The Thirty-Nine Steps
went on playing, and every second a greater hate welled up in my heart.
It almost choked me, and I couldn’t answer when my partner spoke. Only
a little longer could I endure their company.
“Whew! Bob! Look at the time,” said the old man. “You’d better think
about catching your train. Bob’s got to go to town tonight,” he added,
turning to me. The voice rang now as false as hell. I looked at the
clock, and it was nearly half-past ten.
“I am afraid he must put off his journey,” I said.
“Oh, damn,” said the young man. “I thought you had dropped that rot.
I’ve simply got to go. You can have my address, and I’ll give any
security you like.”
“No,” I said, “you must stay.”
At that I think they must have realized that the game was desperate.
Their only chance had been to convince me that I was playing the fool,
and that had failed. But the old man spoke again.
“I’ll go bail for my nephew. That ought to content you, Mr Hannay.” Was
it fancy, or did I detect some halt in the smoothness of that voice?
There must have been, for as I glanced at him, his eyelids fell in that
hawk-like hood which fear had stamped on my memory.
I blew my whistle.
In an instant the lights were out. A pair of strong arms gripped me
round the waist, covering the pockets in which a man might be expected
to carry a pistol.
“_Schnell, Franz,_’ cried a voice, “_das Boot, das Boot!_” As it spoke
I saw two of my fellows emerge on the moonlit lawn.
The young dark man leapt for the window, was through it, and over the
low fence before a hand could touch him. I grappled the old chap, and
the room seemed to fill with figures. I saw the plump one collared, but
my eyes were all for the out-of-doors, where Franz sped on over the
road towards the railed entrance to the beach stairs. One man followed
him, but he had no chance. The gate of the stairs locked behind the
fugitive, and I stood staring, with my hands on the old boy’s throat,
for such a time as a man might take to descend those steps to the sea.
Suddenly my prisoner broke from me and flung himself on the wall. There
was a click as if a lever had been pulled. Then came a low rumbling
far, far below the ground, and through the window I saw a cloud of
chalky dust pouring out of the shaft of the stairway.
Someone switched on the light.
The old man was looking at me with blazing eyes.
“He is safe,” he cried. “You cannot follow in time.... He is gone....
He has triumphed.... _Der Schwarze Stein ist in der Siegeskrone._”
There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had been
hooded like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk’s pride. A
white fanatic heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time
the terrible thing I had been up against. This man was more than a spy;
in his foul way he had been a patriot.
As the handcuffs clinked on his wrists I said my last word to him.
“I hope Franz will bear his triumph well. I ought to tell you that the
_Ariadne_ for the last hour has been in our hands.”
Seven weeks later, as all the world knows, we went to war. I joined the
New Army the first week, and owing to my Matabele experience got a
captain’s commission straight off. But I had done my best service, I
think, before I put on khaki.