"However," von Herzmann turned to Cowan, "it gives me pleasure to report that I foresaw the possibility of this very thing and so arranged matters that a certain Mr. Schwarz, whom you call Siddons, will be shot five days from now." "What!" Cowan stormed. He wheeled to the sergeant. "Sergeant, where did this man--" "The sergeant doesn't know," von Herzmann put in. "He is the third man in whose charge I have been placed. Perhaps you had better let me tell you, Major. Your planes are quite wretched and inferior, sir, and when the engine of the one I was making use of died suddenly, we were forced to land quickly and take what the Fates had in store. We struck an old shell hole, turned over, and my pilot was killed, poor fellow! Too bad it wasn't the other way round. He wore his own uniform, and could hardly have been shot as a spy." Cowan sank into a chair, rather heavily. His poise was no match for von Herzmann's, who seemed to be getting a keen delight out of the Major's discomfiture. "I was not at the controls," von Herzmann continued, "but the engine sputtered as though it were out of fuel." Major Cowan nodded his head sadly. "It was. Poor Siddons was right," he mused, seemingly unconscious for the moment of the presence of the others. "Only half right," von Herzmann corrected, smiling. "No," Cowan replied with spirit, "_all_ right. He feared you might become suspicious and double-cross him, and with that in mind he put just enough gas in the tank to carry the plane there and part way back. He made rather careful tests. But he installed another tank, with a feed line that he could cut in--_in case he were flying the plane_. If not--well, you see what happened." Count von Herzmann merely shrugged his shoulders at this piece of news which must have been irritating in the extreme. "Ah, well," he said easily, "one cannot think of everything. In our haste to get away, neither I nor my pilot thought of that possibility. Very clever fellow, this man Schwarz. We both made good guesses, and we both lose. Kismet! We both serve our country, and we both get shot. So be it. Wars are very old, Major; death quite as common as life; and the old Hebraic law still operative--'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!' In this case, an ace for an ace and a spy for a spy. Even up, and the war rolls on. I wonder, Major, just when it will close?" Seemingly, as in answer to his question, from toward the front came the sudden roaring of thousands of guns. Doors rattled, the ground quivered, and through the window the sky was alight with a pulsating red-white glare. For a few minutes every man in the room stood listening. "What is--that?" Count von Herzmann asked at last. "The beginning of the end," Cowan answered. "You wondered when it would come. Soon now. Nearly five thousand heavy calibre guns are blowing your trenches to bits, and will continue until we go over in the morning."