“As to that, we will take our chances.” Blenheim’s face was adamant, though my suggestion had produced a not entirely enlivening effect on his two friends. “You see, Mr. Bayne, in this business the risks will be mostly yours. There will be no flights of stairs to dart up and no tables to over turn and no candles to extinguish; you will sit in the tonneau with a man beside you, a very watchful man, and a pistol against your side. You don’t want to die, do you? I thought not, since you surrendered those papers. Well, then, you’ll be wise not to say a word or stir a muscle. And now we are in a hurry. Will you make your toilet, please?” It was the bizarre curtain scene of what I had called an extravaganza. Blenheim’s confederates, taking no special pains for gentleness, stripped off the outer garments of the prostrate Schwartzmann, who moaned and groaned throughout the process, though he never opened his eyes. Blenheim urged haste upon us; he was getting more fidgety every instant; he bit his lip, drummed with his fingers, kept an ear cocked, as if expecting to hear pursuers at the door. Still, he neglected no precautions. He demanded my revolver. I surrendered it amiably, and then doffed my chauffeur’s outfit and took, from a social standpoint, a gratifying step upward, donning one by one the insignia of France. The fit was not perfect by any means. Schwartzmann was a giant, a mountain. My feet swished aloud groggily in his burnished putties; his garments hung round me in ample, rather than graceful, folds. However, the loose cape of horizon blue resembled charity in covering defects. As a dummy, sitting motionless in the rear of the automobile, my captors felt that I would pass. By this time I was enchanted with the plans I was concocting. I might look like an opera-bouffe hero,--no doubt I did,--but my hour would come. Meanwhile events were marching. My transformation being complete, Blenheim gave a curt order in German, the candles were blown out, and lighted only by the torch, we turned toward the door. There was an inarticulate cry from Schwartzmann, just conscious enough, poor beggar, to grasp the fact of his abandonment in the strategic retreat his friends were beating. Then we were out in the courtyard, beneath the stars. Down the hill, sheltered behind the stones of a ruined house, the gray car was waiting, and Blenheim climbed into the driver’s seat, meanwhile giving brief directions. There was no noise, no flurry; the affair, I must say, went with an efficiency in keeping with the proudest Prussian traditions. I was installed in the tonneau, and I was hardly seated before the motor hummed into life, and we jolted into the moonlit road.