me the curt response. "Don't stop to jaw. Do as I tell
you."

He took his hand from Phil's shoulder and stood up, backing into the
shadows.

Phil stood up, too, straightening himself with an effort. The suddenness
of this thing had thrown him momentarily off his balance.

"Quick!" commanded Tudor in a fierce whisper. "Take off your clothes.
There isn't a second to lose."

But Phil stood uncertain.

"What's the game, Major?" he asked.

Tudor's hand gripped him again and violently.

"You fool!" he whispered savagely. "Don't stand gaping there! Can't you
see it's a matter of life and death? Do you want to be killed?"

"No, but--"

Phil broke off. Tudor in that frame of mind was a stranger to him, but
he was none the less one who must be obeyed. Mechanically almost he
yielded to the man's insistence and began to strip off his clothes.

Tudor helped him with an energy that neither fumed nor faltered. Mute
obedience was all he required. But when he dropped the garment he wore
from his own shoulders, Phil paused to protest.

"I am not going to wear that!" he said. "What about you?"

"I can look after myself," Tudor answered curtly. "Get into it--quick!
There is no time for arguing. You're going to wear these, too."

He pulled the ragged, black beard from his face and the _chuddah_ from
his head.

But Phil's eyes were opened, and he resisted.

"Heavens above, sir!" he said. "Do you think I'm going to do a thing
like that?"

"You must!" Tudor answered.

He spoke quietly, but there was deadly determination behind his
quietude. They faced one another in the gloom, and suddenly there ran
between them a passion of feeling that blazed unseen like the hidden
current in an electric wire.

For a few seconds it burnt fiercely, silently; then Tudor laid a firm
hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"You must," he said again. "The choice does not rest with you. It is
made already. It only remains for you to yield--whatever it may cost
you--as I am doing."

Phil started as if he had struck him.

"You are wrong, sir," he exclaimed. "On my oath, you are wrong. You
don't understand. You never have understood. I--I--"

Tudor silenced him summarily with a hand upon his lips.

"I know, I know!" he said. "There is no time for this. Leave it and go.
If it is any comfort to you to know it, I think no evil of you. I
realise that what has happened had to happen, was in a sense inevitable,
and I blame myself alone. Listen t