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 off home without, at least, making an attempt to find Francis.  Besides, I meant if I could to get the other half of that document.

There was some quite excellent Rhine wine, and I drank plenty of it.  So did the General, with the result that, when the veins starting purple from his temples proclaimed that he had eaten to repletion, his temper seemed to have improved.  He unbent sufficiently to present me with quite the worst cigar I have ever smoked.

I smoked it in silence whilst father and son talked shop.  The female had faded away.  Both men, I found to my surprise, were furious and bitter opponents of Hindenburg, as I have since learnt most of the old school of the Prussian Army are.  They spoke little of England:  their thoughts seemed to be centred on Russia as the arch-enemy.  They pinned their faith on Falkenhayn and Mackensen.  They had no words strong enough in their denunciation of Hindenburg, whom they always referred to as “the Drunkard” ... “der Saeufer.”  Nor were they sparing of criticism of what they called the Kaiser’s “weakness” in letting him rise to power.

The humming of a car outside broke up our gathering.  Remembering that I was but a humble servant before this great military luminary, I thanked the General with due servility for his hospitality.  Then the Count and I went out to the car and presently drove forth into the night.