tempt
to upset that lamp you will make a sad mistake. Now walk to the door!
Turn your back! Go slowly!--halt!"

With the table-drawer under one arm and my pistol-hand swinging, I
followed Buckhurst out into the hall.

Daylight dazzled me; it must have affected Buckhurst, too, for he
reached out to the stone balustrade and guided himself down the steps,
five paces in front of me.

Under the trees on the lawn, beside the driveway, I saw Dr. Delmont
standing, big, bushy head bent thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his
back.

Near him, Tavernier and Bazard were lifting a few boxes into a
farm-wagon. The carriage from Trois-Feuilles was also there, a stumpy
Alsatian peasant on the box. But there were yet no signs of the escort
of gendarmes which had been promised me.

As Buckhurst appeared, walking all alone ahead of me, Dr. Delmont
looked up with a bitter laugh. "So they found you, too? Well,
Buckhurst, this is too bad. They might have given you one more day on
your experiments."

"What experiments?" I asked, glancing at the bottles and retorts in
the table-drawer.

"Nitrogen for exhausted soil," said the Countess, quietly.

I set the table-drawer on the grass, rested my pistol on my hip, and
looked around at my prisoners, who now were looking intently at me.

"Gentlemen," said I, "let me warn you not to claim comradeship with
Mr. Buckhurst. And I will show you one reason why."

I picked up from the table-drawer a little stick about five inches
long and held it up.

"What is that, doctor? You don't know? Oh, you think it might be some
sample of fertilizer containing concentrated nitrogen? You are
mistaken, it is not nitrogen, but nitro-glycerine."

Buckhurst's face changed slightly.

"Is it not, Mr. Buckhurst?" I asked.

He was silent.

"Would you permit me to throw this bit of stuff at your feet?" And I
made a gesture.

The superb nerve of the man was something to remember. He did not
move, but over his face there crept a dreadful pallor, which even the
others noticed, and they shrank away from him, shocked and amazed.

"Here, gentlemen," I continued, "is a box with a German
label--'Oberlohe, Hanover.' The silicious earth with which
nitro-glycerine is mixed to make dynamite comes from Oberlohe, in
Hanover."

I laid my pistol on the table, struck a match, and deliberately
lighted my stick of dynamite. It burned quietly with a brilliant
flame, and I laid it on the grass and let it burn out like a lu