know. The next thing I remember was a rattle of grounding arms and
the sight of two other officers, excitedly gesticulating with the one
in charge of the firing squad. All three presently came towards me
and one pulling out a flask of cognac with a polite bow offered me a
drink. I needed it; but didn't take it. All this time I had been
standing motionless with my arms folded across my breast. I heard one
say to the other, "Nitchka Curacha" (no coward). If he had only
known.

Indeed, had I anticipated such an experience, had I known the things I
know now I doubt if I would have been so pleased with the results of
my first visit to Koenigergratzerstrasse 70, where the Intelligence
Department of the German Admiralty is quartered. Will the reader step
back with me in the narrative to the day of my officially joining the
Service? Returning to my hotel after my interview with Captain von
Tappken in his office, I began to reflect.

I had not entered the Service out of pure adventure or for monetary
reasons alone. Money has never appealed to me as the all-powerful
thing in life. I have always had enough for creature comforts and as
for adventure I had had my fill during the Boer War and my world
wanderings. No, I had joined the German Secret Service for quite a
different reason. I was thinking of the influences that had pressed
me out of my destined groove, by every human right my own. I remember
how sanguine Count Reitzenstein was that through the Service I ought
to gain the power I had lost. But as I sat in the hotel room had
occult powers been given me, I never would have taken up Secret
Service work. But one is not quite as wise at twenty-four as at
thirty-nine.