Part 15 (1/2)

'Der grune mantel?' the man shouted up, and I cried, 'Yes' But the words seear abstractedly over the bulwarks

His tone had awakened a chord of iven eue For he had spoken the words which Stumm had uttered behind his hand to Gaudian I had heard so of it Noas as certain of those words as of my own existence They had been 'Grune ht be, was the name which Stumm had not meant me to hear, which was some talisman for the task I had proposed, and which was connected in some ith the h fettle I told ed to find out a wonderful amount in a very few days It only shohat aand chewing on it

Two rade, and I took the opportunity of stretching s Peter had co the battered riverside streets, and looked at the broken arches of the great railway bridge which the Ger temporary pontoon affair to take the railway across, but I calculated that the e would be ready inside a month It was a clear, cold, blue day, and as one looked south one saw ridge after ridge of snowy hills The upper streets of the city were still fairly whole, and there were shops open where food could be got I re so froood to have had a ith theallant people whose capital this had been, how three ti the Austrians back over the Danube, and then had only been beaten by the black treachery of their so-called allies Soave both Peter and me a new purpose in our task It was our business to put a spoke in the wheel of thisthe life out of the little heroic nations

We were just getting ready to cast off when a distinguished party arrived at the quay There were all kinds of uniforentlees up-anchor, and before we began to jerk into line I could hear their conversation The fur coat was talking English

'I reckon that's pretty good noos, General,' it said; 'if the English have run away froer ga before we see the British lion hed 'The privilege of that spectacle may soon be ours,' was the reply

I did not pay much attention to the talk; indeed I did not realize till weeks later that that was the first tidings of the great evacuation of Cape helles What rejoicedthose swells Here were two of the oal

CHAPTER TEN

The Garden-House of Suliman the Red

We reached Rustchuk on January 10th, but by nowith the unloading arrangements, or more likely with the railway behind the all day well out in the turbid river On the top of this Captain Schenk got an ague, and by that evening was a blue and shi+vering wreck He had done ot his shi+p's papers, and the o, and undertook to see to the trans-shi+pment It wasn't the first time I had tackled that kind of business, and I hadn'ton to Constantinople and would take Peter with reeable He would have to wait at Rustchuk to get his return cargo, and could easily inspan a fresh engineer

I worked about the hardest twenty-four hours ofofficer was a Bulgarian, quite a coive hiry Ger infernally insolent to everybody I took the high and arian coot the when I had got nearly all the stuff aboard the trucks

A young officer in what I took to be a Turkish uniforuards saluting hied he was rather a swell He came up to ave hi certain items with a blue pencil Then he coolly handed them to his aide-de-camp and spoke to him in Turkish

'Look here, I want these back,' I said 'I can't do without them, and we've no ti, and went off

I said nothing, reflecting that the stuff was for the Turks and they naturally had to have so was practically finished when entleman returned He handed lance at the items had been left out

'Here, this won't do,' I cried 'Give ood to ently, smiled like a dusky seraph, and held out his hand In it I saw a roll of money

'For yourself,' he said 'It is the usual custom'

It was the first time anyone had ever tried to bribe ah Turkey would pay for the lot to Germany: probably had already paid the bill: but she would pay double for the things not on the way-bills, and pay to this fellow and his friends This struckbusiness

'Now look here, Sir,' I said, 'I don't stir froive me them, I will have every item out of the trucks and make a new list But a correct list I have, or the stuff stays here till Doomsday'

He was a sliry

'I offer you enough,' he said, again stretching out his hand