e: he was thinking.
Suddenly he saw his way clear.

"Between Havre and the Nez d'Antifer I must get rid of this gun piece.
However interesting my investigations are I cannot possibly deliver
such a thing to the enemy, to a foreign power! Death for
preference!"...

His companion broke in.

"And now, Corporal, I fancy you fully understand how awkward it would
be for you, much more so than for me, if this package were opened,
because you are a soldier, and in uniform."

Fandor showed an unflinching front, but a wave of positive anguish
rushed over him.

"This cursed abbe has me in his net!" he thought. "Like it, or not, I
must follow him now. I am regularly let in!... As a civilian, as
Fandor the journalist, I might go to the first military depot I can
come at, and state that I had discovered a priest who was going to
hand over to a foreign power an important piece of artillery!... The
pretended Vinson would have done the trick and would then vanish....
But in uniform!... They would certainly accuse me of suspicious
traffic with spies.... They would confine me--cell me.... I should
have the work of the world to obtain a release under six months!...
Another point.... Why had they chosen him, Corporal Vinson as they
believed, for such a mission?... Assuredly the spies possessed a
thousand other agents, capable of carrying triumphantly through this
dangerous mission, this delivery of a stolen piece of ordnance to a
sailor spy in the pay of a foreign power inimical to France!"

It was horrible! Abominable! This spy traffic! Only to think of it
soiled one's soul! Fandor sickened at the realisation of what was
involved--that this betrayal of France was not a solitary
instance--that there must be a hundred betrayals going on at that very
moment! That France was being bought and sold in a hundred ways for
Judas money--France!

His thoughts turned shudderingly away from such hell depths of
treachery.

He brought his mind to bear on other points.

"Why, after so much mystery, such precautions, does this Judas of an
abbe disclose the contents of that damnable package before its
delivery? Why this halt in the outskirts of Rouen when a quick run, a
quick handing over of the package is so essential?... With such a
powerful machine, why this stop in a journey of some 225 kilometres?"

Fandor felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

"Suppose this abbe is playing a trick on me?... If yesterday, to-day, ...
no matter when ...