Part 17 (1/2)

It ca staves who drove their way into the heart of the lare ran up the steep walls andstrea away in a fan of sparks

And now a neas heard in the crowd It was Chinganeh, shouted not in anger but in fear

At first I could not see the newcomers They were hidden in the deep darkness under their canopy of light, for they were holding their torches high at the full stretch of their ar soush of rapid speech Their words did not seeainst the crowd A sudden hope came to me that for some unknown reason they were on our side

The press was no longer heavy against us It was thinning rapidly and I could hear the scuffle as men made off down the side streets My first notion was that these were the Turkish police But I changed ht He carried no torch, but a long stave hich he belaboured the heads of those ere too tightly packed to flee

It was the most eldritch apparition you can conceive A tall s and sandal-shod feet A wisp of scarlet cloth clung to his shoulders, and, drawn over his head down close to his eyes, was a skull-cap of so behind it He capered like a wild aniave one Before us was only this figure and his half-dozen co clothes of skin But only the one who seemed to be their leader wore the skull-cap; the rest had bare heads and long tangled hair

The felloas shouting gibberish at lassy, like a s were never still for a second You would think such a figure no better than acomic in it Fearful and sinister and uncanny it was; and I wanted to do anything but laugh

As he shouted he kept pointing with his stave up the street which climbed the hillside

'He et away from this witch-doctor'

I couldn'twas clear These maniacs had delivered us for the moment fro I pulled out a sovereign and offered it to the leader I had soratitude, and as I had no words I had to show it by deed

He brought his stick down on utter His eyes blazed, and heround h, though I didn't folloord; and he cried to his followers and they cursed me too I had offered him a mortal insult and stirred up a worse hornet's nest than Rasta's push

Peter and I, with a co for any trouble with demoniacs Up the steep, narrow lane we ran with that bedlaone out, for the place was black as pitch, and we tu drains The men were close behind us, and more than once I felt a stick on s, and suddenly before us was a blaze of light andthe debouchhfare The others saw it, too, for they slackened off Just before we reached the light we stopped and looked round There was no sound or sight behind us in the dark lane which dipped to the harbour

'This is a queer country, Cornelis,' said Peter, feeling his lis happen in too short a ti street we had struck see the crest of the hill There were la shops We soon found the hotel to which Kuprasso had directed us, a big place in a courtyard with a very tureen sun-shutters which rattled drearily in the winter's wind It proved, as I had feared, to be packed to the door, ot an intervieith the proprietor, the usual Greek, and told him that we had been sent there by Mr Kuprasso That didn't affect him in the least, and ould have been shot into the street if I hadn't remembered about Stumm's pass

So I explained that we had come froht I showed hiood deal, till he became civil and said he would do the best he could for us

That best was pretty poor Peter and I were doubled up in a small room which contained two cah which the histled We had a Wretched dinner of stringyenough to raise the dead But I got a bottle of whisky, for which I paid a sovereign, and we ht the stove in our room, fasten the shutters, and warm our hearts with a brew of toddy After that ent to bed and slept like logs for twelve hours On the road from Rustchuk we had had uneasy slu out fro With a lot of trouble I got hold of a servant andus some of the treacly Turkish coffee We were both in pretty low spirits 'Europe is a poor cold place,' said Peter, 'not worth fighting for There is only one white man's land, and that is South Africa' At the ti on the edge ofWe see enemies at a furious pace First of all, there was Rasta, whoet it in a hurry He had his crowd of Turkish riff-raff and was bound to get us sooner or later Then there was the uess that he and his weird friends were of so Turks But, on the other hand, he didn't like us, and there would be bad trouble the next time we met him Finally, there was Stumm and the German Government It could only be a ot the Rustchuk authorities on our trail It would be easy to trace us from Chataldja, and once they had us ere absolutely done There was a big black dossier against us, which by no conceivable piece of luck could be upset

It was very clear to me that, unless we could find sanctuary and shed all our various pursuers during this day, we should be done in for good and all But where on earth e to find sanctuary? We had neither of us a word of the language, and there was no way I could see of taking on new characters For that anted friends and help, and I could think of none anywhere Soet in touch with hiiven hiht his enterprise the craziest of the lot and bound to fail He was probably soet to Constantinople and hear in some pot-house the yarn of the tretched Dutchht

That rendezvous at Kuprasso's was no good It would have been all right if we had got here unsuspected, and could have gone on quietly frequenting the place till Blenkiron picked us up But to do that anted leisure and secrecy, and here ith a pack of hounds at our heels The place was horribly dangerous already If we showed ourselves there we should be gathered in by Rasta, or by the German military police, or by theabout on the off-chance ofBlenkiron

I reflected with some bitterness that this was the 17th day of January, the day of our assignation I had had high hopes all the way down the Danube of iving hiood fortune to collect, of piecing it together hat he had found out, and of getting the whole story which Sir Walter hungered for After that, I thought it wouldn't be hard to get away by Ruh Russia I had hoped to be back with ood a bit of work as anybody in the war As it was, it looked as if my information would die with

I talked the thing over with Peter, and he agreed that ere fairly up against it We decided to go to Kuprasso's that afternoon, and to trust to luck for the rest It wouldn't do to wander about the streets, so we sat tight in our roo yarns to keep our ot some food at midday-cold mutton and the same cheese, and finished our whisky Then I paid the bill, for I didn't dare to stay there another night About half-past three ent into the street, without the foggiest notion where ould find our next quarters

It was snowing heavily, which was a piece of luck for us Poor old Peter had no greatcoat, so ent into a Jew's shop and bought a ready-ht have beenmy money when the future was so black The snowlane which led to Ratchik ferry, and found it perfectly quiet I do not think we ot to Kuprasso's shop

We walked straight through the cafe, which was ee, till ere stopped by the garden door I knocked and it swung open There was the bleak yard, now puddled with snow, and a blaze of light fro of fiddles, too, and the sound of huro at the door, and passed froarish saloon