Suddenly he remembered his pistol, the one he had taken from Schmidt’s holster.  He gripped it convulsively.  After all, he was not as helpless as he had believed.  He waited.  Should he risk all now, with a shot—­a shot that might warn this stalker off and give him another chance to escape, even though there were others in the car?  He drew out the pistol, and cocked it.  Then, at the faint sound, a voice called to him out of the darkness.

“Do not fire!  It is I—­Ivan!  Ivan Ivanovitch!”

For a moment Fred thought he was going to collapse, so great was the relief and the slackening of tension.  He did laugh out, but caught himself at once.

“Ivan!” he said.  “I thought it was a German officer!  It is I, Ivan—­Fred Waring!”

“I knew it,” said Ivan, coming up close.  “I saw you for just a second as your horse reared.  It was just a flash of your face, but if I have ever seen a face once, I never forget it.  And you have the look of a Suvaroff about you, even though you are different.  I would have known you for one of the breed had I met you anywhere in the world, had no one told me who you were.  And so I turned to find you and follow you.”

“But what are you doing here?  I thought you were to rejoin our own army?”

“I was pressed into service as a chauffeur.  This car was needed near the front, and there was no one to drive it.  I deceived them wholly, with my uniform, and my motorcycle.  And so they forced this car upon me!  My plan was to use it, instead of my cycle, to get past their lines.”

“But you are riding straight to Gumbinnen—­and they are near there in force!”

“No, they have retreated from there.  They know that we are too strong for them, and they do not care to fight.”

“Yes, and do you know why?  Because they have been bringing troops up secretly to Insterberg, and are planning to fight a great battle there on their own grounds!  You were wrong, Ivan, in the information you sent.”

Wasting no words, he quickly told of what he had learned that evening.  And Ivan smote his hands together for he was deeply troubled.

“And I thought I knew all their plans!” he said, savagely.  “If the staff had acted upon my information, we should have marched into a trap!”

“Now I must get to the wireless,” said Fred.  “That was what I meant to do when you frightened my horse there in the road.”

“Come, I will drive you back.  It will not take long, and your work is more important than mine now.  It is safe, too.  You can be hidden in the car in case we encounter any Germans.  But that is not likely.  They are not as thick in this district as they were forty-eight hours ago.”

They made their way together to the car, and Fred laughed.

“I don’t think I was ever so scared as when you turned and came back.  It was worse, in a way, than when they were going to shoot me in the parsonage garden.  I’d been so sure I was safe—­and then to hear that bugle call on your car!”