A sentry flashed his torch over us. In its light I perceived for the first time that my captors were in civilian clothes, without badge or any sign of officialdom. This, and the fact that we had picked up the sentry only after walking some time in the direction toward Germany, increased my perplexity. I had been dully aware of a strong light in front of us. It was from the headlights of a train standing in a small station. In front of it we passed over a level crossing, and approached an inn opposite. They took me into a bar-room. At a table on one side of the bar sat a soldier in the uniform of what the Germans call “a sergeant-major-lieutenant,” a Catholic priest, and a civilian, who turned out to be mine host. The sentry reported to the soldier while the old priest made me sit down at their table. The officer did not seem to like this arrangement at first, but the padre took no notice of him. He asked me in English whether I was hungry and thirsty. I pleaded guilty to both counts, and the nice old man forthwith ordered beer and sandwiches for me, telling me the while in bad English that he had been to the Jesuit College in Rome, where he had picked up his knowledge of the language from Irishmen. In the meantime my captors were regaling themselves at the bar. Turning to them, the padre suddenly asked, “Where did you get him?” “Near ----,” was the answer from the first man. “But--but--but that’s _very_ near the frontier,” stammered the priest, with a look of astonishment on his face. “No, no,” chorused the assembled company, as if acting on instructions, “that’s still an hour from the frontier,” using exactly the words my captors had used in the woods. I stopped eating for a time. I felt physically sick. Only to imagine that I had won through, actually got over the frontier, as I began firmly to believe now, to be tricked back! The food and the beer had given me fresh strength. When I was told that it was time to go, I felt more or less indifferent. We passed along a road, the two civilians in front, the soldier behind, and I in the middle, occupied with my own thoughts and only answering with a grim cheerfulness such questions as were addressed to me. Here I made my second grave mistake, counting the attempt at passing through Vehlen as the first. Had I kept alert for “something to turn up,” I could not have failed to see that we were marching along the road which I had crossed some time before, and passing the same shed. Had I noticed it then, instead of the next morning, I should have known where the guard-room was in which I spent the night. Instead of that--but that is anticipating events. Presently we arrived at the guard-house, an ordinary farmhouse the ground floor of which had been cleared for the sterner duties of war.