aling, but a mere visit from them might have had
consequences we could never have offset. Alone, unable to rise, I
could not have forced them to leave, and their lingering would surely
have been interpreted by the guard, who always watched them from the
corner of the road, as evidence of collusion of some sort between them
and us.

Just at that time Coutlass, as it happened, would have liked nothing
better in the world than the chance to persuade the Germans that he was
in our councils. Fred's mere irritable determination to divide the
camp in halves saved us in all human probability from a trap out of
which there would have been no escape.

CHAPTER NINE

"SPEAK YE, AND SO DO"

Ok Thou, who gavest English speech
To both our Anglo-Saxon breeds,
And didst adown all ages teach
That Art of crowning words with deeds,
May we, who use the speech, be blest
With bravery, that when shall come
In thy full time our hour of test--
That promised hour of Christendom,
We may be found, whate'er our need,
How grim soe'er our circumstance,
Unwilling to be fed or freed,
Or fame or fortune to enhance
By flinching from the good begun,
By broken word or serpent plan,
Or cruelty in malice done
To helpless beast or subject man.
Amen

There was method, of course, behind the difference in treatment
extended to us and to the Greeks. The motive for making Coutlass sell
his mules and stay within the miserable confines of the rest-camp was
to make sure he had money enough to feed himself, and to cut off all
opportunity for swift escape. Not for a second were the Germans
sufficiently unwary to admit collusion with him.

The real ownership of the three mules was left in little doubt when
they were sold at public auction and bought in by Schillingschen. Fred
and Will attended the auction the day following our scene in court, and
extracted a lot of amusement from bidding against Schillinschen,
compelling him finally to pay a good sum more than the mules were worth.

Coutlass was in a strange predicament. The looting of Brown's cattle
had been a bid for fortune on his own account. Yet by causing us to
give chase he had brought us into the German net more handily than ever
they had hoped. So it was reasonable on his part to suppose that if he
could betray us more completely still, he might get rewarded instead of