Part 30 (1/2)

”Bah! We may not say 'comrade' as often as the Boche, but perhaps we are it all the more. I will not come further with you towards your carriage, for I have still a few things to do.”

He shook Hillyard by the hand and departed. Hillyard turned from him towards his sleeping-car, but though his chief anxiety was dispelled, his reluctance to go was not. And he looked at the long, brightly-lit train which was to carry him from this busy and high-hearted city with a desire that it would start before its time, and leave him a derelict upon the platform. He could not bend his thoughts to the work which was at his hand. The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their sparkle and enchantment. Here, here, was the place of life! The exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to success--these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the Germans; the danger of the torpedo was ever present on her voyages, and the certainty that if she were sunk, and he captured, any means would be taken to force him to speak before he was shot, was altogether beyond dispute. Even at this moment he carried hidden in a match-box a little phial, which never left him, to put the sure impediment between himself and a forced confession of his aims and knowledge. But he was not aware of it. How many times had he seen the red light at Europa Point on Gibraltar's edge change to white, sometimes against the scarlet bars of dawn, sometimes in the winter against a wall of black! But on the platform of the Quai d'Orsay station, in a bustle of soldiers going on short leave to their homes, and rattling with pannikins and iron-helmets, he could remember none of these consolations.

He reached his carriage.

”Messieurs les voyageurs, en route!” cried the controller.

”What a crowd!” Hillyard grumbled. ”Really, it almost disposes one to say that one will never travel again until this war is over.”

He walked along the corridor to his compartment and sat down as the train started with a jerk. The door stood open, and in a few minutes the attendant came to it.

”Who is in the next compartment on the other side of the lavatory?”

Hillyard asked.

”A manufacturer of Perpignan and his wife.”

”Does he snore?” Hillyard asked. ”If he snores I shall not sleep. It should be an offence against your bye-laws for a traveller to snore.”

He crossed one leg across his knee and unlaced his shoe.

The attendant came into the room.

”It is possible, monsieur, that I might hurry and fetch you your coffee in the morning,” he said.

”It is worth five francs to you if you do,” replied Hillyard.

”Then monsieur will not move from his compartment until luncheon. I will see to it. Monsieur will bolt his door, and in the morning I will knock when I bring the coffee.”

”Good,” returned Hillyard ungraciously.

The attendant retired, and Hillyard closed the door. But the ventilating lattice in the lower part of the door was open, and Hillyard could see the legs of the attendant. He was waiting outside--waiting for what?

Hillyard smiled to himself and took down his bag from the upper berth.

He had hardly opened it when the attendant knocked and entered.

”You will not forget, monsieur, to bolt your door. In these days it is not wise to leave it on the latch.”

”I won't forget,” Hillyard replied surlily, and once more the attendant retired; and again he stood outside the door. He did not move until the bolt was shot. The attendant seemed very pleased that this fool of a tourist who thought of nothing but his infirmities should safely bolt the door of the compartments numbers 11 and 12; and very pleased, too, to bring to this churlish, discontented traveller his coffee in the morning, so that he need not leave compartments numbers 11 and 12 unguarded. Hillyard chuckled as the attendant moved away.

”I am to be your watch-dog, am I? Your sentinel? Very well! Come, let me deserve your confidence, my friend.”

The train thundered out of the tunnel and through the suburbs of Paris.

Hillyard drew a letter from Fairbairn out of his pocket and read it through.

”Compartments numbers 11 and 12 on the night train from the Quai d'Orsay station to Cerbere. Good!” murmured Hillyard. ”Here I am in compartments numbers 11 and 12. Now we wait until the married couple from Perpignan and the attendant are comfortably asleep.”

He undressed and went to bed, but he did not sleep. He lay in the berth in the darkness, listening intently as the train rushed out of Paris across the plains of France. Once or twice, as the hours pa.s.sed, he heard a stealthy footstep in the corridor outside, and once the faintest possible little click told that the latch of his door had been lifted to make sure that the bolt was still shot home in its socket. Hillyard smiled.

”You are safe, my friend,” he breathed the words towards the anxious one in the corridor. ”No one can get in. The door is locked. The door of the dressing-room too. Sleep in your corner in peace.”

The train sped over a moonlit country, s.p.a.cious, unhurt by war. It moved with a steady, rhythmical throb, like an accompaniment to a tune or a phrase, ever repeated and repeated Hillyard found himself fitting words to the pulsation of the wheels. ”Berlin ... Berne ... Paris ... Cerbere ... Barcelona ... Madrid ... Aranjuez and the world”; and back again, reversing the order: ”Madrid ... Barcelona ... Cerbere ... Paris ...