And if the story that we heard afterwards is true, chance was outrageously unkind. He had waited till it was quite dark, and had carefully watched for the moment when the beat of the outside sentry carried his warders out of earshot. He had then lowered himself from the wall; and it was here that his luck deserted him. For a couple of lovers had selected that particular part of the battlements as a shelter for their amorous dalliance. And the point at which Colonel Wright would have landed was removed from them by scarcely a dozen yards. He was instantly detected. Yet, with a very little luck, things might still have turned out favourably; for the man, who seemed sufficiently intrigued with his partner, gave him only a cursory glance and returned to the matter in hand; but the woman, with an eye to advertisement, characteristic of her sex, gave expression to her feelings in a series of piercing shrieks. Colonel Wright was instantly arrested. The sentries found on him a hundred marks of German money, and a railway ticket to Frankfurt. And if he could only have got clear of the camp, I believe he would have had little difficulty in getting to the frontier. For he spoke German excellently and had friends in that part of the country. He had also the nerve and ingenuity which alone could have rendered such a feat possible. This the authorities must have realised; for a few days later he was moved to another camp. What he did there, we do not know. But rumour has it that on the journey he made three more attempts to break away. And doubtless in a camp with fewer natural defences he would sooner or later have succeeded in outwitting his captors. But as regards Mainz the gloomy record of its impregnability still stands. At one time or another it has been the temporary home of Russians, French and English; all three have in their turn tried to escape, and all have failed. After four years of warfare Mainz is still the inviolable citadel. CHAPTER XI THE ALCOVE Each week the Pitt League posted up on the walls of the theatre a notice of the times and places of the various classes that were to be held. There were some six rooms at the disposal of this enterprising society. There was the attic at the top of Block I, a noisy room because the dramatic society would probably be found rehearsing next door; then there was the theatre, an impossible room; in the first place because it was too big, and in the second because the scenic artists behind the curtain carried on a continual dialogue to the tune of: “Where is that blue paint?” “Have you put up the wings?” “Where the hell’s the hammer?” which dialogue the scene-shifters accompanied with suitable crashes and landslides. It was a poor room for study--the [Illustration: THE BILLIARD ROOM AT MAINZ. [_To face page 172._ ]