Capper rehearsed this hypothetical dialogue with relish. He could even catch the involuntary gasp of astonishment from the governor when that responsible officer in his majesty's service heard the words Capper would whisper to him; could see the commander of the Rock open a drawer in his desk and take therefrom a thick white sheaf of bank-notes--count them! Then--ah, then--the first train for Paris and the delights of Paris at war-time prices. The little spy anticipated no difficulty in gaining audience with the governor. Before he had been fifteen minutes off the _Princess Mary_ he had heard the name of the present incumbent of Government House. Crandall--Sir George Crandall; the same who had been in command of the forts at Rangoon back in '99. Oh, yes, Capper knew him, and he made no doubt that, if properly reminded of a certain bit of work Billy Capper had done back in the Burmese city, Sir George would recall him--and with every reason for gratefulness. To-morrow--yes, before ever Sir George had had his morning's peg, Capper would present himself at Government House and tell about that house on Queen's Terrace at Ramleh; about the unconscious British officer who was carried there and hurried thence by night, and the tall well-knit man in conference with Doctor Koch who was now come to be a part of the garrison of the Rock under the stolen name of Woodhouse. Capper had his dinner, then strolled around the town to see the sights and hear what he could hear. Listening was a passion with him. For the color and the exotic savor of Gibraltar on a hot August night Capper had no eye. The knife edge of a moon slicing the battlements of the old Moorish Castle up on the heights; the minor tinkle of a guitar sounding from a vine-curtained balcony; a Riffian muleteer's singsong review of his fractious beast's degraded ancestry--not for these incidentals did the practical mind under the battered Capper bowler have room. Rather the scraps of information and gossip passed from one blue-coated artilleryman off duty, to another over a mug of ale, or the confidence of a sloe-eyed dancer to the guitar player in a tavern; this was meat for Capper. Carefully he husbanded his gold piece, and judiciously he spent his silver for drink. He enjoyed himself in the ascetic spirit of a monk in a fast, believing that the morrow would bring champagne in place of the thin wine his pitiful silver could command. Then, of a sudden, he caught a glimpse of Louisa--Louisa of the Wilhelmstrasse. Capper's heart skipped, and an involuntary impulse crooked his fingers into claws.