“You bet they could!” said Will.  “We’ve either got to spike the launch’s boilers, or give them the complete slip on a dark night!”

“We might steal the launch!” suggested Fred, but that was too wild a proposal to be taken seriously.  The launch was the apple of the German governmental eye, and the engine crew slept on it always.

The prospect was unpromising as ever, yet I went to bed and listened to the strains of Fred’s concertina in the next tent with less foreboding than at any time since reaching Muanza, and fell asleep to the tune of Silver Hairs among the Gold, a melancholy piece that Will liked to sing when hope or courage stirred him.

I was awakened near midnight of a moonless black night by a hand on my bedclothes and the light of a lantern in my eyes.

“Hus-s-s-h!” said some one.  “Don’t speak yet!  Listen!”

It was a woman’s voice, and it puzzled me indescribably, for a sick man’s wits don’t work swiftly as a rule when he lies between sleeping and waking.

“Listen!” said the voice again.  “I must come to terms with you three men!  You are the only hope left me!  I have no friends in Muanza—­and none whom I trust!  Those Greeks and that Goanese would sell me to the first bidder, and these Germans are worse than dogs!”

“But who are you?” I asked stupidly.

For answer she held the lantern so that I could see her face.  Her hand trembled, and the unsteady light threw baffling shadows, but even so I could see she looked drawn and aged.

“Where is your maid, then, Lady Waldon?” I asked, for it seemed to me that was one friend who had served her through thick and thin.

“Ask the commandant!” she answered.  “The poor foot thinks he will marry her!  Little she knows of the German method!  I am alone!  I have not even a servant any longer!  I have walked through the shadows from the commandant’s house, only lighting this lantern after I was inside the hedge.  Nobody knows I am here.  One watchman was asleep; the others did not see me.  All you need fear is those Greeks.  As long as they don’t suspect I am here we can talk safely.”

I tumbled out of bed on the far side, and went to waken the other two.  After a hurried consultation we decided my tent was the best for the interview, because of the light that had burned in it nearly always while I was so deathly ill.  We wrapped ourselves in blankets, and Fred went and shook Simba awake.

“Watch those Greeks!” be ordered him.  “If they show signs of life, come and give the alarm!”

Then we set Lady Waldon’s lantern on the ground in the back of my tent, closed the tent up, and foregathered.  There was one chair.  We three sat on the bed.

“Before we begin,” said Fred, “we’d like some kind of proof, Lady Waldon, that your overture is honest!  I’ve no need to labor the point.  Until now you have been our implacable enemy.  Why should we believe you are our friend to-night ?”