“What is it you know against the German government?” he demanded, and sat with his jaw in the palm of his hand waiting for her answer.

“Why should I tell you?  Why should I put myself completely in your power?”

“Why not?” asked Fred.

“What would prevent you from stealing my thunder, and telling my story as your own—­leaving me at the Germans’ mercy?”

“Something very potent that I think you would not understand if I talked of it,” Fred answered.  “Listen to me now a minute.  I haven’t conferred with my friends here, as you know.  Whatever I tell you is subject to their agreeing with me.  The only condition on which I, for one, would consent to taking part with you in anything—­after all our experience of you!—­would be that you should put yourself so completely in our power that we could feel we had your safekeeping.  On those terms I would be willing to do my best to help you out.”

“I agree to that like a shot!” said Will; and I nodded.

“You mean—?”

“All or nothing!” Fred insisted.

“You mean that you also, just like these Germans, must have a sword to hold over me?”

“I thought you wouldn’t understand!” Fred answered.  “What we demand, Lady Saffren Walden, is proof that you really do give us your confidence.  Without that we have nothing to say to you, and nothing to do with you!”

She broke down then and cried a little, tearing herself with sobs she hated to release.  Suddenly she raised her head and glared at us wildly, dry-eyed; not a tear had accompanied the sobbing.

“If I tell you—­if you fail me after that—­I shall kill myself in such way that you shall know—­my blood is on your heads!”

Fred laughed.  It was no doubt the best thing to do, but I wondered how he managed it.

“Suppose you begin by telling us,” he said.  “We can discuss the blood-stains afterward!”

Then she suddenly burst into her tale, as if she had rehearsed it a hundred times in readiness to pour into the ears of the first British official who had power enough to shield her.  She told it dramatically, in few words, wasting no breath on side-issues, and without once pausing to explain, letting her words smash down the barriers of unbelief and pave their own way for explanations afterward.

“Germany is planning to conquer the world!—­not now, but ten or a dozen years from now!  She is getting ready ceaselessly!  Part of the plan is to undermine British rule in Africa by means of a religious influence among the natives.  That is the special duty of Professor Schillinschen.  As soon as possible a great native army is to be trained, and thoroughly schooled in the fanatical precepts of Islam.  But the German people are too heavily taxed already, and refuse to vote money for this miserable colony, where the great beginning must be made because it is only here that they can work unsuspected.  So funds must be found in some other way!”