everything which might justly seem suspicious, studying in the
light of my new apprehensions every expression of Bauer's face
and every word that had fallen from his lips. I could not
persuade myself into security. I carried the queen's letter,
and--well, I would have given much to have old Sapt or Rudolf
Rassendyll by my side.

Now, when a man suspects danger, let him not spend his time in
asking whether there be really danger or in upbraiding himself
for timidity, but let him face his cowardice, and act as though
the danger were real. If I had followed that rule and kept my
eyes about me, scanning the sides of the road and the ground in
front of my feet, instead of losing myself in a maze of
reflection, I might have had time to avoid the trap, or at least
to get my hand to my revolver and make a fight for it; or,
indeed, in the last resort, to destroy what I carried before harm
came to it. But my mind was preoccupied, and the whole thing
seemed to happen in a minute. At the very moment that I had
declared to myself the vanity of my fears and determined to be
resolute in banishing them, I heard voices--a low, strained
whispering; I saw two or three figures in the shadow of the
poplars by the wayside. An instant later, a dart was made at me.
While I could fly I would not fight; with a sudden forward plunge
I eluded the men who rushed at me, and started at a run towards
the lights of the town and the shapes of the houses, now distant
about a quarter of a mile. Perhaps I ran twenty yards, perhaps
fifty; I do not know. I heard the steps behind me, quick as my
own. Then I fell headlong on the road--tripped up! I understood.
They had stretched a rope across my path; as I fell a man bounded
up from either side, and I found the rope slack under my body.