Blavincourt--alone and unarmed in a room full of bristling Huns with
that fatal map in his possession.

"Sweating all over he eased the map out of his pocket and slowly and
silently commenced to eat it.

"You know what those things are like. A yard square of tough paper
backed by indestructible calico--one might as well try to devour a
child's rag book.

"Anyhow that's what de Blavincourt did. He ate it, and it took him
forty hours to do the trick. For forty hours day and night he squatted
under that table, with the Huns sitting upon and around it, and gnawed
away at that square yard of calico.

"Just before the dawn of the third day he gulped the last corner down
and peeped out under the tablecloth. The Bosch on guard was oiling
the lock of the machine-gun. Two more he could hear in the kitchen
clattering pots about. The remaining four were asleep, grotesquely
sprawled over sofas and chairs.

"De Blavincourt determined to chance it. He could not stop under the
table for ever, and even at the worst that map, that precious map, was
out of harm's way. He crept stealthily from his hiding-place, dealt
the kneeling Bosch a terrific kick in the small of the back, dived
headlong out of the window and galloped down the street towards our
Lewis gunners, squealing, '_ Friend! Ros'bif! Not'arf!'_--which, in
spite of his three years of interpreting, was all the English he could
muster at the moment. The Huns emptied their automatics after him, but
only one bullet found the target, and that an outer.