20 
LAND & WATER 
October 12, 1916. 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to *' The Thirty-Nine Steps " 
Synopsis : Richird Hannay is asked by Sir Waller 
Bullivant of the Foreign Office, to undertake a mission to 
unearth a secret connected with Turkey and Germany. The 
only clue is a scrap of paper bearing the words, Kasredin 
— cancer — v. I. Hannay undertakes the mission ; his 
friend Sandy (the Hon. L. G. Arbuthnot) agrees to help 
him. Sir Walter introduces him to an A merican, John $. 
Blcnkiron, a strong pro-Ally, who joins them. Three 
months later they meet in Constantinople, Hannay having 
reached there by way of the Danube, accompanied, by a 
Rhodesian friend, Peter Pienaar, after many adventures 
in Germany. Blcnkiron also goes by way of Germany, 
and Sandy arrives at Constantinople disguised as a Ma- 
hommedan fanatic. After the three meet, Hannay, who has 
previously posed as a Boer from Western Cape Colony, 
assumes the character of an American engineer. Riding 
one evening on the outskirts of Constantinople with Pienaar 
they lose their way and find themselves in total darkness in 
a garden. Here Hannay, by chance, meets Sandy in 
disguise. While talking, a big car drives up in which a 
German lady, Hilda von Einem, is seated; this woman 
holds a clue to the secret. She provides Hannay with 
passports for Erzerum. Hannay, Blcnkiron and Pienaar 
with Hussin, one of Sandy's folloivers, travel together. At 
AngQra they hire a motor car. It breaks down. Even- 
tually they reach Erzerum in a stolen car. They are taken 
before a German officer, who turns out to be von Stumm, 
from WHom Hannay had escaped in Germany. 
S; 
CHAPTER XVII {continued) 
O," he said, " the little Dutchman ! We meet after 
many days." 
It was no good lying or saying anything. I shut 
'my teeth and waited. 
And you, Herr Blenkiron ? I never liked the look of you. 
You babbled too much, like all your damned Americans." - 
" I guess your personal disHkes haven't got anything to do 
with the matter," said Blenkiron, calmly. " If you're the 
boss here, I'll thank you to cast your eye over these passports, 
for we can't stand waiting for ever." 
This fairly angered him. " I'll teach you manners," 
he cried, and took a step forward to reach for Blenkiron's 
shoulder — the game he had twice played with me. 
Blenkiron never took his hands from his coat pockets. 
" Keep your distance," he drawled in a new voice. " I've 
got you covered, and I'U make a hole in your bullet head if 
you laj a hand on me." 
With an effort Stumm recovered himself. He rang a bell and 
fell to smiling. An orderly appeared to whom lie spoke in 
Turkish, and presently a file of soldiers entered the room. 
" I'm going to have you disarmed, gentlemen," he said. 
" We can conduct our conversation more pleasantly without 
pistols." 
It was idle to resist. We surrendered our arms, Peter 
almost ill tears with vexation. Stumm swung his legs over 
a chair, rested his chin on the back and looked at me. 
" Your game is up, you know," he said. " These fools of 
Turkish police said the Dutchmen were dead, but I had the 
happier inspiration. I believed the good God had spared 
them for me. When I got Rasta's telegram I was certain, 
for your doings reminded me of a little trick you once played 
me on the Schwandorf road. But I didn't think to find 
this plump old partridge," and he smiled at Blenkiron. 
" Two eminent American engineers and their servant bound 
for Mesopotamia on business of high Government importance ! 
It was a good lie ; but if I had been in Constantinople it 
would have had a short life. Kasta and his friends are no 
concern of mine. You can trick them as you please. But 
you have attempted to win the confidence of a certain lady, 
and her interests are mine. Likewise you have offended me, 
and I do not forgive. By God," he cried, his voice growing 
shrill with passion, " by the time I have done with you your 
mothers in th^ir graves will weep that they ever bore you ! " 
It was Blenkiron who spoke. His voice was as level as 
the chairman's of a bogus company, and it fell on that turbid 
atmosphere like acid on grease. 
" I don't take no stock in high-falutin'. If you're trying 
to scare me by that dime-novel talk I guess you've hit the 
wrong man. You're like the sweep that stuck in the chimney, 
a bit too big for your job. I reikcn you've a talent for 
ro-mance tliat's just wasted in soldiering. But if you're 
going to play any ugly games on me I'd like you to know 
that I'm an American citizen, and pretty well considered in 
my own country and in yours, and you'll sweat blood for it 
later. That's a fair warning, Colonel Stumm." 
I don't know what Stumm's plans were, but that speech 
of Blenkiron's put into his mind just the needed amount 
of uncertainty. You see, he had Peter and me right enough, 
but he hadn't properly connected Blenkiron with us, and was 
afraid cither to hit out at all three, or to let Blcnkiron ^o^. 
It was lucky for us that the American had cut such a dash in 
the Fatherland. 
" There is no hurry," he said blandly. " We shall have 
long happy hours together. I'm going to take you a\\ home 
with me, for I, am a hospitable soul. You will be safer with 
me than in the town gaol, for it's a trifle draughty. Itlets^ 
things in, and it might let things out." 
Again he gave an order, and we were marched out, each 
with a soldier at his elbow. The three of us were bundled 
into the back seat of the car, while two men sat before us 
with their rilles between their knees, one got up behind on 
the baggage rack, and one sat beside Stumm's chauffeur. 
Packed like sardines we moved into the bleak streets, above 
which the stars twinkled in ribbons of sky. 
Hussin had disappeared from the face of the earth, and 
quite right too. He was a good fellow, but he had no call to^ 
mix himself up in our troubles. 
CHAPTER XVIII 
Sparrows on the Housetops 
" I've often regretted," said Blenkiron, " that miraclesr 
have left off happening." 
He got no answer, for I was feeling the walls for something 
in the nature of a window. 
" For I reckon," he went on, " that it wants a good old- 
fashioned copper-bottomed miracle to get us out of this fi.\. 
It's plumb against ah my principles. I've spent my life 
using the talents God gave me to keep things from getting 
to the point of rude violence, and so far I've succeeded. But 
now you come along Major, and you hustle a respectable 
middle-aged citizen into an aboriginal ini.\-up. It's mighty 
indelicate. I reckon the ne.\t move is up to you, for I'm 
no good at the housebreaking stunt." 
" No more am I," I answered ; " but I'm hanged if 1 11 
chuck up the sponge. Sandy's somewhere outside, and he's 
got a hefty crowd at his heels." 
I simply could not feel the despair which by every law of 
common sense was due to the case. The guns had intoxicated 
me. I could still hear their deep voices, though yards of 
wood and stone separated us from the upper air. 
What ve.xed us most was our hunger. Barring a few- 
mouthfuls on the road we had eaten nothing since the morn- 
ing, and as our diet for the past days had not been generous 
we had some leeway to make up. Stumm had never looked 
near us since we were shoved into the car. We had been 
brought to some kind of house and bundled into a place like 
a wine-cellar. It was pitch dark, and after feeling round the-. 
walls, first on my feet and then on Peter's back, I decided thatr 
there were no windows. It must have been lit and ventilated^ 
by some lattice in the ceiling. There was not a stick oft 
furniture in the place : nothing but a damp earth floor and; 
bare stone sides. The door was a relic of the Iron Age, and, 
I could hear the paces of a sentry outside it. 
When things get to the pass that nothing you can do, 
can better them, the only thing is to live for the moment. 
All three of us sought in sleep a refuge from our empty- 
stomachs. The floor was the poorest kind of bed, but we- 
roUed up our coats for pillows and made the best of it. Soon, 
I knew 5)y Peter's regular breathing that he was asleep, and I 
presently followed him. 
I was awakened by a pressure below my left ear. I thought 
it was Peter, for it was the old hunter's trick of waking a man 
so that he makes no noise. But another voice spoke. It told 
me that there was no time to lose and to rise and follovy 
and the voice was the voice of Hussin. 
{Continued ov page 22.) 
