Capper shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. Now was the minute he'd been counting on--the peeling of crackling notes from a fat bundle, the handsome words of appreciation. Surely General Crandall was ripe. "Well, General, frankly--I'm broke. Haven't a shilling to bless myself with. I thought perhaps----" Capper shot a keen glance at the older man's face, which was partly turned from him. The general appeared to be pondering. He turned abruptly on the spy. "A few drinks and you might talk," he challenged. Capper grinned deprecatively. "I don't know, General--I might," he murmured. "I've been away from the drink so long that----" "Where do you want to go?" General Crandall cut him off. "Of course, you don't want to stay here indefinitely." "Well--if I had a bit of money--they tell me everybody's broke in Paris. Millionaires--and everybody, you know. You can get a room at the Ritz for the asking. That would be heaven for me--if I had something in my pocket." "You want to go to Paris, eh?" General Crandall stepped closer to Capper, and his eyes narrowed in scorn. "If it could be arranged, yes, General." Capper was spinning the brim of his bowler between nervous fingers. He did not dare meet the other's glance. "Demmit, Capper! You come here to blackmail me! I've met your kind before. I know how to deal with your ilk." "So help me, General, I came here to tell you the truth. I want to go to Paris--or anywhere away from here; I'll admit that. But that had nothing to do with my coming all the way here from Alexandria--spending my last guinea on a steamer ticket--to warn you of your danger. I'm an Englishman and--loyal!" Capper was pleading now. All hope of reward had sped and the vision of a cell with subsequent investigations into his own record appalled him. General Crandall sat down at his desk and began to write. "I don't know--at any rate, I can't have you talking around here. You're going to Paris." Capper dropped his hat. At a tap of the bell, Jaimihr Khan appeared at the doors, so suddenly that one might have said he was right behind them all the time. General Crandall directed that his orderly be summoned. When the subaltern appeared, the general handed him a sealed note. "Orderly, turn this gentleman over to Sergeant Crosby at once," he commanded, "and give the sergeant this note." Then to Capper: "You will cross to Algeciras, where you will be put on a train for Madrid. You will have a ticket for Paris and twenty shillings for expense en route. You will be allowed to talk to no one alone before you leave Gibraltar, and under no circumstances will you be allowed to return--not while I am governor-general, at least." Capper, his face alight with new-found joy, turned to pass out with the orderly. He paused at the doorway to frame a speech of thanks, but General Crandall's back was toward him. "Paris!" he sighed in rapture, and the doors closed behind him. CHAPTER XII HER COUNTRY'S EXAMPLE