He was determined to have his grilled bone.

"At three in the morning!" I cried. "You might as well take me out and
shoot me now!"

"You will start in three hours," he repeated.

"A man wandering around at that hour," I protested, "wouldn't live five
minutes. It can't be done. You couldn't do it." He continued to grin. I
knew perfectly well the general had given no such order, and that it
was a cat-and-mouse act of Rupert's own invention, and he knew I
knew it. But he repeated: "You will start in three hours, Mr. Davis."

I said: "I am going to write about this, and I would like you to read
what I write. What is your name?"

He said: "I am the Baron von"--it sounded like "Hossfer"--and, in any
case, to that name, care of General de Schwerin of the Seventh
Division, I shall mail this book. I hope the Allies do not kill Rupert of
Hentzau before he reads it! After that! He would have made a great
actor.

They put me in the automobile and drove me back to Ligne and the
impromptu cell. But now it did not seem like a cell. Since I had last
occupied it my chances had so improved that returning to the candle
on the floor and the bundles of wheat was like coming home. Though
I did not believe Rupert had any authority to order me into the night at
the darkest hour of the twenty-four, I was taking no chances. My
nerve was not in a sufficiently robust state for me to disobey any