Part 31 (2/2)

'”It is the staff-map of one Stumm, a German skellum who commands in yon city,” I said

'He looked at it close and read the ave hed He took a loaf and tossed it into the air so that it fell on the head of another general He spoke to thehed, and one or two ran out as if on so They were clever ot to his feet and hugged me, all dirty as I was, and kissed me on both cheeks

'”Before God, Peter,” he said, ”you're the a as this!”'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Little Hill

It was a wise e was to be able to sit still I used to feel that ere getting shelled in the reserve trenches outside Vermelles I felt it before ent over the parapets at Loos, but I never felt it so much as on the last two days in that cellar I had sione on a crazy errand which I scarcely believed could cons of Sandy; so his own battles, and I was torain and wreck everything A strange Coht us food, a ; Hussin, I judged, was busy about the horses If I could only have done so to help on matters I could have scotchedbut wait and brood I tell you I began to syeneral behind the lines in a battle, the felloho e can be nothing like so nerve-shaking a business as sitting in an easy-chair and waiting on the news of it

It was bitter cold, and we spent reatcoats and buried deep in the straw Blenkiron was a ht for him to play Patience by, but he never complained He slept a lot of the time, and when he ake talked as cheerily as if he were starting out on a holiday He had one great co hyn Providence that had squared his duodenuuns The first day after Peter left they were very quiet on the front nearest us, but in the late evening they started a terrific racket The next day they never stopped from dawn to dusk, so that it reht hours before Loos I tried to read into this soh, but it would not work It lookedame

Two or three tiy and damp, and I could see very little of the countryside Transport was still bu the road to the Palantuken, and the sloagon-loads of wounded returning One thing I noticed, however; there was a perpetual co between the house and the city Motors and , and I concluded that Hilda von Eine ready for her part in the defence of Erzerum

These ascents were all on the first day after Peter's going The second day, when I tried the trap, I found it closed and heavily weighted This ht, too If the house were beco a place of public resort, it would never do for ht Hussin reappeared It was after supper, when Blenkiron had gone peacefully to sleep and I was beginning to count the hours till thethese days and not ht a lantern I heard his key in the lock, and then his light step close to where we lay

'Are you asleep?' he said, and when I answered he sat down beside me

'The horses are found,' he said, 'and the Master bidsthree hours before dawn'

It elcoed; 'we have been lying in this touns are busy,' he said 'The Allemans come to this place every hour, I know not for what Also there has been a great search for you The searchers have been here, but they were sent away empty Sleep, my lord, for there is ork before us'

I did not sleep h with expectation, and I envied Blenkiron his now eupeptic sluhtain I was in the throat of a pass, hotly pursued, straining for soer alone Others ith me: how many I could not tell, for when I tried to see their faces they dissolved in rey sky was over us, black peaks were on all sides, but ahead in the mist of the pass was that curious castrol which I had first seen in my dream on the Erzerum road

I saw it distinct in every detail It rose to the left of the road through the pass, above a hollohere great boulders stood out in the snow Its sides were steep, so that the snow had slipped off in patches, leaving stretches of glistening black shale The kranz at the top did not rise sheer, but sloped at an angle of forty-five, and on the very summit there seemed a hollow, as if the earth within the rock-rim had been beaten by weather into a cup

That is often the ith a South African castrol, and I kneas so with this We were straining for it, but the snow clogged us, and our enemies were very close behind

Then I akened by a figure at my side 'Get ready, my lord,' it said; 'it is the hour to ride'

Like sleep-walkers we moved into the sharp air Hussin led us out of an old postern and then through a place like an orchard to the shelter of so quietly froht; 'a feed of oats before a big effort'