Soldiers they were. Presently they began to trickle into the grounds, one by one, each man finding his own cover. Simultaneously there came a flash and a crack from the nearest viaduct. A bullet smacked against the parapet and the sound of the ricochet was like the hum of a bee. Another menace had appeared simultaneously; a great, lumbering, awkward vehicle, that kept to the middle of the lane and turned its ungainly nose into the field. It was a tank, and Oberzohn knew that only the girl’s safety stood between him and the dangling noose. He went down to see her, unlocked the door, and found her, to his amazement, fast asleep. She got up at the sound of the key in the lock, and accepted the bread and meat and water he brought her without a word. “What time is it?” Oberzohn stared at her. “That you should ask the time at such a moment!” he said. The room was in darkness but for the light he had switched on. “It is noon, and our friends have brought soldiers. Ach! how important a woman you are, that the whole army should come out for you!” Sarcasm was wasted on Mirabelle. “What is going to happen—now?” “I do not know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They have brought a diabolical instrument into the grounds. They may use it, to give them cover, so that the door may be blown in. At that moment I place you in the snake-room. This I shall tell our friends very quickly.” She gazed at him in horror. “You wouldn’t do anything so wicked, Mr. Oberzohn!” Up and down went the skin of his forehead. “That I shall tell them and that I shall do,” he said, and locked her in with this comfortless assurance. He went into his study and, fastening the door, took two strands of wire from his pocket and repaired the broken telephone connections. “I wish to speak to Meadows,” he said to the man who answered him—a police officer who had been stationed at the exchange to answer any call from this connection. “I will put you through to him,” was the reply. For a moment the doctor was surprised that Meadows was not at the exchange. He did not know then that a field telephone line had been organized, and that the factory head-quarters of the directing staff was in communication with the world. It was not Meadows, but another man who answered him, and by his tone of authority Oberzohn guessed that some higher police official than Meadows was on the spot. “I am the doctor Oberzohn,” he barked. “You have brought a tank machine to attack me. If this approaches beyond the wire fence, I shall place the woman Leicester in the home of the snakes, and there I will bind her and release my little friends to avenge me.” “Look here——” began the officer, but Oberzohn hung up on him.