“I reckon it was somewhere about that time I began to get rattled.  I pulled out money and showed it.  He looked the other way, and when I went on talking he turned his back.  I suspect he didn’t dare keep on lookin’ at money almost within reach.  Anyhow, then I opened on him, firin’ both bow guns.  I dared him to sit there, with a patient in need of prompt attention less than two hundred yards away.  I called him names.  I guaranteed to write to the German government and the United States papers about him.  I told him I’d have his job if it cost me all my money and a lifetime’s trouble.  He was just about ready to shoot—­I’d just about got the red blood rising on his neck and ears—­when along came the commandant—­der Herr Capitain—­the officer commanding Muanza—­a swag-bellied ruffian with a beard and a beery look in his eye, but a voice like a man falling down three stories with all the fire-irons.

“‘What do you want?’ he demanded in English, and I thanked him first for not having mistaken me for one of his own countrymen.  Then I told him what I’d come for.

“‘To-morrow at eight o’clock!’ he snapped, after he’d had a word with the medico.  ’Meanwhile, make yourself scarce out of here!  There is a camping-ground for the use of foreigners.  You and your party go to it!  If you do any damage there you will hear from me later!’

“I didn’t come as easy as all that.  I stood there telling him things about Germany and Germans, and what I’d do to help his personal reputation with the home folks, until I guessed he had his craw as near full as he could stand it without having me arrested.  Then I did come—­whistling Yankee-doodle.  And say—­Fred!  Where’s that concertina of yours?”

Fred patted it.  His beloved instrument was never far from hand.

“Why don’t you play all the American and English tunes you know to-night?  Play and sing ’em, Britannia Rule the Waves—­Marching Through Georgia—­My Country ’tis of Thee—­The Marseillaise -The Battle Hymn of the Republic—­and anything and everything you know that Squareheads won’t like.  Let’s make this camp a reg’lar—­hello—­see who’s here!”

Fred had begun fingering the keys already and the first strains of Marching Through Georgia began to awake the neighborhood to recognition of the fact that foreigners were present who held no especial brief for German rule.  The tent-door darkened.  Brown leapt to his feet and swore.

“Gassharamminy!” said a voice we all recognized instantly.  “That tune sounds good!  I’ve lived in the States!  I’m a United States citizen!  A man can’t forget his own country’s tunes so easily!”

Cool and impudent, Georges Coutlass entered and, without waiting for an invitation, took a seat on a load of canned food.  Brown grabbed the nearest rifle (it happened to be Fred’s)—­snapped open the breach—­discovered it was loaded—­and took aim.  Coutlass did not even blink.  He was either sure Fred and Will would interfere, or else at the end of his tether and indifferent to death.