o our hotel, and was with us the next
morning after breakfast, bringing the steamer tickets. We got on board
about two in the afternoon, but on my advice he did not see us off. I
told him that, being British subjects and rebels at that, we did not
want to run any risks on board, assuming a British cruiser caught us up
and searched us. But Peter took twenty pounds off him for travelling
expenses, it being his rule never to miss an opportunity of spoiling
the Egyptians.

As we were dropping down the Tagus we passed the old _Henry the
Navigator_.

'I met Sloggett in the street this morning,' said Peter, 'and he told
me a little German man had been off in a boat at daybreak looking up
the passenger list. Yon was a right notion of yours, Cornelis. I am
glad we are going among Germans. They are careful people whom it is a
pleasure to meet.'

CHAPTER FOUR

Adventures of Two Dutchmen on the Loose

The Germans, as Peter said, are a careful people. A man met us on the
quay at Rotterdam. I was a bit afraid that something might have turned
up in Lisbon to discredit us, and that our little friend might have
warned his pals by telegram. But apparently all was serene.

Peter and I had made our plans pretty carefully on the voyage. We had
talked nothing but Dutch, and had kept up between ourselves the role of
Maritz's men, which Peter said was the only way to play a part well.
Upon my soul, before we got to Holland I was not very clear in my own
mind what my past had been. Indeed the danger was that the other side
of my mind, which should be busy with the great problem, would get
atrophied, and that I should soon be mentally on a par with the
ordinary backveld desperado.

We had agreed that it would be best to get into Germany at once, and
when the agent on the quay told us of a train at midday we decided to
take it.

I had another fit of cold feet before we got over the frontier. At the
station there was a King's Messenger whom I had seen in France, and a
war correspondent who had been trotting round our part of the front
before Loos. I heard a woman speaking pretty clean-cut English, which
amid the hoarse Dutch jabber sounded like a lark among crows. There
were copies of the English papers for sale, and English cheap editions.
I felt pretty bad about the whole business, and wondered if I should
ever see these homely sights again.

But the mood passed when the train started. It was a clear blowing
day, a