three were off like rabbits. I sent a shot over their heads to encourage them. Peter dismounted and tossed the guns into a bit of scrub where they would take some finding. This holdup had wasted time. By now it was getting very dark, and we hadn't ridden a mile before it was black night. It was an annoying predicament, for I completely lost my bearings, and at the best I had only a foggy notion of the lie of the land. The best plan seemed to be to try and get to the top of a rise, in the hope it seemed the lights of the city. But all the countryside was so pockety that it was hard to strike the right kind of rise. We had to trust to Peter's instinct. I asked him where our line lay, and he sat very still for a minute, sniffing the air. Then he pointed the direction. It wasn't what I would have taken myself, but on a point like that he was pretty near infallible. Presently we came to a long slope, which cheered me. But at the top there was no light visible anywhere, only a black void like the inside of a shell. As I stared into the gloom, it seemed to me that there were patches of deeper darkness that might be woods. There is a house half left in front of us, said Peter. I peered till my eyes ached and saw nothing. Well, for heaven's sake guide me to it, I said, and with Peter in front we set off down the hill. It was a wild journey, for darkness clung as close to us as a vest. Twice we stepped into patches of bog, and once my horse saved himself by a hair from going head forward into a gravel pit. We got tangled up in strands of wire, and often found ourselves rubbing our noses against tree trunks. Several times I had to get down and make a gap in barricades of loose stones. But after a ridiculous amount of slipping and stumbling we finally struck what seemed the level of the road, and a piece of special darkness in front which turned out to be a high wall. I argued that all mortar walls had doors, so we set to groping along it and presently found a gap. There was an old iron gate on broken hinges, which we easily pushed open, and found ourselves on a black path to some house. It was clearly disused, for masses of rotting leaves covered it, and by the feel of it underfoot it was grass grown. We dismounted now, leading our horses, and after about fifty yards the path ceased and came out on a well-made carriage drive. So at least we guessed, for the place was as black as pitch. Evidently the house couldn't be far off, but in which direction I hadn't a notion. Now, I didn't want to be paying calls on any torque at that time of day. Our job was to find where the road opened into the lane, for after that our way to Constantinople was clear. One side the lane lay, and the other the house, and it didn't seem wise to take the risk of tramping up with horses to the front door. So I told Peter to wait for me at the end of the back road, while I would prospect a bit. I turned to the right, my intention being, if I saw the light of the house to return, and with Peter take the other direction. I walked like a blind man in that nether pit of darkness. The road seemed well-capped, and the soft wet gravel muffled the sounds of my feet. Great trees overhung it, and several times I wandered into dripping brushes. And then I stopped short in my tracks, for I heard the sound of whistling. It was quite close, about ten yards away, and the strange thing was that it was a tune I knew, about the last tune you would expect to hear in this part of the world. It was the Scot's air, caw the o's to the no's, which was a favorite of my father's. The whistler must have felt my presence, for the air suddenly stopped in the middle of a bar. An unbounded curiosity seized me to know who the fellow could be, so I started in and finished it myself. There was silence for a second, and then the unknown began again and stopped. Once more I chipped in and finished it. Then it seemed to me that he was coming nearer. The air in that dank tunnel was very still, and I thought I heard a light foot. I think I took a step backward. Suddenly there was a flash of an electric torch from a yard off, so quick that I could see nothing of the man who held it. Then a low voice spoke out of the darkness, a voice I knew well, and following it a hand was laid on my arm. What the devil are you doing here, Dick, it said? And there was something like consternation in the tone. I told him in a hectic sentence, for I was beginning to feel badly rattled myself. You've never been in greater danger in your life, said the voice. Great God, man, what brought you wandering here today of all days? You can imagine that I was pretty scared, for Sandy was the last man to put a case too high. And the next second I felt worse, for he clutched my arm and dragged me in a bound to the side of the road. I could see nothing, but I felt that his head was screwed round and mine followed suit, and there a dozen yards off were the acetylene length of a big motor car. It came along very slowly, purring like a great cat, while we pressed into the bushes. The headlights seemed to spread a fan far to either side, showing the full width of the drive and its borders, and about half the height of the overarching trees. There was a figure in uniform sitting beside the chauffeur, whom I saw dimly in the reflex glow, but the body of the car was dark. It crept towards us, passed, and my mind was just getting easy again when it stopped. A switch was snapped within, and the limousine was brightly lit up. Inside I saw a woman's figure. The servant had got out and opened the door, and a voice came from within. A clear, soft voice speaking in some tongue I didn't understand. Sandy had started forward at the sound of it, and I followed him. It would never do for me to be caught skulking in the bushes. I was so dazzled by the suddenness of the glare that at first I blinked and saw nothing. Then my eyes cleared, and I found myself looking at the inside of a car upholstered in some soft, dove-colored fabric, and beautifully finished off in ivory and silver. The woman who sat in it had a mantilla of black lace over her head and shoulders, and with one slender, jeweled hand she kept its fold over the greater part of her face. I saw only a pair of pale, gray-blue eyes, these and the slim fingers. I remember that Sandy was standing very upright with his hands on his hips, by no means like a servant in the presence of his mistress. He was a fine figure of a man at all times, but in those wild clothes, with his head thrown back and his dark brows drawn below his skull-cap, he looked like some savage king out of an older world. He was speaking Turkish, and glancing at me now and then as if angry and perplexed. I took the hint that he was not supposed to know that any other tongue, and that he was asking who the devil I might be. Then they both looked at me. Sandy, with the slow, unwinking stare of the gypsy, the lady with those curious, beautiful pale eyes. They ran over my clothes, my brand new riding-bridges, my splashed boots, my wide-brimmed hat. I took off the last, and made my best spout. Madam, I said, I have to ask pardon for trespassing in your garden. The fact is, I and my servant—he's down the road with the horses, and I guess you noticed him. The two of us went for a ride this afternoon and got good and well lost. We came in by your back gate, and I was prospecting for your front door to find someone to direct us, when I bumped into this brigand chief who didn't understand my talk. I'm American, and I'm here on a big government proposition. I hate to trouble you, but if you'd send a man to show us how to strike the city, I'd be very much in your debt. Her eyes never left my face. Will you come into the car? She said in English. At the house I will give you a servant to direct you. She drew in the skirts of her fur cloak to make room for me, and in my muddy boots and sopping clothes I took the seat she pointed out. She said a word in Turkish to Sandy, switched off the light, and the car moved on. Women had never come much in my way, and I knew about as much of their ways as I knew about the Chinese language. All my life I lived with men only, and rather a rough crowd at that. When I made my pile and came home I looked to see a little society, but I had first the business of the black stone on my hands and then the war, so my education languished. I had never been in a motor car with a lady before, and I felt like a fish on a dry sand bank. The soft cushions and the subtle scents filled me with acute uneasiness. I wasn't thinking now about Sandy's grave words or about Blankiron's warning or about my job and the part this woman must play in it. I was thinking only that I felt mortally shy. The darkness made it worse. I was sure that my companion was looking at me all the time and laughing at me for a clown. The car stopped, and a tall servant opened the door. The lady was over the threshold before I was at the step. I followed her heavily, the wet squelching from my field boots. At that moment I noticed she was very tall. She led me through a long corridor to a room where two pillars held lamps in the shape of torches. The place was dark but for their glow, and it was as warm as a hot house from invisible stoves. I felt soft carpets underfoot and on the walls hung some tapestry or rug of an amazingly intricate geometrical pattern, but with every strand as rich as jewels. There, between the pillars, she turned and faced me. Her furs were thrown back, and the black mantilla had slipped down to her shoulders. I have heard of you, she said. You are called Richard Hanow, the American. Why have you come to this land? To have a share in the campaign, I said, I'm an engineer, and I thought I could help out with some business like Mesopotamia. You are on Germany's side, she asked. Why, yes, I replied. We Americans are supposed to be neutrals, and that means we're free to choose any side we fancy. I'm for the Kaiser. Her cool eyes searched me, but not in suspicion. I could see she wasn't troubling with the question whether I was speaking the truth. She was sizing me up as a man. I cannot describe that calm, appraising look. There was no sex in it. Nothing even of that implicit sympathy with which one human being explores the existence of another. I was a chattel, a thing infinitely removed from intimacy. Even so, I have myself looked at a horse, which I thought of buying, scanning his shoulders and hawks and paces. Even so, must the old lords of Constantinople have looked at the slaves, which the chances of war brought to their markets, assessing their usefulness for some task or other with no thought of a humanity common to purchase and purchaser. And yet not quite. This woman's eyes were weighing me, not for any special duty, but for my essential qualities. I felt that I was under the scrutiny of one who was a connoisseur in human nature. I see I have written that I knew nothing about women, but every man has in his bones a consciousness of sex. I was shy and perturbed, but horribly fascinated. This slim woman poised exquisitely like some statue between the pillared lights, with her fair cloud of hair, her long delicate face, and her pale bright eyes, had the glamour of a wild dream. I hated her instinctively, hated her intensely, but I longed to arouse her interest. To be valued coldly by those eyes was an offence to my manhood, and I felt antagonism rising within me. I'm a strong fellow, well set up and rather above the average height, and my irritation stiffened me from heel to crown. I flung my head back, and gave her cool glance for cool glance, pride against pride. Once I remember, a doctor on board ship, who dabbled in hypnotism, told me that I was the most unsympathetic person he had ever struck. He said I was about as good a mesmeric subject as Table Mountain. Suddenly, I began to realize that this woman was trying to cast some spell over me. The eyes grew large and luminous, and I was conscious for just an instant of some will battling to subject mine. I was aware, too, in the same moment of a strange scent which recalled that wild hour in Caprasso's garden house. It passed quickly, and for a second her eyes drooped. I seemed to read in them failure, and yet a kind of satisfaction, too, as if they had found more in me than they expected. What life have you led, the soft voice was saying. I was able to answer quite naturally, rather to my surprise. I've been a mining engineer up and down the world. You have faced danger many times? I have faced danger. You have fought with men in battles. I have fought in battles. Her bosom rose and fell in a kind of sigh. A smile, a very beautiful thing, flitted over her face. She gave me her hand. The horses are at the door now, she said, and your servant is with them. One of my people will guide you to the city. She turned away and passed out of the circle of light into the darkness beyond. Peter and I jogged home in the rain with one of Sandy's skin-clad companions loping at our side. We did not speak a word, for my thoughts were running like hounds on the track of the past hours. I had seen the mysterious Hilde von Einem, and had spoken to her, and had held her hand. She had insulted me with the subtlest of insult, and yet I was not angry. Suddenly the game I was playing became invested with a tremendous solemnity. My old antagonists, Stuhm and Rosta and the whole German Empire, seemed to shrink into the background, leaving only the slim woman with her inscrutable smile and devouring eyes. Mad and bad, Blank-Iron had called her, but principally bad. I did not think they were the proper terms, for they belonged to the narrow world of our common experience. This was something beyond and above it, as a cyclone or an earthquake is outside the decent routine of nature. Mad and bad she might be, but she was also great. Before we arrived our guide had plucked my knee and spoken some words which he had obviously got by heart. The master says, ran the message, expect him at midnight. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of Green Mantle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Green Mantle by John Buckin. Chapter 15. An Embarrassed Toilet. I was soaked to the bone and while Peter set off to look for dinner I went to my room to change. I had a rub down and then got into pajamas for some dumbbell exercises with two chairs. For that long wet ride had stiffened my arm and shoulder muscles. They were a vulgar suit of primitive blue which Blank-Iron had looted from my London wardrobe. As Cornelius Brandt I had sported a flannel nightgown. My bedroom opened off the sitting-room and while I was busy with my gymnastics I heard the door open. I thought at first it was Blank-Iron, but the bristness of the tread was unlike his measured gait. I had left the light burning there and the visitor, whoever he was, had made himself at home. I slipped on a green dressing-gown Blank-Iron had lent me and sallied forth to investigate. My friend Rasta was standing by the table on which he had laid an envelope. He looked around at my entrance and saluted. I come from the Minister of War, sir, he said, and bring you the passports for to-morrow. You will travel by and then his voice trailed away and his black eyes narrowed to slits. He had seen something which switched him off the medals. At that moment I saw it too. There was a mirror on the wall behind him and as I faced him I could not help seeing my reflection. It was the exact image of the engineer on the Danube boat, blue jeans, loading coat and all. The accursed mischance of my costume had given him the clue to an identity which was otherwise buried deep in the Bosporus. I am bound to say for Rasta that he was a man of quick action. In a trice he had whipped round to the other side of the table between me and the door, where he stood regarding me wickedly. By this time I was at the table and stretched out a hand for the envelope. My one hope was nonchalance. Sit down, sir, I said, and have a drink. It's a filthy night to move about in. Like you know, Herr Brant, he said, you may burn these passports for they will not be used. Whatever's the matter with you, I cried. You've mistaken the house, my lad. I'm called Henao, Richard Henao, and my partners, Mr. John S. Blank-Iron. He'll be here presently. Never knew any one of the name of Brent, barring a tobacconist in Denver City. You've never been to Rushchuk, he said with a sneer. Not that I know of, but pardon me, sir. If I may ask your name and your business here. I'm darned if I'm accustomed to be called by Dutch names or have my word out it. In my country we consider that impolite as between gentlemen. I could see that my bluff was having its effect. His stare began to waver, and when he next spoke it was in a more civil tone. I will ask pardon if I'm mistaken, sir, but you're the image of a man who a week ago was at Rushchuk, a man much wanted by the imperial government. A week ago I was tossing in a dirty little hooker coming from Constanza, unless Rushchuk's in the middle of the Black Sea I've never visited the township. I guess you're barking up the wrong tree. Come to think of it, I was expecting passports. Say, do you come from Enverdamad? I have that honour, he said. Well, Enver's a very good friend of mine, he's the brightest citizen I've struck this side of the Atlantic. The man was calming down, and in another minute his suspicions would have been gone. But at that moment, by the crookedest kind of luck, Peter entered with a tray of dishes. He did not notice Rasta, and walked straight to the table and plumped down his burden on it. The Turk had stepped aside at his entrance, and I saw by the look in his eyes that his suspicions had become a certainty. For Peter, stripped to shirt and breeches, was the identical shabby little companion of the Rushchuk meeting. I never doubted Rasta's pluck. He jumped for the door and had a pistol out on a trice pointed at my head. Bon fortune! He cried, both the birds at one shot. His hand was on the latch, and his mouth was open to cry. I guess there was an orderly waiting on the stairs. He had what you call the strategic advantage, for he was at the door while I was at the other end of the table, and Peter at the side of it at least two yards from him. The road was clear before him, and neither of us was armed. I made a despairing step forward, not knowing what I meant to do, for I saw no light, but Peter was before me. He had never let go of the tray, and now, as a boy skims a stone on a pond, he skimmed it with its contents at Rasta's head. The man was opening the door with one hand while he kept me covered with the other, and he got the contrivance fairly in the face. A pistol shot cracked out, and the bullet went through the tray, but the noise was drowned in the crash of glasses and crockery. The next second Peter had wrenched the pistol from Rasta's hand and had gripped his throat. A dandified young Turk brought up in Paris and finished in Berlin, maybe as brave as a lion, but he cannot stand in a roughened tumble against a back-velled hunter, though more than double his age. There was no need for me to help him. Peter had his own way learned in a wild school of knocking the scents out of a foe. He gagged him scientifically, and trust him up with his own belt and two straps from a trunk in my bedroom. "'This man is too dangerous to let go,' he said, as if his procedure were the most ordinary thing in the world. He will be quiet now till we have time to make a plan.' At that moment there came a knocking at the door. That is the sort of thing that happens in melodrama, just when the villain has finished off his job neatly. The correct thing to do is pale to the teeth and with a rolling, conscious, stricken eye glare round the horizon, but that was not Peter's way. "'We'd better tidy up if we were to have visitors,' he said calmly. Now there was one of those big oak German cupboards against the wall, which must have been brought in in sections, for complete it would never have got through the door. It was empty now but for blank iron's hat-box. In it he deposited the unconscious Rasta and turned the key. "'There's enough ventilation through the top,' he observed, to keep the air good. Then he opened the door. A magnificent cavasse in blue and silver stood outside. He saluted and proffered a card on which was written in pencil, Hilda von Einem. I would have begged for time to change my clothes, but the lady was behind him. I saw the black mentilla and the rich sable furs. Peter vanished through my bedroom and I was left to receive my guest in a room littered with broken glass and a senseless man in the cupboard. There are some situations so crazily extravagant that they key up the spirit to meet them. I was almost laughing when that stately lady stepped over my threshold. "'Madame,' I said, with a bow that shamed my old dressing gown and strident pajamas. You find me at a disadvantage. I came home soaking for my ride and was in the act of changing. My servant has just upset a tray of crockery, and I fear this room's no-fit place for a lady. Allow me three minutes to make myself presentable.' She inclined her head gravely and took a seat by the fire. I went into my bedroom and, as I expected, found Peter lurking by the other door. In a hectic sentence I bade him get Rasta's orderly out of the place on any pretext and tell him his master would return later. Then I hurried into decent garments and came out to find my visitor in a brown study. At the sound of my entrance she started from her dream and stood up on the hearth-rog, slipping the long robe of fur from her slim body. "'We are alone,' she asked, if he will not be disturbed. Then an inspiration came to me. I remembered that Frau von Einem, according to Blank-Iron, did not see eye with the young Turks, and I had a queer instinct that Rasta could not be to her liking. So I spoke the truth. "'I must tell you that there's another guest here tonight. I reckon he's feeling pretty uncomfortable. At present he's trust up on a shelf in that cupboard.' She did not trouble to look around. "'Is he dead?' she asked calmly. "'By no means,' I said, but he's fixed so he can't speak, and I guess he can't hear much. "'Eva's the man who brought you this. She asked, pointing to the envelope on the table, which were the big blue stamp of the Ministry of War. "'The same,' I said. "'I'm not perfectly sure of his name, but I think they call him Rasta. Not a flicker of a smile crossed her face, but I had a feeling that the news pleased her. "'Did he thwart you?' she asked. "'Why, yes, he thwarted me some. His head is a bit swelled, and an hour or two on the shelf will do him good. "'He is a powerful man,' she said, "'a jackal of Anveris. "'You have made a dangerous enemy.' "'I don't value him at two cents,' said I, though I thought grimly that as far as I could see, the value of him was likely to be about the price on my neck. "'Perhaps you're all right,' she said with serious eyes. "'In these days no enemy is dangerous to a bold man. I have come to-night, Mr. Henao, to talk business with you, as they stay in your country. I have heard well of you, and today I have seen you. I may have need of you, and you assuredly will have need of me.' She broke off, and again her strange, potent eyes fell in my face. They were like a burning searchlight which showed up every cranny and crack of the soul. I felt it was going to be horribly difficult to act apart under that compelling gaze. She could not mesmerize me, but she could strip me of my fancy dress and set me naked in the masquerade. "'Flood came you forth to seek,' she asked. "'You are not like that stout American blank iron, a lover of shoddy power, and a devotee of feeble science. There is something more than that in your face. You are on our side, but you are not of the Germans with their hankerings for a rococo empire. You come from America, the land of pious follies, fair men worship gold and verds.' I asked, what came you forth to seek? As she spoke I seemed to get a vision of a figure like one of the old gods looking down on human nature from a great height, a figure disdainful and passionless, but with its own magnificence. It kindled my imagination, and I answered with the stuff I had often cogitated when I had tried to explain to myself just how a case could be made out against the Allied cause. "'I will tell you, madam,' I said, I am a man who has followed a science, but I have followed it in wild places, and I have gone through it and come out at the other side. The world, as I see it, had become too easy in cushioned. Men had forgotten their manhood in soft speech, and imagined that the rules of their smug civilization were the laws of the universe. But that is not the teaching of science, and it is not the teaching of life. We have forgotten the greater virtues, and we were becoming emasculated humbugs whose gods were our own weaknesses. Then came war, and the air was cleared. Germany in spite of her blunders and grossness stood forth as the scourge of Kant. She had the courage to cut through the bonds of humbug and to laugh at the fetishes of the herd. Therefore I am on Germany's side, but I came here for another reason. I know nothing of the East, but as I read history it is from the desert that the purification comes. When mankind is smothered with shams and phrases and painted idols, a wind blows out of the wild to cleanse and simplify life. The world needs space and fresh air. The civilization we have boasted of is a toy ship and a blind alley, and I hanker for the open country. This confounded nonsense was well received. Our pale eyes had the cold light of the fanatic. With her bright hair and the long exquisite oval of her face, she looked like some destroying fury of a Norse legend. At that moment I think I first really feared her, before I had half-hated and half-admired. Thank heaven in her absorption she did not notice that I had forgotten the speech of Cleveland, Ohio. You are the household of faith, she said. You will presently learn many things for the faith marches to victory. Meanwhile I have one word for you. You and your companion travel eastward. We go to Mesopotamia, I said. I reckon these are our passports, and I pointed to the envelope. She picked it up, opened it, and then tore it in pieces and tossed it in the fire. The orders are countermanded, she said. I have need of you and you go with me. Not to the flats of the Tigris, but to the Great Hills. Tomorrow you will receive new passports. She gave me her hand and turned to go. At the threshold she paused and looked towards the oak cupboard. Tomorrow I will relieve you of your prisoner. He will be safer in my hands. She left me in a condition of pretty blank bewilderment. We were to be tied to the chariot wheels of this fury and started on an enterprise compared to which fighting against our friends at Cut seemed tame and reasonable. On the other hand I had been spotted by Rasta and had got the envoy of the most powerful man in Constantinople locked in a cupboard. At all costs we had to keep Rasta safe, but I was very determined that he should not be handed over to the lady. I was going to be no party to cold-blooded murder which I judged to be her expedient. It was a pretty kettle of fish, but in the meantime I must have food, for I had eaten nothing for nine hours, so I went in search of Peter. I had scarcely begun my long-deferred meal when Sandy entered. He was before his time and he looked as solemn as a sick owl. I seized on him as a drowning man clutches a spar. He heard my story of Rasta with a lengthening face. That's bad, he said. You say he spotted you and your subsequent doings, of course, would not disillusion him. It's an infernal nuisance, but there's only one way out of it. I must put him in charge of my own people. They will keep him safe and sound till he's wanted, only he mustn't see me. And he went out in a hurry. I fetched Rasta from his prison. He had come to his senses by this time and lay regarding me with stony, malevolent eyes. I'm very sorry, sir, I said, for what has happened, but you left me no alternative. I've got a big job on hand, and I can't have it interfered with by you or anyone. You're paying the price of a suspicious nature. When you know a little more, you'll want to apologize to me. I'm going to see that you are kept quiet and comfortable for a day or two. You've no cause to worry, for you'll suffer no harm. I give you my word of honor as an American citizen. Two of Sandy's miscrants came in and bore him off, and presently Sandy himself returned. When I asked where he was being taken, Sandy said he didn't know. We've got their orders, and they'll carry them out to the letter. There's a big unknown area in Constantinople to Hyda-Man, into which the kafiae never enter, that he flung himself into a chair and lit his old pipe. Dick, he said, this job is getting very difficult and very dark, but my knowledge has grown in the last few days. I found out the meaning of the second word that Harry Bullefunt scribbled. Cancer, I asked. Yes, it means just what it reads and no more. Rainmantle is dying, has been dying for several months. This afternoon they brought a German doctor to see him, and the man gave him a few hours of life. By now he may be dead. This news was a staggerer. For a moment I thought it cleared up things. Then that bus the show, I said, you can't have a crusade without a prophet. I wish I thought it did. It's the end of one stage, but the start of a new and blacker one. Do you think that woman will be beaten by such a small thing as the death of her prophet? She'll find a substitute. One of the four ministers, or someone else. She's a devil incarnate, but she has the soul of a Napoleon, the big danger is only beginning. Then he told me the story of his recent doings. He had found out the house of Fra von Einem without much trouble, and had performed with his ragamuffins in the servants' quarters. The prophet had a large retinue in the fame of his minstrels, for the companions were known far and wide in the land of Islam, came speedily to the ears of the holy ones. Sandy, a leader in this most orthodox coterie, was taken into favour and brought to the notice of the four ministers. He and his half-dozen retainers became inmates of the villa, and Sandy, from his knowledge of Islamic lore and his ostentatious piety, was admitted to the confidence of the household. Fraof von Einem welcomed him as an ally, for the companions had been the most devoted propagandists of the New Revelation. As he described it, it was a strange business. Green Mantle was dying and often in great pain, but he struggled to meet the demands of his protectors. The four ministers, as Sandy saw them, were unworldly aesthetics. The prophet himself was a saint, though a practical saint with some notions of policy. But the controlling brain and will were those of the lady. Sandy seemed to have won his favour, even his affection. He spoke of him with a kind of desperate pity. I never saw such a man. He is the greatest gentleman you can picture, with a dignity like a high mountain. He is a dreamer and a poet, too. A genius, if I can judge these things. I think I can assess him rightly, for I know something of the soul of the East. But it would be too long a story to tell now. The West knows nothing of the true Oriental. It pictures him as lapped in colour and idleness and luxury and gorgeous dreams. But it is all wrong. The Café Junsfour is an austere thing. It is the austerity of the East that is its beauty and its terror. It always wants the same things at the back of its head. The Turk and the Arab came out of big spaces and they have the desire of them in their bones. They settle down and stagnate, and by and by they degenerate into that appalling subtlety which is their ruling passion gone crooked. And then comes a new revelation and a great simplifying. They want to live face to face with God without a screen of ritual and images and priestcraft. They want to prune life of its foolish fringes and get back to the noble bairness of the desert. Remember, it is always the empty desert and the empty sky that cast their spell over them. These and the hot strong antiseptic sunlight which burns up all rot and decay. It isn't inhuman. It's the humanity of one part of the human race. It isn't ours. It isn't as good as ours, but it's jolly good all the same. There are times when it grips me so hard that I'm inclined to forswear the gods of my fathers. Well, Greenmontal is the prophet of this great simplicity. He speaks straight to the heart of Islam, and it's an honorable message, but for our sins it's been twisted into part of that damned German propaganda. His unworldliness has been used for a cunning political move, and his creed of space and simplicity for the furtherance of the last word in human degeneracy. My God, Dick, it's like seeing St. Francis run by Messalina. The woman has been here to-night, I said. She asked me what I stood for, and I invented some infernal nonsense which she approved of. But I can see one thing. She and her prophet may run for different stakes, but it's the same course. Sandy started. She's been here? He cried. Tell me, Dick, what do you think of her? I thought she was about two parts mad, but the third part was uncommon like inspiration. That's about right, he said. I was wrong in comparing her to Messalina. She's something a dash site more complicated. She runs the prophet just because she shares his belief. Only what in him is sane and fine, in her is mad and horrible. You see, Germany also wants to simplify life. I know, I said. I told her that an hour ago, when I talked more rot to the second than any normal man ever achieved, it will come between me and my sleep for the rest of my days. Germany's simplicity is out of the neurotic, not the primitive. It is megalomania and egotism and the pride of the man in the Bible that waxed fat and kicked. But the results are the same. She wants to destroy and simplify, but it isn't the simplicity of the ascetic, which is of the spirit, but the simplicity of the madman that grinds down all the contrivances of a civilization to a featureless monotony. The prophet wants to save the souls of his people. Germany wants to rule the inanimate corpse of the world. But you can get the same language to cover both, and so you have the partnership of St. Francis and Messalina. Dick, did you ever hear of a thing called the Superman? There was a time when the papers were full of nothing else, I answered. I gather it was invented by a sportsman called Nietzsche. Maybe, said Sandy, old Nietzsche has been blamed for a great deal of rubbish he would have died rather than acknowledge, but it's a craze of the new fatted Germany. There's a fancy type which could never really exist, any more than the economic man of the politicians. Mankind has a sense of humor which stops short of the final absurdity. There never has been, and there never could be a real Superman, but there might be a superwoman. You'll get into trouble, my lad, if you talk like that, I said. It's true, all the same. Women have got a perilous logic which we never have, and some of the best of them don't see the joke of life like the ordinary man. They can be far greater than men, for they can go straight to the heart of things. There never was a man so near the divine as Joan of Arc, but I think, too, they can be more entirely damnable than anything that ever was breached, for they don't stop still now and then and laugh at themselves. There is no Superman, the poor old donkeys that fancy themselves in the part are either crack-brained professors who couldn't rule a Sunday school class, or bristling soldiers with pintpot heads who imagine that the shooting of a Duke Kinien made a Napoleon. But there is a superwoman, and her name's Hilde van Einem. I thought our job was nearly over, I groaned, and now it looks as if it hadn't well started. Boulevant said that all we had to do was to find out the truth. Boulevant didn't know. No man knows except you and me. I tell you, the woman has immense power, the Germans have trusted her with their trump card, and she's going to play it for all she is worth. There's no crime that will stand in her way. She has set the ball rolling, and if need be, she'll cut all her profits' throats and run the show herself. I don't know about your job, for honestly I can't quite see what you and Blank Iron are going to do, but I'm very clear about my own duty. She's let me into the business, and I'm going to stick to it in the hope that I'll find a chance of wrecking it. We're moving eastward to-morrow, with a new profit if the old one is dead. Where are you going? I asked. I don't know, but I gather it's a long journey judging by the preparations, and it must be to a cold country judging by the clothes provided. Well, wherever it is, we're going with you. You haven't heard the end of our yarn. Blank Iron and I have been moving in the best circles as skilled American engineers who are going to play old Harry with the British on the Tigris. I'm a pal of envers now, and he has offered me his protection. The lamented Rasta brought our passports for the journey to Mesopotamia to-morrow, but an hour ago your lady tore them up and put them in the fire. We are going with her, and she vouchsafed the information that it was toward the Great Hills. Sandy whistled long and low. I wonder what the douche she wants with you. This thing has gotten dash-complicated, Dick. Where more by token is Blank Iron? He's the fellow to know about high politics. The missing Blank Iron, as Sandy spoke, entered the room with his slow, quiet step. I could see by his courage that for once he had no dyspepsia, and by his eyes that he was excited. Say, boys, he said, I've got something pretty considerable in the way of news. There's been big fighting on the eastern border, and the buzzards have taken a bad knock. His hands were full of papers, from which he selected a map, and spread it on the table. They keep mum about this thing in the capital, but I've been piecing the story together these last days, and I think I've got it straight. A fortnight ago, old man Nicholas descended from his mountains and scuppered his enemies there, at Coupre Q., where the main road eastward crosses the Euraxis. That was only the beginning of the stunt, for he pressed on on a broad front, and a gentleman called Kiamil, who commands in those parts, was not up to the job of holding him. The buzzards were shepherd in from north and east and south, and now the Muscovite is sitting down, outside the forts of Erzurum. I can tell you they're pretty miserable about the situation in the highest quarters, Enver is sweating blood to get fresh divisions to Erzurum from Gallipoli, but it's a long road and it looks as if they would be too late for the fair. You and I, majors, start for Mesopotamia tomorrow, and that's about the meanest bit of bad luck that ever happened to John S., or missing the chance of seeing the goriest fight of this campaign. I picked up the map and pocketed it. Maps were my business, and I had been looking for one. We are not going to Mesopotamia, I said. Our orders have been canceled. But I've just seen Enver, and he said he had sent round our passports. There in the fire, I said, the right ones will come along tomorrow morning. Our Sandy broke in, his eyes bright with excitement. The great hills, we're going to Erzurum. Don't you see that the Germans are playing their big card? They're sending Green Mantle to the point of danger in the hope that his coming will rally the Turkish defense. Things are beginning to move, dick old man. No more kicking the heels for us. We're going to begin it up to the neck, and heaven help the best man. I must be off now, for I've got a lot to do. Au revoir, we meet sometime in the hills. Blank iron still looked puzzled till I told him the story of that night's doings. As he listened, all the satisfaction went out of his face, and that funny, childish air of bewilderment crept in. It's not for me to complain, for it's in the straight line of our duty, but I reckon there's going to be big trouble ahead of this caravan. It's kismet, and we've got to bow. But I won't pretend that I'm not considerable scared at the prospect. Oh, so am I, I said. The woman frightens me into fits. We're up against it this time, all right. All the same, I'm glad we're to be let into the real star metropolitan performance. I didn't relish the idea of touring the provinces. I guess that's correct, but I could wish that the good Lord would see fit to take that lovely lady to himself. She's too much for a quiet man at my time of life. When she invites us to go in on the ground floor, I feel like taking the elevator to the roof garden. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Green Mantle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Missy, Guangzhou, China. Green Mantle by John Buckin. Chapter 16. The Battered Caravan Surrey. Two days later, in the evening, we came to Angora, the first stage in our journey. The passports had arrived next morning, as Frau Wein-Anem had promised, and with them a plan of our journey. More, one of the companions, who spoke a little English, was detailed to accompany us, a wise precaution for no one of us had a word of Turkish. These were the sum of our instructions. I heard nothing more of Sandy, or Green Mantle, or the Lady. We were meant to travel in our own party. We had the railway to Angora, a very comfortable German Schlothwagen, tacked to the end of a troop train. There wasn't much to be seen of the country, for after we left the Bosporus we ran into scuds of snow, and except that we seemed to be climbing onto a big plateau, I had no notion of the landscape. It was a marvel that we made such good time, for that line was congested beyond anything I have ever seen. The place was crawling with the Gallipoli troops, and every siding was packed with supply trucks. When we stopped, which we did on average about once an hour, you could see vast camps on both sides of the line, and often we struck regiments on the march along the railway track. They looked a fine, hearty lot of ruffians, but many were deplorably ragged, and I didn't think much of their boots. I wondered how they would do the five hundred miles of road to Erzurum. Blank iron played patience, and Peter and I took a hand at Piquet, but mostly we smoked and yarned. Getting away from that infernal city had cheered us wonderfully. Now we were out on the open road, moving to the sound of the gun. At the worst we should not perish like rats in a sewer. We would be all together, too, and that was a comfort. I think we felt the relief which a man who has been on a lonely outpost feels when he is brought back to his battalion. Besides, the thing had gone clean beyond our power to direct. It was no good planning and scheming, for none of us had a notion what the next step might be. We were fatalists now, believing in kismet, and that is a comfortable faith. All but blank iron. The coming of Hildavon Ionum into the business had put a very ugly complexion on it for him. It was curious to see how she affected the different members of our gang. Peter did not care a rush. Man, woman, and hippogriff were the same to him. He met it all as calmly as if he were making plans to round up an old line in a patch of bush, taking the facts as they came and working at them as if they were a sum of arithmetic. Sandy and I were impressed. It's no good denying it, horribly impressed, but we were too interested to be scared. And we weren't a bit fascinated. We hated her too much for that. But she fairly struck blank iron dumb. He said himself it was just like a rattlesnake and a bird. I made him talk about her, for if he sat and brooded he would get worse. It was a strange thing with this man. The most imperturbable, and I think about the most courageous I have ever met, should be paralyzed by a slim woman. There was no doubt about it. The thought of her made the future to him as black as a thunder-cloud. It took the power out of his joints. And if she was going to be much around, it looked as if blank iron might be counted out. I suggested that he was in love with her, but this he vehemently denied. No, sir! I haven't got no sort of affection for the lady. My trouble is that she puts me out of countenance, and I can't fit her in as an antagonist. I guess we Americans haven't got the right poise for dealing with that kind of female. We've exalted our womenfolk into little tin gods, and at the same time left them out of the real business of life. Consequently, when we strike one playing the biggest kind of man's game, we can't place her. We aren't used to regarding them as anything except angels and children. I wish I had had you boys upbringing. Angora was like my notion of some place such as Amien in the retreat from Moll. It was one mass of troops and transport. The neck of the bottle, for more arrived every hour, and the only outlet was the single eastern road. The town was pandemonium into which distracted German officers were trying to introduce some mortar. They didn't worry much about us, for the heart of Anatolia wasn't a likely hunting ground for suspicious characters. We took our passport to the Commandant, who viscid them readily, and told us he'd do his best to get us transport. We spent the night in a sort of hotel where all four crowded into one little bedroom, and next morning I had my work cut out getting a motor car. It took four hours and the use of every great name in the Turkish Empire to raise a dingy sort of stupe baker, and another two to get the petrol and spare tires. As for a chauffeur, love or money couldn't find him, and I was compelled to drive the thing myself. We left just after midday, and swung out into bare bleak downs patched with scrubby woodland. There was no snow here, but a wind was blowing from the east which searched the marrow. Presently we climbed up into hills, and the road, though not badly engineered to begin with, grew as rough as the channel of a stream. No wonder, for the traffic was like what one saw on that awful stretch between Castle and Ypres, and there were no gangs of Belgian road-makers to mend it up. We found troops by the thousands, striding along with their impassive Turkish faces, ox convoys, mule convoys, wagons drawn by sturdy little Anatolian horses, and, coming in the contrary direction, many shabby red crescent cars and wagons of the wounded. We had to crawl for hours on end, till we got past a block. Just before the darkening we seemed to outstrip the first press, and had a clear run for about ten miles over a low path in the hill. I began to get anxious about the car, for it was a poor one at the best, and the road was guaranteed sooner or later to knock even a Rolls Royce into scrap iron. All the same it was glorious to be out in the open again. Peter's face wore a new look, and he sniffed the bitter air like a stag. There floated up from little wayside camps the odor of wood smoke and dung-fires. That and the curious acrid winter smell of great windblown spaces will always come to my memory as I think of that day. Every hour brought me peace of mind and resolution. I felt as I had felt when the battalion first marched from air towards the firing line, a kind of keying up and wild expectation. I'm not used to cities, and lounging about Count Stantonopoul had slackened my fibre. Now, as the sharp wind buffeted us, I felt braced to any kind of risk. We were on the great road to the east and the border hills, and soon we should stand upon the farthest battle-front of the war. This was no commonplace intelligence job, that was all over, and we were going into the firing zone, going to take part in what might be the downfall of our enemies. I didn't reflect that we were among those enemies and would probably share their downfall if we were not shot earlier. The truth is, I had got out of the way of regarding the thing as a struggle between armies and nations. I hardly bothered to think where my sympathies lay. First and foremost it was the contest between the four of us and a crazy woman, and this personal antagonism made the strife of armies only a dimly felt background. We slept that night like logs, on the floor of a dirty con, and started next morning in a powder of snow. We were getting very high up now, and it was perishing cold. The companion, his name sounded like Hussein, had traveled the road before and told me what the places were, but they conveyed nothing to me. All morning we wriggled through a big lot of troops, a brigade at least, who swung along at a great pace with a fine, free stride that I don't think I've ever seen buttered. I must say I took a fancy to the Turkish fighting man. I remembered the testimonial that our fellows gave him as a clean fighter, and I felt very bitter that Germany should have lugged him into this dirty business. They halted for a meal, and we stopped too, and lunched off some brown bread and dried figs, and a flask of very sour wine. I had a few words with one of the officers who spoke a little German. He told me they were marching straight for Russia, since there had been a great Turkish victory in the Caucasus. We have beaten the French and the British, and now it is Russia's turn, he said stolidly, as if repeating a lesson. But he added that he was mortally sick of war. In the afternoon we cleared the column and had an open road for some hours. The land now had a tilt eastward, as if we were moving towards the valley of a great river. Soon we began to meet little parties of men coming from the east with a new look in their faces. The first lots of wounded had been the ordinary thing you see on every front, and there had been some pretense at organization. But these new lots were very weary and broken. They were often barefoot, and they seemed to have lost their transport and to be starving. You would find a group stretched by the roadside in the last stages of exhaustion. Then we'd come a party limping along, so tired that they never turned their heads to look at us. Almost all were wounded, some badly, and most were horribly thin. I wondered how my Turkish friend behind would explain the sight to his men if he believed in a great victory. They had not the air of the backwash of a conquering army. Then Blankiron, who was no soldier, noticed it. �These boys look mighty bad,� he observed. �We've got to hustle, Major, if we're going to get seats for the last act.� That was my own feeling. The sight made me mad to get on faster, for I saw that big things were happening in the east. I had reckoned that four days would take us from Angora to Ezrum, but here it was the second nearly over, and we were not yet a third of the way. I pressed on recklessly, and that hurry was our undoing. I've said that the Studebaker was a rotten old car. Its steering gear was pretty dicky, and the bad surface and continual hairpin bends of the road didn't improve it. Soon we came into snow lying fairly deep, frozen hard and rutted by the big transport wagon. We bumped and bounced horribly, and were shaken about like peas in a bladder. I began to be acutely anxious about the old bone-shaker. The more as we seemed a long way short of the village I proposed to spend the night in. It was falling, and we were still in an unfeatured waste, crossing the shallow glen of a stream. There was a bridge at the bottom of a slope, a bridge of logs and earth which had apparently been freshly strengthened for heavy traffic. As we approached it at a good pace, the car ceased to answer to the wheel. I struggled desperately to keep it straight, but it swerved to the left, and we plunged over a bank into a marshy hollow. There was a sickening bump as we struck the lower ground, and the whole party was shot out into the frozen slush. I don't yet know how I escaped, for the car turned over, and by rights I should have had my back broken. But no one was hurt. Peter was laughing, and blank iron, after shaking the snow out of his hair, joined him. For myself I was feverishly examining the machine. It was about as ugly as it could be, for the front axle was broken. Here was a piece of hopeless bad luck. We were stuck in the middle of Asia Minor with no means of conveyance, for to get a new axle there was as likely as to find snowballs on the Congo. It was all but dark, and there was no time to lose. I got out the petrol tins and spare tires, and cached them among the rocks on the hillside. Then we collected our scanty baggage from the derelict Studebaker. Our only hope was Hussein. He had got to find us some lodging for the night, and next day we would have a try for horses or a lift in some passing wagon. I had no hope of another car. Every automobile in Anatolia would now be at a premium. It was so disgusting a mishap that we all took it quietly. It was too bad to be helped by hard swearing. Hussein and Peter set off on different sides of the road to prospect for a house, and Blankiren and I sheltered under the nearest rock and smoked savagely. Hussein was the first to strike oil. He came back in 20 minutes with news of some kind of dwelling a couple of miles up the stream. He went off to collect Peter, and humping our baggage, Blankiren and I plotted up the water side. Darkness had fallen thick by this time, and we took some bad tosses among the bogs. When Hussein and Peter overtook us, they found a better road, and presently we saw a light twinkle in the hollow ahead. It proved to be a wretched, tumble-down farm in a grove of poplars, a foul-smelling muddy yard, a two-roomed hobble of a house, and a barn which was tolerably dry and which we selected for our sleeping place. The owner was a broken old fellow whose sons were all at the war, and he received us with the profound calm of one who expects nothing but unpleasantness from life. By this time we had recovered our tempers, and I was trying hard to put my new kismet philosophy into practice. I reckoned that if risks were foreordained, so were difficulties, and both must be taken as part of the day's work. With the remains of our provisions and some curdled milk, we satisfied our hunger and curled ourselves up among the peas straw of the barn. Blankiren announced with a happy sigh that he had now been for two days quit of his dyspepsia. That night I remember I had a queer dream. I seemed to be in a wild place among mountains, and I was being hunted, though who was after me I couldn't tell. I remember sweating with fright, for I seemed to be quite alone, and the terror that was pursuing me was more than human. The place was horribly quiet and still, and there was deep snow lying everywhere, so that each step I took was heavy as lead. A very ordinary sort of nightmare, you will say? Yes, but there was one strange feature in this one. The night was pitch dark, but ahead of me, in the throat of the past, there was one patch of light. And it showed a rum little hill with a rocky top, what we call in South Africa a castrol, or saucepan. I had a notion that if I could get to that castrol, I should be safe, and I panted through the drifts towards it with the avenger of blood at my heels. I woke gasping to find the winter mornings struggling through the cracked rafters, and to hear Blinkiren say cheerfully that his duodenum had behaved all night like a gentleman. I lay still for a bit, trying to fix the dream, but it all dissolved into haze except the picture of the little hill, which was quite clear in every detail. I told myself it was a reminiscence of the belt, some spot down in the Valkerström country, though for the life of me I couldn't place it. I pass over the next three days, for they were one uninterrupted series of heartbreaks. Hussein and Peter scored the country for horses, Blinkiren sat in the barn and played patience while I hunted the roadside near the bridge in the hope of picking up some kind of conveyance. My task was perfectly futile. The columns passed, casting wondering eyes on the wrecked car among the frozen rushes, but they could offer no help. My friend, the Turkish officer, promised to wire to Angora from someplace or other for a fresh car, but remembering the state of affairs at Angora, I had no hope from that quarter. Cars passed, plenty of them, packed with staff officers, Turkish and German, but they were in far too big a hurry to even stop and speak. The only conclusion I reached from my roadside visual was that things were getting very warm in the neighborhood of Erzurum. Everybody on that road seemed to be in mad haste, either to get there or to get away. Hussein was the best chance, for, as I have said, the companions had a very special and peculiar graph throughout the Turkish Empire. But the first day he came back empty-handed. All the horses had been commandeered for the war, he said, and though he was certain that some had been kept back and hidden away, he could not get on their track. The second day he returned with two miserable screws and deplorably shortened the wind from a diet of beans. There was no decent corn or hay left in the countryside. The third day he picked up a nice little Arab stallion. In poor condition it is true, but perfectly sound. For these beasts we paid good money, for Blankhiren was well supplied and we had no time to spare for the interminable oriental bargaining. Hussein said he had cleaned up the countryside, and I believed him. I dared not delay another day, even though it meant leaving him behind. But he had no notion of doing anything of the kind. He was a good runner, he said, and could keep up with such horses as ours forever. If this was the manner of our progress I reckoned we would be weeks in getting to Erzurum. We started at dawn on the morning of the fourth day after the old farmer had blessed us and sold us some stale rye bread. Blankhiren bestowed the Arab, being the heaviest, and Peter and I had the screws. My worst forebodings were soon realized and Hussein, loping along at my side, had an easy job to keep up with us. We were about as slow as an ox wagon. The brutes were unshod and with the rough roads I saw that their feet would very soon go to pieces. We jogged along like a tinker's caravan, about five miles to the hour, as feckless a party has ever disgraced a high road. The weather was now a drizzle, which increased my depression. Cars passed us and disappeared in the mist, going at thirty miles an hour to mock our slowness. None of us spoke, for the futility of the business clogged our spirits. I bit hard on my lip to curb my restlessness, and I think I would have sold my soul there and then for anything that could move fast. I don't know any sore trial than to be mad for speed and to have to crawl at a snail's pace. I was getting ripe for any kind of desperate venture. About midday we descended on a wide plain full of the marks of rich cultivation. Villages became frequent, and the land was studded with olive groves and scarred with water furrows. From what I remembered of the map, I judged that we were coming to that champagne country near Siwas, which is the granary of Turkey and the home of the true Osmanli stock. Then at the corner of the road we came to the caravan Saray. It was a dingy, battered place, with the pink plaster falling in patches from its walls. There was a courtyard abutting on the road and a flat topped house with a big hole in it's side. It was a long way from Madin battleground, and I guess that from explosion had wrought the damage. Behind it, a few hundred yards off, a detachment of cavalry were encamped beside a stream with their horses tied up in long lines of pickets. And by the roadside, quite alone and deserted, stood a large, new motor car. In all the road, before and behind, there was no man to be seen except the troops by the stream. The owners, whoever they were, must be inside the caravan Saray. I've said I was in the mood for some desperate deed, and lo and behold, Providence had given me the chance. I coveted that car as I have never coveted anything on earth. At the moment, all my plans had narrowed down to a feverish passion to get to the battlefield. We had to find Green Mantle at Erzeroom, and once we were there, we should have Hildevan Einem's protection. It was a time of war, and a front of brass was the surest safety. But indeed, I could not figure out any plan worth speaking of. I saw only one thing, a fast car which might be ours. I said a word to the others, and we dismounted and tethered our horses at the near end of the courtyard. I heard the low hum of voices from the cavalrymen by the stream, but they were three hundred yards off and could not see us. Peter was sent forward to scout in the courtyard. In the building itself there was but one window looking on the road, and that was in the upper floor. Meantime, I crawled along beside the wall to where the car stood and had a look at it. It was a splendid six-cylinder affair, brand new with the tires little worn. There were seven tins of petrol stacked behind as well as spared hires, and looking in, I saw map cases and field glasses strewn on the seats as if the owners had only got out for a minute to stretch their legs. Peter came back and reported that the courtyard was empty. There were men in the upper room, he said, more than one, for I heard their voices. They were moving about restlessly and may soon be coming out. I reckoned that there was no time to be lost, so I told the others to slip down the road fifty yards beyond the caravan's array and be ready to climb in as I passed. I had to start the infernal thing and there might be shooting. I waited by the car till I saw them reach the right distance. I could hear voices from the second floor of the house and footsteps moving up and down. I was in a fever of anxiety for any moment a man might come to the window. Then I flung myself on the starting handle and worked like a demon. The cold made the job difficult, and my heart was in my mouth, for the noise in that quiet place must have woken the dead. Then, by the mercy of heaven, the engine started and I sprang to the driving seat, released the clutch and opened the throttle. The great car shot forward and I seemed to hear behind me shrill voices, a pistol bullet bored through my hat and another buried itself in a cushion beside me. In a second I was clear of the place and the rest of the party were embarking. Blank iron got on the step and rolled himself like a sack of coals into the tunnel. Peter nipped up beside me and Hussain scrambled in from the back over the folds of the hood. We had our baggage in our pockets and had nothing to carry. Bullets dropped round us, but did no harm. Then I heard a report at my ear, and out of a corner of my eye saw Peter lower his pistol. Presently we were out of range, and looking back I saw three men gesticulating in the middle of the road. May the devil fly away with this pistol, said Peter roofily. I never could make good shooting with a little gun. Had I had my rifle, what did you shoot for, I asked in amazement. We've got the fellow's car, and we don't want to do them any harm. It would have saved trouble had I had my rifle, said Peter quietly. The little man you call Rasta was there, and he knew you. I heard him cry your name. He's an angry little man, and I observed that on this road there is a telegraph. End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17 of Green Mantle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Missy Guangzhou, China. Green Mantle by John Buckin. Chapter 17. Trouble by the Waters of Babylon. From that moment I date the beginning of my madness. Suddenly I forgot all cares and difficulties of the present and future, and became foolishly lighthearted. We were rushing towards the great battle where men were busy at my proper trade. I realized how much I had loathed the lonely days in Germany, and still more the dawdling week in Constantinople. Now I was clear of it all, and bound for the clash of armies. It didn't trouble me that we were on the wrong side of the battle-line. I had a sort of instinct that the darker and wilder things grew, the better chance for us. Seems to me, said Blankarn, bending over me, that this joy ride is going to come to an untimely end pretty soon. Peter's right. That young man will set the telegraph going, and will be held up at the next township. He's got to get to a telegraph office first, I answered. That's where we have the poll on him. He's welcome to the screws we left behind, and if he finds an operator before the evening, I'm the worst kind of a Dutchman. I'm going to break all the rules and bucket this car for what she's worth. Don't you see that the nearer we get to Erzurum, the safer we are? I don't follow, he said slowly. At Erzurum, I reckon they'll be waiting for us with the handcuffs. Why, in thunder, couldn't those hairy ragamuffins keep the little cuss faith? Your record's a bit too precipitous, Major, for the most innocent-minded military boss. Do you remember what you said about the Germans being open to bluff? Well, I'm going to put up the steepest sort of bluff. Of course they'll stop us. Rasta will do his damnedest. But remember that he and his friends are not very popular with the Germans, and Madame von Einem is. We're her protégés, and the bigger the Germans' swell I get before the safer I'll feel. We've got our passports and our orders, and he'll be a bold man that will stop us once we get into the German zone. Therefore I'm going to hurry as fast as God will let me. It was a ride that deserved to have an epic written about it. The car was good, and I handled her well, though I say it who shouldn't. The road in that big central plain was fair, and often I knocked 50 miles an hour out of her. We passed troops by a circuit over the belt, where we took some awful risks, and once we skidded by some transport with our off-wheels almost over the lip of a ravine. We went through the narrow streets of Siwas like a fire engine while I shouted out in German that we carried dispatches for headquarters. We shot out of drizzling rain into brief spells of winter sunshine and then into a snow blizzard which all but whipped the skin from our faces. And always before us the long road unrolled, with somewhere at the end of it two armies clinched in a death grapple. That night we looked for no lodging. We ate a sort of meal in the car with the hood up and felt our way on in the darkness, for the headlights were in perfect order. Then we turned off the road for four hours sleep, and I had to go at the map. Before dawn we started again and came over a path into the veil of a big river. The winter dawn showed its gleaming stretches ice bound among the sprinkled meadows. I called a blank iron. I believed that river is the Euphrates, I said. So, he said acutely interested, then that's the waters of Babylon. Great snakes that I should have lived to see the fields where King Nebuchadnezzar grazed. Do you know the name of that big hill, Major? Eirorat, as like as not, I cried, and he believed me. We were among the hills now, great rocky black slopes, and seen through side glens, a hinterland of snowy peaks. I remember I kept looking for the castrol I had seen in my dream. The thing had never left off haunting me, and I was pretty clear now that it did not belong to my South African memories. I'm not a superstitious man, but the way that little crans clung to my mind made me think it was a warning sent by Providence. I was pretty certain that when I clapped eyes on it, I would be in for bad trouble. All morning we traveled up that broad veil, and just before noon it spread out wider, the road dipped to the water's edge, and I saw before me the white roofs of the town. The snow was deep now, and lay down to the river side, but the sky cleared, and against a space of blue heaven some peaks to the south rose glittering like jewels. The arches of a bridge, spanning two forks of the stream, showed in front, and as I slowed down at the bend a century's challenge rang out from a blockhouse. We had reached the fortress of Erzinyan, the headquarters of a Turkish corps, and the gate of Armenia. I showed the man our passports, but he did not salute and let us move on. He called another fellow from the guardhouse who motioned us to keep pace with him as he stumped down a sideline. At the other end was a big barracks with centuries outside. The man spoke to us in Turkish, which Hussien interpreted. There was somebody in that barracks who wanted badly to see us. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, quoted Blankiron softly. I fear Major will soon be remembering Zion. I tried to persuade myself that this was merely the red tape of a frontier fortress, but I had an instinct that difficulties were in store for us. If Rasta had started wiring I was prepared to put up the brazenest bluff, for we were still eighty miles from Erzerum, and at all costs we were going to be landed there before night. A fussy staff officer met us at the door. At the sight of us he cried to a friend to come and look. Here are the birds safe, a fat man and two lean ones and a savage who looks like a curd. Call the guard and march them off, there's no doubt about their identity. "'Pardon me, sir,' I said, "'but we have no time to spare, and we'd like to be in Erzerum before the dark. I would beg you to get through any formalities as soon as possible. This man, and I pointed to the sentry, has our passports. "'Compose yourself,' he said impudently, "'you're not going on just yet, and when you do it won't be in a stolen car.' He took the passports and fingered them casually. Then something he saw there made him cock his eyebrows. "'Where did you steal these?' he asked, but with less assurance in his tone. I spoke very gently. "'You seem to be the victim of a mistake, sir. These are our papers. We are under orders to report ourselves at Erzerum without an hour's delay. Whoever hinders us will have to answer to General von Lehmann. We will be obliged if you will conduct us at once to the Governor.' "'You can't see, General Passelt,' he said, "'this is my business. I have a wire from Siwas that four men stole a car belonging to one of Enver Damod's staff. It describes you all and says that two of you are notorious spies wanted by the Imperial Government. What have you to say to that?' "'Only that it is rubbish. My good sir, you have seen our passes. Our errand is not to be cried on the house tops, but five minutes with General Passelt will make things clear. You will be exceedingly sorry for it if you delay another minute.' He was impressed in spite of himself, and after pulling his mustache turned on his heel and left us. Presently he came back and said very gruffly that the Governor would see us. We followed him along a corridor into a big room, looking out on the river, where an oldish fellow sat in an armchair by a stove, writing letters with a fountain pen. This was Passelt, who had been Governor of Erzurum until he fell sick and Ahmed Fevzi took his place. He had a peevish mouth and big blue pouches below his eyes. He was supposed to be a good engineer and to have made Erzurum impregnable, but the look on his face gave me the impression that his reputation at the moment was a bit unstable. The staff officer spoke to him in an undertone. "'Yes, yes, I know,' he said testily. Are these the men? They look a pretty lot of scoundrels. What's that you say? They deny it. But they've got the car. They can't deny that. Here, you!' And he fixed on Blankiron. "'Who the devil are you?' Blankiron smiled sleepily at him, not understanding one word, and I took up the parable. Our passports, sir, give our credentials,' I said. He glanced through them, and his face lengthened. "'They're right enough. But what about this story of stealing a car? It is quite true,' I said, but I would prefer to use a pleasanter word. You will see from our papers that every authority on the road is directed to give us the best transport. Our own car broke down, and after a long delay we got some wretched horses. It is vitally important that we should be in Erzurum without delay, so I took the liberty of appropriating an empty car we found outside and in. I am sorry for the discomfort of the owners, but our business was too grave to wait. But the telegram says you are notorious spies.' I smiled. "'Who sent the telegram?' I see no reason why I shouldn't give you his name. It was Rasta Bay. You've picked an awkward fellow to make an enemy of.' I did not smile, but laughed. "'Rasta!' I cried. He's one of Enver's satellites. That explains many things. I should like a word with you alone, sir.' He nodded to the staff officer, and when he had gone I put on my most Bible face, and looked as important as a provincial mayor at a royal visit. "'I can speak freely,' I said, for I am speaking to a soldier of Germany. There is no love lost between Enver and those I serve. I need not tell you that. This Rasta thought he had found a chance of delaying us, so he invents this trash about spies. Those komitages have spies on the brain. Especially he hates Frau von Einem.' He jumped at the name. "'You have orders from her?' he asked, in a respectful tone. Why, yes, I answered, and those orders will not wait.' He got up and walked to a table, once he turned a puzzled face on me. "'I'm turned in two between the Turks and my own countrymen. If I please one, I offend the other, and the result is a damnable confusion. You can go on to airs a room, but I shall send a man with you to see that you report to headquarters there. I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I'm obliged to take no chances in this business. Rasta's got a grievance against you, but you can easily hide behind the ladies' skirts.' She passed through this town two days ago. Ten minutes later we were coasting through the slush of the narrow streets with a stallard German lieutenant sitting beside me. The afternoon was one of those rare days when, in the pauses of snow, you have a spell of weather as mild as May. I remembered several like it during our winter's training in Hampshire. The road was a fine one, well engineered, and well kept, too, considering the amount of traffic. We were little delayed, for it was sufficiently broad to let us pass troops and transport without slackening pace. The fellow at my side was good-humored enough, but his presence naturally put the lid on our conversation. I didn't want to talk, however. I was trying to piece together a plan and making very little of it, for I had nothing to go upon. We must find Hilde von Einem and Sandy, and between us we must wreck the Green Mantle business. That done it didn't matter so much what happened to us. As I reasoned it out the Turks must be in a bad way, and unless they got a fillip from Green Mantle would crumple up before the Russians. In the route I hoped we might get a chance to change our sides. But it was no good looking so far forward. The first thing was to get to Sandy. Now, I was still in the mood of reckless bravado which I had got from begging the car. I did not realize how thin our story was and how easily Rosta might have a big graft at headquarters. If I had, I would have shot out the German lieutenant long before we got to Erzurum and found some way of getting mixed up in the ruck of the population, who seen could have helped me to that. I was getting so confident since our interview with Passelt that I thought I could bluff the whole outfit. But my main business that afternoon was pure nonsense. I was trying to find my little hill. At every turn of the road I expected to see the castrol before us. You must know that ever since I could stand I have been crazy about high mountains. My father took me to Bessutoland when I was a boy. And I reckon I've scrambled over almost every bit of upland south of the Zambezi, from the Hottentots Holland to the Zutpansberg, and from the ugly yellow copiers of Demarraland to the noble cliffs of Mantle source. One of the things I had looked forward to in coming home was the chance of climbing the Alps. But now I was among peaks that I fancied were bigger than the Alps, and I could scarcely keep my eyes on the road. I was pretty certain that my castrol was among them, for that dream had taken an almighty hold on my mind. Funnily enough I was ceasing to think of it a place of evil omen, for one soon forgets the atmosphere of a nightmare. But I was convinced that it was a thing I was destined to see, and to see pretty soon. This fell when we were some miles short of the city, and the last part was difficult driving. On both sides of the road transport and engineers' stores were parked, and some of it strayed into the highway. I noticed lots of small details, machine gun detachments, signalling parties, squads of stretcher-bearers, which mean the fringe of an army, and as soon as the night began the white fingers of searchlights began to grope in the skies. And then, above the hum of the roadside, rose the voice of the great guns. The shells were bursting four or five miles away, and the guns must have been as many more distant. But in that upland pocket of plain in the frosty night they sounded most intimately near. They kept up their solemn litany, with a minute's interval between each, no ruffale which rumbles like a drum, but the steady persistence of artillery exactly ranged on a target. I judged they must be bombarding the outer forts, and once there came a loud explosion and a red glare as if a magazine had suffered. It was a sound I had not heard for five months, and it fairly crazed me. I remembered how I had first heard it on the ridge before Laventy. Then I had been half afraid, half solemnized, but every nerve had been quickened. Then it had been the new thing in my life that held me breathless with anticipation. Now it was the old thing, the thing I had shared with so many good fellows, my proper work and the only task for a man. At the sound of the guns I felt that I was moving in natural air once more, I felt that I was coming home. We were stopped at a long line of ramparts, and a German sergeant stared at us, till he saw the lieutenant beside me when he saluted and we passed on. Almost at once we dipped into narrow twisting streets, choked with soldiers, where it was hard business to steer. There were few lights, only now and then the flare of a torch which showed the gray stone houses, with every window latticed and shuttered. I had put out my headlights and had only side lamps, so we had to pick our way gingerly through the labyrinth. I hoped we would strike Sandy's quarters soon, for we were all pretty empty, and a frost had set in which made our thick coat seem as thin as paper. The lieutenant did the guiding. We had to present our passports, and I anticipated no more difficulty than in landing from the boat at Belone. But I wanted to get it over, for my hunger pinched me and it was fearsome cold. Still the guns went on like hounds feying before a quarry. The city was out of range, but there were strange lights on the ridge to the east. At last we reached our goal and marched through a fine old carved archway into a courtyard and thence into a drafty hall. You must see the section shift, said our guide. I looked round to see if we were all there and noticed that Hussein had disappeared. It did not matter, for he was not on the passports. We followed as we were directed through an open door. There was a man standing with his back towards us looking at a wall map, a very big man with a neck that bulged over his collar. I would have known that neck among a million. At the sight of it I made a half-turn to bolt back. It was too late for the door closed behind us, and there were two armed sentries beside it. The man slewed round and looked into my eyes. I had a despairing hope that I might bluff it out, for I was in different clothes than I'd shave my beard. But you cannot spend ten minutes in a death grapple without your adversary getting to know you. He went very pale, then recollected himself and twisted his features into the old grin. So, he said, the little Dutchman, we meet after many days. It was no good lying or saying anything. I shut my teeth and waited. And you, Herr Blank iron, I never liked the look of you. You babbled too much like all your damned Americans. I guess your personal dislikes haven't got anything to do with the matter, said Blank iron calmly. If you're the boss here, I'll thank you to cast your eye over these passports, for we can't stand waiting forever. This fairly angered him. I'll teach you manners, he cried, and took a step forward to reach for Blank iron's shoulder, the game he had twice played with me. Blank iron never took his hands from his coat pocket. Keep your distance, he drawled in a new voice. I've got you covered and I'll make a hole in your bullet head if you lay a hand on me. With an effort, Stoom recovered himself. He rang a bell and felt his smiling. An orderly appeared to whom he spoke in Turkish and presently a file of soldiers entered the room. I'm going to have you disarmed, gentlemen, he said. We can conduct our conversation more pleasantly without pistols. It was idle to resist. We surrendered our arms, Peter almost in tears with vexation. Stoom swung his legs over a chair, rested his chin on the back, and looked at me. Your game is up, you know, he said. These fools of Turkish police said the Dutchmen were dead, but I had the happier inspiration. I believed the good God had spared them for me. When I got Rossed as telegram, I was certain, for your doings reminded me of a little trick you once played me on the schwandorf road. But I didn't think to find this plump old partridge, and he smiled at Blankiron. Two eminent American engineers and their servant banned from Mesopotamia on business of a high government importance. It was a good lie, but if I had been in Constantinople, it would have had a short life. Rossed and his friends are no concern of mine. You can trick them as you please, but you have attempted to win the confidence of a certain lady, and her interests are mine. Likewise you have offended me, and I do not forgive. By God, he cried, his voice growing shrill with passion. By the time I have done with you, your mothers in their graves will weep that they ever bore you. It was Blankiron who spoke. His voice was as level as the chairmans of a bogus company, and it fell on that turbid atmosphere like acid on grease. I don't take no stock in highfalutin. If you're trying to scare me by that dime novel talk, I guess you've hit the wrong man. You're like the sweep that stuck in the chimney, a bit too big for your job. I reckon you've a talent for romance that's just wasted in soldiering. But if you're going to play any ugly games on me, I'd like you to know that I'm an American citizen, and pretty well considered in my own country and in yours, and you'll sweat blood for it later. That's a fair warning, Colonel Stoom. I don't know what Stoom's plans were, but that speech of Blankiron's put into his mind just the needed amount of uncertainty. You see, he had Peter and me right enough, but he hadn't properly connected Blankiron with us, and was afraid either to hit out at all three or to let Blankiron go. It was lucky for us that the American had cut such a dash in the fatherland. There is no hurry, he said blandly. We shall have long, happy hours together. I'm going to take you all home with me, for I'm a hospitable soul. You will be safer with me than in the town jail, or it's a trifle draughty. It lets things in, and it might let things out. Again he gave an order, and we were marched out, each with a soldier at his elbow. The three of us were bundled into the back seat of the car, while two men sat before us with their rifles between their knees. One got up behind on the baggage rack, and one sat beside Stoom's chauffeur. Packed like sardines, we moved into the bleak streets, of which the stars twinkled in ribbons of sky. Hussain had disappeared from the face of the earth, and quite right too. He was a good fellow, but he had no call to mix himself up in our troubles. CHAPTER XVIII. OF GREEN MANTLE. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vivian Bush. Green Mantle. By John Buchan. CHAPTER XVIII. SPARRO'S ON THE HOUSE TOPPS. I've often regretted, said Blinkiron, that miracles have left off happening. He got no answer, for I was feeling the walls for something in the nature of a window. For I reckon he went on, that it was once a good old fashioned copper-bottomed miracle to get us out of this fix. It's plum against all my principles. I spent my life using the talents God gave me to keep things from getting to the point of rude violence, and so far I've succeeded. But now you come along, Major, and you hustle a respectable middle-aged citizen into an aboriginal mix-up. It's mighty and delicate. I reckon the next move is up to you, for I'm no good at the house-breaking stunt. No more am I, I answered, but I'm hanged if I'll check up the sponge. Sandy's somewhere outside, and he's got a hefty crowd at his heels. I simply could not feel the despair which by every law of common sense was due to the case. The guns had intoxicated me. I could still hear their deep voices, though yards of wood and stone separated us from the upper air. What vexed us most was our hunger. Barring a few mouthfuls on the road, we had eaten nothing since the morning, and as our diet for the past days had not been generous, we had some leeway to make up. The stume had never looked near us since we were shoved into the car. We had been brought to some kind of house and bundled into a place like a wine cellar. It was pitch dark, and after feeling round the walls, first on my feet, and then on Peter's back, I decided that there were no windows. It must have been lit and ventilated by some lattice in the ceiling. There was not a stick of furniture in the place, nothing but a damp earth floor and bare stone sides. The door was a relic of the Iron Age, and I could hear the paces of a sentry outside it. When things get to the past that nothing you can do can better them, the only thing is to live for the moment. All three of us sawed in sleep a refuge from our empty stomachs. The floor was the poorest kind of bed, but we rolled up our coats for pillows and made the best of it. Soon I knew by Peter's regular breathing that he was asleep, and presently I followed him. I was awakened by a pressure below my left ear. I thought it was Peter, for it is the old hunter's chick of waking a man so that he makes no noise. But another voice spoke. It told me that there was no time to lose and to rise and follow, and the voice was the voice of Hussein. Peter was awake and we stirred blink iron out of heavy slumber. We were bitten to take off our boots and hang them by their laces round our necks as country boys do when they want to go barefoot. Then we tiptoed to the door, which was a jar. Outside was a passage with a flight of steps that went in, which led to the open air. On these steps lay a faint shine of starlight, and by its help I saw a man huddled up at the foot of them. It was our sentry, neatly and scientifically gagged and tied up. The steps brought us to a little courtyard about which the walls of the house rose like cliffs. We halted while Hussein listened intently. Apparently the coast was clear and our guide led us to one side, which was clothed by a stout wooden trellis. Once it may have supported fig trees, but now the plants were dead and only withered tendrils and rotten stumps remained. It was child's play for Peter and me to go up that trellis, but it was the doosanal for blink iron. He was in poor condition and puffed like a grampus, and he seemed to have no sort of head for heights. But he was as game as a buffalo and started in gallantly till his arms gave out and he fairly stuck. So Peter and I went up on each side of him, taking an arm apiece, as I had once seen done to a man with vertigo in the cliff chimney on Table Mountain. I was mighty thankful when I got him panting on the top and his sin had shinnied up beside us. We crawled along a broadish wall with an inch or two of powdery snow on it and then up a sloping buttress onto the flat roof of the house. It was a miserable business for blink iron who would certainly have fallen if he could have seen what was below him. And Peter and I had to stand to attention all the time. Then began a more difficult job. The sin pointed out a ledge which took us past a stack of chimneys to another building slightly lower, this being the route he fancied. At that I sat down resolutely and put on my boots and the others followed. Frost-bitten feet would be a poor asset in this kind of traveling. It was a bad step for blink iron and we only got him past it by Peter and I spread eagling ourselves against the wall and passing him in front of us with his face towards us. We had no grip and if he had stumbled we should all three have been in the courtyard. But we got it over and dropped as softly as possible onto the roof of the next house. His sin had his finger on his lips and I soon saw why, for there was a lighted window in the wall we had descended. Some imp prompted me to wait behind and explore. The others followed his sin and were soon at the far end of the roof where a kind of wooden pavilion broke the line while I tried to get a look inside. The window was curtained and had two folding sashes which clasped in the middle. Through a gap in the curtain I saw a little lamplit room and a big man sitting at a table littered with papers. I watched him fascinated as he turned to consult some document and made a marking on the map before him. Then he suddenly rose, stretched himself, cast a glance at the window and went out of the room making a great clatter in descending the wooden staircase. He left the door ajar and the lamp burning. I guessed he'd gone to have a look at his prisoners in which case the show was up. But what filled my mind was an insane desire to get a sight of his map. It was one of those mad impulses which utterly cloud right reason, a thing independent of any plan, a crazy leap in the dark. But it was so strong that I would have pulled that window out by its frame if need be to get to that table. There was no need but the flimsy clasp gave at the first pull and the sashes swung open. I scrambled in after listening for steps on the stairs. I crumpled up the map and stuck it in my pocket as well as the paper from which I had seen him copying. Very carefully I removed all marks of my entry, brushed away the snow from the boards, pulled back the curtain, got out and refastened the window. Still there was no sound of his return. Then I started off to catch up the others. I found them shivering in the roof pavilion. We've got to move pretty fast, I said, for I've just been burgling old steam's private cabinet. Who said my lad, do you hear that? They may be after us any moment. So I pray heaven we soon strike better going. Who said understood. He let us at a smart pace from one roof to another, for here they were all of the same height and only low parapets and screens divided them. We never saw a soul for a winter's night is not the time you choose to saunter on your housetop. I kept my ears open for trouble behind us and in about five minutes I heard it. A riot of voices broke out with one louder than the rest and looking back I saw lanterns waving. Steam had realized his loss and found the tracks of the thief. Hussin gave one glance behind and then heard us on at a breakneck pace with old blink iron gasping and stumbling. The shots behind us grew louder as if some eye quicker than the rest to caught our movement in the starlit darkness. It was very evident that if they kept up the chase we should be caught. For blink iron was about as useful on a roof as a hippo. Presently we came to a big drop with a kind of ladder down it and at the foot a shallow ledge running to the left into a pit of darkness. He said and gripped my arm and pointed down it. Follow it he whispered and you will reach a roof which spans a street. Cross it and on the other side is a mosque. Turn to the right there and you will find easy going for 50 meters. Well screened from the higher roofs. For all is sake keep in the shelter of the screen. Somewhere there I will join you. He hurried us along the ledge for a bit and then went back and with snow from the corners covered up our tracks. After that he went straight on himself taking strange short steps like a bird. I saw his game. He wanted to lead our pursuers after him and he had to multiply the tracks and trust his steam spell is not spotting if they were all made by one man. But I had quite enough to think of in getting blink iron across that ledge. He was pretty and early foundered. He was in a sweat of terror and as a matter of fact he was taking one of the biggest risks of his life for we had no rope and his neck depended on himself. I could hear him invoking some unknown deity called Holy Mike. But he ventured gallantly and we got to the roof which ran across the street. That was easier but ticklish enough but it was no joke skirting the cupola of that infernal mosque. At last we found the parapet and breathed more freely for we were now under shelter from the direction of danger. I spared a moment to look round and 30 yards off across the street I saw a weird spectacle. The hut was proceeding along the roofs parallel to the one we were lodged on. I saw the flicker of the lanterns waved up and down as the bearer slipped in the snow and I heard their cries like hounds on a trail. Stoom was not among them he had not the shape for that sort of business. They passed us and continued to our left now hid by a jetting chimney now clear to view against the skyline. The roofs they were on were perhaps six feet higher than ours so even from our shelter we could mark their course. If Hussin were going to be hunted across Erzurum it was a bad look out for us for I had the foggiest notion where we were or where we were going to. But as we watched we saw something more the way ring lanterns were now three or four hundred yards away but on the roofs just opposite us across the street there appeared a man's figure. I thought it was one of the hunters and we all crouched lower and then I recognized the lean agility of Hussin. He must have doubled back keeping in the desk to the left of the pursuit and taking big risks in the open places. But there he was now exactly in front of us and separated only by the width of the narrow street. He took a step backward gathered himself for a spring and leaped clean over the gap. Like a cat he lighted on the parapet above us and stumbled forward with the impetus right on our heads. We are safe for the moment he whispered but when they miss me they will return. We must make good haste. The next half hour was a maze of twists and turns slipping down icy roofs and climbing icy or chimney stacks. The stir of the city had gone and from the black streets below came scarcely a sound but always the great tattoo of guns beat in the east. Gradually we descended to a lower level till we emerged on the top of a shed in a courtyard. Hussin gave an odd sort of cry like a demented owl and something began to stir below us. It was a big covered wagon full of bundles of forage and drawn by four mules. As we descended from the shed into the frozen litter of the yard a man came out of the shade and spoke low to Hussin. Peter and I lifted Blinkiron into the cart and scrambled in beside him and I never felt anything more blessed than the warmth and softness of that place after the frosty roofs. I'd forgotten all about my hunger and only yearned for sleep. Presently the wagon moved out of the courtyard into the dark streets. Then Blinkiron began to laugh, a deep internal rumble which shook him violently and brought down a heap of forage on his head. I thought it was hysterics, the relief from the tension of the past hour. But it wasn't. His body might be out of training but there was never anything that mattered with his nerves. He was consumed with honest merriment. Say major he gasped. I don't usually cherish dislikes from my fellow men but somehow I didn't cotton to Colonel Stoom. But now I almost love him. You hit his jaw very bad in Germany and now you've annexed his private file and I guess it's important or he wouldn't have been so mighty said on steeple-chasing over those roofs. I haven't done such a thing since I broke into neighbor Brown's woodshed to steal his tame possum and that's 40 years back. It's the first piece of genuine amusement I've struck in this game and I haven't laughed so much since old Jim Hooker told the tale of cousin Sally Dillard when we were hunting ducks in Michigan and his wife's brother had an apoplexy in the night and died of it. To the accompaniment of Blinkiron's chuckles I did what Peter had done in the first minute and fell asleep. When I woke it was still dark. The wagon had stopped in a courtyard which seemed to be shaded by great trees. The snow laid deeper here and by the feel of the air we had left the city and climbed to higher ground. There were big buildings on one side and on the other what looked like the lift of a hill. No lights were shown. The place was in profound gloom but I felt the presence near me of others besides who's sitting in the driver. We were hurried, Blinkiron only half awake into an outbuilding and then down some steps to a roomy cellar. There Hussain little lantern which showed what a once been a storehouse for fruit. Old husks still strewed the floor and the place smelt of apples. Straw had been piled in corners for beds and there was a rude table and a divin of boards covered with sheepskins. Where are we I asked Hussain. In the house of the master he said you'll be safe here but you must keep still till the master comes. Is the Frankish lady here I asked. He said nodded and from a wallet brought out some food, raisins and cold meat and a loaf of bread. We fell on it like vultures and as we ate Hussain disappeared. I noticed that he locked the door behind him. As soon as the meal was ended the others returned to their interrupted sleep but I was waitful now and my mind was sharp set on many things. I got Blinkiron's electric torch and laid down on the divin to study Stoom's map. The first glance showed me that I had lit on a treasure. It was the staff map of the Erythm defenses showing the forts and the field trenches with little notes scribbled in Stoom's neat small handwriting. I got out the big map which I had taken from Blinkiron and made out the general lie of the land. I saw the horseshoe of Devy Boyan to the east which the Russian guns were battering. Stooms was just like the kind of squared artillery map we used in France, one in ten thousand with spidery red lines showing the trenches but with the difference that it was the Turkish trenches that were shown in detail and the Russian only roughly indicated. The thing was really a confidential plan of the whole Erythm enciente and would be worth untold gold to the enemy. No wonder Stoom had been in a wax at its loss. The Devy Boyan line seemed to be monstrously strong and I remembered the merits of the Turk as a fighter behind strong defenses. It looked as if Russia were up against a second plevna or new Gallipoli. Then I took to studying the flanks. South lay the Pelentican range of mountains with forts defending the passes who ran the roads to Mush and Lake Van. That side too looked pretty strong. North in the valley of the Euphrates I made out two big forts, Tafta and Keragubek defending the road from Ulty. On this part of the map students' notes were plentiful and I gave them all my attention. I remembered Blinkharn's news about the Russians advancing on a broad front for it was clear that Stoom was taking pains about the flanks of the fortress. Keragubek was the point of interest. It stood on a rib of land between two peaks from which the contour lines rose very steep. So long as it was held it was clear that no invader could move down the Euphrates Glen. Stoom had appended a note to the peaks, not fortified and about two miles to the northeast there was a red cross in the name Przhevalsky. I assumed that to be the farthest point yet reached by the right wing of the Russian attack. Then I turned to the paper from which Stoom had copied the jottings onto his map. It was type-ridden and consisted of notes on different points. One was headed Keragubek in red, no time to fortify adjacent peaks, difficult for enemy to get batteries there but not impossible. This is the real point of danger for if Przhevalsky wins the peaks, Keragubek and Tafka must fall and the enemy will be on left rear of Deviboyan main position. I was soldier enough to see the tremendous importance of this note. On Keragubek depended the defense of Erzum and it was a broken reed if one knew where the weakness lay. Yet, searching the map again, I could not believe that any mortal commander would see any chance in the adjacent peaks even if he thought them unfortified. That was information confined to the Turkish and German staff. But if it could be conveyed to the Grand Duke he would have Erzum and his power in a day. Otherwise he would go on battering at the Deviboyan ridge for weeks and long ere he won it the Calipholi divisions would arrive. He would be outnumbered by two to one and his chance would have vanished. My discovery set me pacing up and down that cellar in a perfect fever of excitement. I longed for wireless, a carrier pigeon and aeroplane, anything to bridge over that space of half a dozen miles between me and the Russian lines. It was maddening to have stumbled on vital news and to be wholly unable to use it. How could three fugitives in a cellar with the whole hornet's nest of Turkey and Germany stirred up against them, hope to send this message of life and death? I went back to the map and examined the nearest Russian positions. They were carefully marked. Pachevsky in the north, the main force beyond Deviboyan and the southern columns up to the passes of the politukin but not yet across them. I could not know which was nearest to us till I discovered where we were and as I thought of this, I began to see the rudiments of a desperate plan. It depended on Peter, now slumbering like a tired dog on a couch of straw. The Senate locked the door and I must wait for information till he came back but suddenly I noticed a trap in the roof which had evidently been used for raising and lowering the cellar's doors. It looked ill-fitting and might be unbarred so I pulled the table below it and found that with a little effort I could raise the flap. I knew I was taking immense risks but I was so keen on my plan that I disregarded them. After some trouble I got the thing prized open and catching the edges of the hole with my fingers raised my body and got my knees on the edge. It was the outbuilding of which our refuge was the cellar and it was half filled with light. Not a soul was there and I hunted about so I found what I wanted. This was a ladder leading to a sort of loft which in turn gave access to the roof. Here I had to be very careful for I might be overlooked from the high buildings but by good luck there was a trellis for grapevines across the place which gave a kind of shelter. Lying flat on my face I stared over a great expansive country. Looking north I saw the city in a haze of warning smoke and beyond the plain of the Euphrates in the opening of the glen where the river left the hills. Up there among the snowy heights were Tafta and Caragoubec. To the east was the ridge of Deviboyan where the mist was breaking before the winter sun. On the roads up to it I saw transport moving. I saw the circle of the inner forts but for a moment the guns were silent. South rose a great wall of white mountains which I took to be the Pilatukan. I could see the roads running to the passes and the smoke of camps and horse lines right under the cliffs. I had learned what I needed. We were in the outbuildings of a big country house two or three miles south of the city. The nearest point of the Russian front was somewhere in the foothills of the Pilatukan. As I descended I heard, thin and faint and beautiful, like the cry of a wild bird, the musin from the minarets of Erzurum. When I dropped through the trap the others were awake. Hussin was setting food on the table and viewing my descent with anxious disapproval. It's all right, I said. I won't do it again for I found out all I wanted. Peter, old man, the biggest job of your life is before you. End of Chapter 18, recording by Vivian Bush, Houston, Texas on July 18th, 2007.