long time for him to come up, there was no sign of him. I think he
drowned like the rat he was!"

"You think so, and it does seem probable. But we can't be sure! And,
even so, he is worth more to us alive than dead. For the time, at least.
He is a wretched traitor--treacherous to both sides. I wouldn't mind
his death, because he has sent hundreds of men better than himself to
death of late. But I wish we had been able to hold him and use him. He
would have been afraid of us, I think, when he discovered how much we
knew!"

"It would have been enough for him to see you, Stepan, and know that you
were one of us, I think. He would have guessed very quickly what you
were doing during all those weeks when you were so close to him. That is
what has saved us. If it had not been for you we would have trusted him,
I think, with his tale of how the Austrian government had wronged him,
and his pretence that he was one of a group that wanted a free and
independent Hungary!"

Stepan was thinking hard.

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"They are busy in the town. We are almost ready to blow up the arsenal,
and perhaps we shall be able to finish the tunnel and plant the mine
to-night."

"That will be good," Stepan nodded, "unless Hallo has warned them. It
was he who gave us the information as to just where we should have to
place the mine, and he must have guessed what use we would make of it."

"Perhaps so. But they have not moved any of the stores. If we can
explode our mine, we shall strike a good blow for Servia."

"We may say that without boasting, Milikoff. The reserve ammunition for
two corps is here. They have been careless because they did not expect
anything like a general engagement for some time, especially when the
government moved to Nish. But I am uneasy still about Hallo."

"I think you need not be, Stepan. I tell you we were right on his heels,
and there was no way for him to escape. He went into the water beyond a
doubt, and I do not believe that he was strong enough to swim the
Danube. Besides, we would have seen him had he done that, and shot him."

"I don't think he swam the Danube, I'm quite sure he could not have
managed that. What I am afraid of is that he doubled on his tracks in
some fashion and got ashore."

"But that was even more impossible, I tell you! We expected him to try
to do that, and we watched out especially to make it too hard for him to
do it, even though he is as slippery as an e