m suspicious, studying in the light of my new apprehensions every
expression of Bauer's face and every word that had fallen from his lips.
I could not persuade myself into security. I carried the queen's letter,
and--well, I would have given much to have old Sapt or Rudolf Rassendyll
by my side.

Now, when a man suspects danger, let him not spend his time in asking
whether there be really danger or in upbraiding himself for timidity,
but let him face his cowardice, and act as though the danger were real.
If I had followed that rule and kept my eyes about me, scanning the
sides of the road and the ground in front of my feet, instead of losing
myself in a maze of reflection, I might have had time to avoid the trap,
or at least to get my hand to my revolver and make a fight for it; or,
indeed, in the last resort, to destroy what I carried before harm came
to it. But my mind was preoccupied, and the whole thing seemed to happen
in a minute. At the very moment that I had declared to myself the vanity
of my fears and determined to be resolute in banishing them, I heard
voices--a low, strained whispering; I saw two or three figures in the
shadow of the poplars by the wayside. An instant later, a dart was made
at me. While I could fly I would not fight; with a sudden forward plunge
I eluded the men who rushed at me, and started at a run towards the
lights of the town and the shapes of the houses, now distant about a
quarter of a mile. Perhaps I ran twenty yards, perhaps fifty; I do not
know. I heard the steps behind me, quick as my own. Then I fell headlong
on the road--tripped up! I understood. They had stretched a rope across
my path; as I fell a man bounded up from either side, and I found the
rope slack under my body. There I lay on my face; a man knelt on me,
others held either hand; my face was pressed into the mud of the road,
and I was like to have been stifled; my hand-bag had whizzed away from
me. Then a voice said:

"Turn him over."

I knew the voice; it was a confirmation of the fears which I had lately
been at such pains to banish. It justified the forecast of Anton von
Strofzin, and explained the wager of the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim--for
it was Rischenheim's voice.

They caught hold of me and began to turn me on my back. Here I saw a
chance, and with a great heave of my body I flung them from me. For a
short instant I was free; my impetuous attack seemed to have startled
the enemy; I gathered myself up on m