his
disguises. He seemed to be slipping something from his pocket towards
his mouth, but Geordie Hamilton caught his wrist.

'Wad ye offer?' said the scandalized voice of my servant. 'Sirr, the
prisoner would appear to be trying to puishon hisself. Wull I search
him?'

After that he stood with each arm in the grip of a warder.

'Mr Ivery,' I said, 'last night, when I was in your power, you indulged
your vanity by gloating over me. I expected it, for your class does not
breed gentlemen. We treat our prisoners differently, but it is fair
that you should know your fate. You are going into France, and I will
see that you are taken to the British front. There with my old division
you will learn something of the meaning of war. Understand that by no
conceivable chance can you escape. Men will be detailed to watch you
day and night and to see that you undergo the full rigour of the
battlefield. You will have the same experience as other people, no
more, no less. I believe in a righteous God and I know that sooner or
later you will find death--death at the hands of your own people--an
honourable death which is far beyond your deserts. But before it comes
you will have understood the hell to which you have condemned honest
men.'

In moments of great fatigue, as in moments of great crisis, the mind
takes charge and may run on a track independent of the will. It was not
myself that spoke, but an impersonal voice which I did not know, a
voice in whose tones rang a strange authority. Ivery recognized the icy
finality of it, and his body seemed to wilt, and droop. Only the hold
of the warders kept him from falling.

I, too, was about at the end of my endurance. I felt dimly that the
room had emptied except for Blenkiron and Amos, and that the former was
trying to make me drink brandy from the cup of a flask. I struggled to
my feet with the intention of going to Mary, but my legs would not
carry me ... I heard as in a dream Amos giving thanks to an Omnipotence
in whom he officially disbelieved. 'What's that the auld man in the
Bible said? Now let thou thy servant depart in peace. That's the way
I'm feelin' mysel'.' And then slumber came on me like an armed man, and
in the chair by the dying wood-ash I slept off the ache of my limbs,
the tension of my nerves, and the confusion of my brain.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Storm Breaks in the West

The following evening--it was the 20th day of March--I started for
France after the d