von Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I have
received certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out. For
that reason you will dine with us here. After you have seen the person
to whom you are to be taken to-night, Lieutenant Count von Boden will
accompany you to the railway station at Spandau, where a special train
will be in readiness in which he will conduct you back to the frontier.
I wish you clearly to understand that the Lieutenant is responsible for
seeing these orders carried out and will use all means to that end. Have
I made myself clear?"

The old man's manner was indescribably threatening. "This is the machine
we are out to smash," I had said to myself when I saw him savaging his
servant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to the
General I said: "Perfectly, Your Excellency!"

"Then let us go to dinner," said the General.

It was a nightmare meal. A faded and shrunken female, to whom I was not
introduced--some kind of relative who kept house for the General, I
supposed--was the only other person present. She never opened her lips
save, with eyes glazed with terror, to give some whispered instruction
to the orderly anent the General's food or wine. We dined in a
depressing room with dark brown wallpaper decorated with dusty stags'
antlers, an enormous green-tiled stove dominating everything. The
General and his son ate solidly through the courses while the lady
pecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheer
fright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of the
evening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutely
determined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to the
frontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packed