t of their
wording. "Von Specht transferred to hospital coach attached special
train, accompanied military doctor and orderlies in civil clothes.
Left Base Hospital No. 64 at 3:22 P.M. Condition weak, feverish,"
said the first of them. It did not suggest to him the hush of the
white ward broken by the tread of the stalwart stretcher-bearers, the
feeble groaning as they shifted the swathed and bandaged form from
the bed to the stretcher, the face thin and haggard with yet remains
of sunburn on its bloodlessness, the progress to the railway, the
grunt and heave of the men as they hoisted their burden to the
waiting hospital-carriage. None of all that for Herr Haase.

Later came another message: "Patient very feverish. Continually
inquires whither going and why. Please telegraph some answer to meet
train at Bengen with which may quiet him." To that Herr Haase was
ordered to reply: "Tell Colonel von Specht that he is serving his
Fatherland," and that elicited another message from the train at
Colmar: "Gave patient your message, to which he replied, 'That is
good enough for me.' Is now less feverish, but very weak."

And finally, from Basle, came the news that the train and its
passengers had crossed the frontier; Colonel von Specht was in
Switzerland.

"You, my good Haase, will meet the train," said the Baron von
Steinlach. "The Embassy has arranged to have it shunted to a siding
outside the station. You will, of course, tell them nothing of what
is in contemplation. Just inform whoever is in charge that I will
come later. And, Von Wetten, I think we will send the car with a note
to bring Herr Bettermann here at the same time."

"Here, Excellency?"

"Yes," said the Baron. "After all, we want to keep the thing as quiet
as possible, and that fellow is capable of asking a party of friends
to witness the ceremony." There was malicious amusement in the eye he
turned on Von Wetten. "And we don't want that, do we?" he suggested.

Von Wetten shuddered.

The siding at which the special train finally came to rest was
"outside the station" in the sense that it was a couple of miles
short of it, to be reached by a track-side path complicated by piles
of sleepers and cinder-heaps. Herr Haase, for the purpose of his
mission, had attired himself sympathetically rather than
conveniently; he was going to visit a colonel and, in addition to
other splendors, he had even risked again the patent leather boots.
He was nearly an hour be