an army will land on British
soil--in Britain itself I mean--before Christmas."

The speaker interrupted this flood of dire prophecy in order to light a
fresh cigarette. Then clasping his hands behind his back, and strutting
with feet well apart, he said quite affably, "Why don't you put a
question or two? If you believe I'm reciting a fairy tale, say so, and
point out the stupidities."

Now, Dalroy had not been "amused" by the statement that the Germans
might occupy Calais. He had already discounted even worse reverses as
lying well within the bounds of possibility. He was certain, too, that
the Prussian was saying that which he really believed. But his nerves of
steel were undoubtedly tried almost beyond endurance at the instant Von
Halwig noticed the involuntary movement which elicited that uninvited
comment on the British fleet.

As the word "Calais" quitted the Guardsman's lips, a rope, with a noose
at the end, dropped with swift stealth through the open trap-door. Its
descent was checked when the noose dangled slightly higher than his
head, and whoever was manipulating it began at once to swing it slowly
forward and backward. Von Halwig stood some six or seven feet nearer the
wall than the point which the rope would have touched if lowered to the
floor, so the objective aimed at by that pendulum action was not
difficult to grasp, being nothing else than his speedy and noiseless
extinction by hanging.

It is an oft-repeated though far-fetched assertion that a drowning man
reviews the whole of his life during the few seconds which separate the
last conscious struggle from complete anaesthesia. That may or may not be
true, but Dalroy now experienced a brain-storm not lacking many of the
essentials of some such mental kinema.

Think what that swinging rope, with its unseen human agency, meant to a
captive in his hapless position! It was simply incredible that one man
alone would attempt so daring an expedient. Not only, then, were a
number of plucky and resourceful allies concealed in the loft, but they
must have been hidden there before the detachment of Death's-Head
Hussars occupied the barn beneath. Therefore, they knew the enemy's
strength, yet were not afraid. That they were ready-witted was shown by
the method evolved for the suppression of that blatant Teuton, Von
Halwig. It was evident, too, that they had intended to lie _perdu_ till
the cavalry were gone, but had been moved to action by a desire to
resc