ll of
business he should try to catch the through express at three o'clock,
but they must retain his room and luggage until they heard from him.
He remembered Don Caesar's letter. Had either of the gentlemen, his
friends who had just gone out, left a letter or message? No,
Excellency; the gentlemen were talking earnestly--he believed, in the
South American language--and had not spoken to him.

Perhaps it was this that reminded Paul, as he crossed the square again,
that he had made no preparation for any possible fatal issue to himself
in this adventure. SHE would know it, however, and why he had
undertaken it. He tried to think that perhaps some interest in himself
had prompted her to send the colonel to him. Yet, mingled with this
was an odd sense of a certain ridiculousness in his position: there was
the absurdity of his prospective antagonist being even now in
confidential consultation with his own friend and ally, whose functions
he had usurped, and in whose interests he was about to risk his life.
And as he walked away through the silent streets, the conviction more
than once was forced upon him that he was going to an appointment that
would not be kept.

He reached the station some ten minutes before the train was due. Two
or three half-drowsy, wrapped-up passengers were already on the
platform; but neither Don Caesar nor Colonel Pendleton was among them.
He explored the waiting-rooms and even the half-lit buffet, but with no
better success. Telling the Bahnhof Inspector that his passage was
only contingent upon the arrival of one or two companions, and
describing them minutely to prevent mistakes, he began gloomily to pace
before the ticket-office. Five minutes passed--the number of
passengers did not increase; ten minutes; a distant shriek--the hoarse
inquiry of the inspector--had the Herr's companions yet gekommt? the
sudden glare of a Cyclopean eye in the darkness, the ongliding of the
long-jointed and gleaming spotted serpent, the train--a hurried glance
around the platform, one or two guttural orders, the slamming of doors,
the remounting of black uniformed figures like caryatides along the
marchepieds, a puff of vapor, and the train had come and gone without
them.

Yet he would give his adversary fifteen minutes more to allow for
accident or delay, or the possible arrival of the colonel with an
explanation, and recommenced his gloomy pacing, as the Bahnhof sank
back into half-lit repose. At the