“No!” shouted Claiborne.

Armitage drew a step nearer.

“You must take my word for it that matters of importance, of far-reaching consequence, hang upon that message.  I must know what it is.”

“You certainly have magnificent cheek!  I am going to take that paper to Baron von Marhof at once.”

“Do so!—­but I must know first!  Baron von Marhof and I are on the same side in this business, but he doesn’t understand it, and it is clear you don’t.  Give me the message!”

He spoke commandingly, his voice thrilling with earnestness, and jerked out his last words with angry impatience.  At the same moment he and Claiborne stepped toward each other, with their hands clenched at their sides.

“I don’t like your tone, Mr. Armitage!”

“I don’t like to use that tone, Captain Claiborne.”

Shirley walked quickly to the table and put down the message.  Then, going to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite slowly the words: 

“Winkelried—­Vienna—­not later than Friday—­Chauvenet.”

“Shirley!” roared Claiborne.

John Armitage bowed to the already vacant doorway; then bounded into the hall out upon the veranda and ran through the garden to the side gate, where Oscar waited.

Half an hour later Captain Claiborne, after an interview with Baron von
Marhof, turned his horse toward the hills.

CHAPTER XXII

THE PRISONER AT THE BUNGALOW

So, exultant of heart, with front toward the bridges of
      battle,
Sat they the whole night long, and the fires that they kindled
      were many. 
E’en as the stars in her train, with the moon as she walketh
      in splendor,
Blaze forth bright in the heavens on nights when the welkin
      is breathless,
Nights when the mountain peaks, their jutting cliffs, and
      the valleys,
All are disclosed to the eye, and above them the fathomless
      ether
Opens to star after star, and glad is the heart of the shepherd—­
Such and so many the fires ’twixt the ships and the streams
      of the Xanthus
Kept ablaze by the Trojans in front of the darkening city. 
Over the plains were burning a thousand fires, and beside
      them
Each sat fifty men in the firelight glare; and the horses,
Champing their fodder and barley white, and instant for
      action,
Stood by the chariot-side and awaited the glory of morning.

The Iliad:  Translation of Prentiss Cummings.

“In Vienna, Friday!”

“There should be great deeds, my dear Jules;” and Monsieur Durand adjusted the wick of a smoking brass lamp that hung suspended from the ceiling of a room of the inn, store and post-office at Lamar.

“Meanwhile, this being but Wednesday, we have our work to do.”