How about that launch, that brought the professor and Lady Saffren
Waldon?" I asked.

"What about it?"

"Couldn't they follow us with that?"

"You bet they could!" said Will. "We've either got to spike the
launch's boilers, or give them the complete slip on a dark night!"

"We might steal the launch!" suggested Fred, but that was too wild a
proposal to be taken seriously. The launch was the apple of the German
governmental eye, and the engine crew slept on it always.

The prospect was unpromising as ever, yet I went to bed and listened to
the strains of Fred's concertina in the next tent with less foreboding
than at any time since reaching Muanza, and fell asleep to the tune of
Silver Hairs among the Gold, a melancholy piece that Will liked to sing
when hope or courage stirred him.

I was awakened near midnight of a moonless black night by a hand on my
bedclothes and the light of a lantern in my eyes.

"Hus-s-s-h!" said some one. "Don't speak yet! Listen!"

It was a woman's voice, and it puzzled me indescribably, for a sick
man's wits don't work swiftly as a rule when he lies between sleeping
and waking.

"Listen!" said the voice again. "I must come to terms with you three
men! You are the only hope left me! I have no friends in Muanza--and
none whom I trust! Those Greeks and that Goanese would sell me to the
first bidder, and these Germans are worse than dogs!"

"But who are you?" I asked stupidly.

For answer she held the lantern so that I could see her face. Her hand
trembled, and the unsteady light threw baffling shadows, but even so I
could see she looked drawn and aged.

"Where is your maid, then, Lady Waldon?" I asked, for it seemed to me
that was one friend who had served her through thick and thin.

"Ask the commandant!" she answered. "The poor fool thinks he will
marry her! Little she knows of the German method! I am alone! I have
not even a servant any longer! I have walked through the shadows from
the commandant's house, only lighting this lantern after I was inside
the hedge. Nobody knows I am here. One watchman was asleep; the
others did not see me. All you need fear is those Greeks. As long as
they don't suspect I am here we can talk safely."

I tumbled out of bed on the far side, and went to waken the other two.
After a hurried consultation we decided my tent was the best for the
interview, because of the light that had burned in it nearly always
while I was so dea