clattering to the beach below. Young Bradshaw stood quite
still. In his heart was much fear--fear of laughter, of
ridicule, of failure. But of no other kind of fear. Softly,
silently he turned his bicycle so that it faced down the long
hill he had just climbed. Then he snapped off the light. He
had been reliably informed that in ambush at every fifty
yards along the road to Blakeney, sentries were waiting to
fire on him. And he proposed to run the gauntlet. He saw that
it was for this moment that, first as a volunteer and later
as a Territorial, he had drilled in the town hall, practiced
on the rifle range, and in mixed manoeuvres slept in six
inches of mud. As he threw his leg across his bicycle,
Herbert, from the motor-car farther up the hill, fired two
shots over his head. These, he explained to Ford, were
intended to give " verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and
unconvincing narrative." And the sighing of the bullets gave
young Bradshaw exactly what he wanted--the assurance that he
was not the victim of a practical joke. He threw his weight
forward and, lifting his feet, coasted downhill at forty
miles an hour into the main street of Blakeney. Ten minutes
later, when the car followed, a mob of men so completely
blocked the water-front that Ford was forced to stop. His
head-lights illuminated hundreds of faces, anxious,
sceptical, eager. A gentleman with a white mustache and a
look of a retired army officer pushed his way toward Ford,
the crowd making room for him, and then closing in his wake.

"Have you seen any--any soldiers?" he demanded.

"German soldiers!" Ford answered. "They tried to catch us,