I could not help being impressed by the fact that,
although he was very quiet, he was evidently under great excitement. I
saw, too, that sometimes for seconds together he, forgetful of Norah
Blackwater, would gaze steadily at Lorna Bolivick, as though she
fascinated him. I was afraid Sir Thomas did not like him, and as
presently the conversation led to our experiences at the front, I
determined that, although Edgecumbe might feel uncomfortable, I would
show the baronet the kind of man he really was.

'Talking about tight corners,' I said, 'I got out of one of the
tightest corners ever I was in, in a peculiar way.'

'Do tell us, Captain Luscombe,' cried Lorna, who had evidently been
uncomfortable under Edgecumbe's gaze. 'We have heard nothing about
your experiences, and I should like to hear something.'

'It's a story of how one Englishman took thirty Germans prisoners,' I
said with a laugh.

'One Englishman took thirty German prisoners!' cried the squire. 'Good
old English bull-dog! But how did he do it? Man, it's impossible!'

'Nothing is impossible to a man who keeps his head cool, and has a
ready wit,' was my answer. I thereupon, without mentioning Edgecumbe's
name, described how I had been taken prisoner, and how I found myself
in the German trenches.

'But how did you get out of such a hole as that?' cried the squire.

'As I told you,' I said, 'I found myself with my sergeant in a huge
dug-out with thirty Germans. Of course our position was apparently
hopeless. They had got us, and meant to keep us. I had been
unconscious for a long time owing to a nasty knock I had got, and
therefore I was tremendously surprised when I presently heard an
English voice talking to the Germans. Evidently another English
prisoner had been brought in.'

'Then you were three against thirty,' laughed the squire.

'Three against thirty if you will,' I replied, 'but only one in
reality. I was no good, and my sergeant had no other hope than to be
buried in a German prison. The new-comer, however, evidently meant
business. All the time the English guns were booming, and our
explosives were tearing the Boches' trenches to pieces. As it
happened, we were too deep for them to reach us, although the danger
was that we might be buried alive. That gave this chap, whose face I
could not see, his chance, and he began to tell the Germans what idiots
they were to stay there in imminent danger of death, when they could
get to