He began to discuss the war in its different aspects, laying the blame, of course, on England and her devilish diplomacy, and and showed himself absolutely inaccessible to the arguments we did not hesitate to advance, when we became somewhat nettled by his absurd statement of the case. He left shortly afterwards, and we did not see him again. The corporal, who was bubbling over with unotuous respect for his superior's gay uniform, made a perfect salute on his depar

ture.

We had assumed that we should remain in the guardroom until the transport arrived from Berlin to take us back to prison, but shortly after dark the lieutenant appeared again, and apologised for having to send us to the village lock-up. He had tried hard during the day to elicit from us full information concerning the manner in which we had escaped from prison, and also how we had managed to get to a point so near the frontier, but we told him just as much as we thought was good for him, and no more. The two soldiers who escorted us, with fixed bayonets, from the station through the dark village to the village jail, were good fellows, and did not conceal their appreciation of the fact that we had several times had a run for freedom, and also their sincere regret that they were compelled to play a part in taking us back to bondage. When handing us

village look-up, they passed on to him a recommendation from the lieutenant that we should be treated as considerately as was consistent with keeping us in safe custody. After we had had our pockets searched for weapons, and even our penknives taken away from us we were taken along a short corridor, the cell door was opened, and we were shown in. The jailer—a good-hearted fellow, with the slowest-moving mind I have ever encountered (he appeared to live constantly in a state of semi-coma) -brought us a little food before he looked us up for the night.

The cell did not differ, in any marked degree, from what I suppose is the appearance of most cells of the same kind, except for the fact that it was abominably dirty, and the bed was so lousy that I was kept awake for hours at night by what appeared, to my vivid imagination, to be whole regiments of dauntless vermin. In one corner of the room, underneath the heavily-barred window, was a nine-foot pile of bicycle tyres, which had doubtless been confiscated by the authorities some time before, for the sake of the rubber they contained. The only furniture in the place consisted of a hard bed, with dirty mattress and blankets, & wooden, wedge shaped pillow, a table, stool, and an abominably insanitary oonvenience. We spent three days in this cell, our only relief coming when we were

occasionally allowed to tend the corridor fire which was supposed to heat the cell. When permitted to do this work we usually lingered over the job as long as we could, before the time came to be locked up again. Whether it was a boon to be allowed to live together or not I do not quite know, for our minds were filled with the galling disappointment consequent upon failure in our enterprise, the prospect of transference to the hell we hated so intensely, and speculation as to the punishment we were likely to receive. During the time we spent in this jail we saw no possibility of escape, though we might have succeeded by some ruse or other had we remained there sufficiently long to make the necessary thorough investigation. Our food was usually passed in to us through a tiny trap-door in the door of the cell, and we were charged for it on leaving the jail.

In the next cell to us was a Russian flight lieutenant, who had been recaptured near the same village after a very plucky and determined attempt to escape. While tending the fire we dropped down the trap-door of his cell, and poking our heads through, endeavoured to carry on a conversation with him, but he spoke no English, no French, and practically no German; and as I knew only about three words of Russian and two lines of a Russian song, whose meaning I did not understand, we were not able to do much more than grin

at each other and look sympathetic.

On the morning of the third day the cell door was opened, and we were advised that our guards had come for us. They were a corporal and a private from Berlin, who had been sent specially to escort us back to the prison. We bade farewell to our well-meaning if undesirable host, and leaving the jail, set out for the station, where we took train for Dortmund. Our guards warmed up to us after the first few minutes, and had they not been our guards, would have been quite acceptable travelling companions.

At Dortmund we had to change and wait some time for a train. The soldiers very considerately suggested that we should go into the thirdclass waiting-room, and there they allowed us to order a meal and drink beer. Our train from Dortmund to Berlin was a corridor express train, and almost full of soldiers. For a short distance we had to stand in the corridor, but later one of the soldiers succeeded in inducing the guard to find room for us. The third-class compartment which he found contained only two vacant seats. For obvious reasons we tried to induce our guards to take these seats, while they, also for obvious reasons, and with more success, insisted that we should take them. On taking our seats we found ourselves sitting face to face with a private of the Zeppelin Corps, who, in spite of the notice warning soldiers and

sailors to be guarded in their conversation, was allowing himself to be "pumped" by his fellow-passengers, and was talking as freely about Zeppelins and attacks on England, in which he had participated on three occasions, as though he were talking to his Commanding Officer.

We arrived in Berlin late that night, and were handed over, in the office of the Stadt Vogtei Prison, to the care of the warders whom I had fondly imagined I should never see again. Great was their glee at sight of us once more. We were taken to the worst cells, at the back of the military part of the prison, and looked in for the night.

I threw myself on my hard low bed and slept.

It soon became evident that the punishment to be meted out to us on this occasion was intended to be so harsh in its character that it would act as a deterrent in the case of any of our fellow-prisoners who might be working on similar plans for escape. We were to be allowed no English parcels whatsoever, and our friends were warned that they would be severely punished if they attempted to pass in food to u8. The reason why we had been given cells in the back part of the military prison was to make it impossible for our friends to see us or to speak to us. Our cell windows looked down into another yard, where only the German prisoners took exercise. Books were allowed us, and although one's range of

choice was very much limited, I found solace in such books as the second volume of Morley's 'Life of Gladstone,' Prescott's 'History of the Conquest of Peru,' 'The Autobiography of Lord Herbert of Cherbury,' Walton's 'Compleat Angler,' and the first portion of 'Don Quixote.' Another book which I read was Gordon's 'Diary in Khartoum.' In one entry, Gordon, referring to the shortage of food from which the besieged suffered in Khartoum, says:

"The stomach governs the world, and it was the stomach (a despised organ) which caused our misery from the beginning. It is wonderful that the ventral tube of man governs the world, in small and great things.'

It was certainly "that despised organ" which caused my misery, and our failure, on our last attempt to escape.

Apart from these English books, I managed to procure from a fellow-prisoner a number of recently published books, written by German flying-men, submarine commanders, naval officers, and war correspondents, and found them intensely interesting.

Two or three days after our arrival in the Stadt Vogtei Prison, we heard that Sthe ringleader of our little party, had also been captured and brought to the prison. He was put into the cell next to mine, and on the night of his arrival, he, Keith, and I were taken to a room near the prison office to await examination at the hands of Kriegsgerichtsrat