THERE came a night when Devlin’s men were called upon to clean out part of a forest from which many snipers had been firing, and where machine guns and their crews were known to be. It was work for picked men only and Trent admitted Devlin made a courageous leader.

The Americans met unexpectedly strong opposition. It was only when half their little company was lost that they were ordered to retreat. The way was made difficult with barbed wire and shell splintered trees. It was one of a hundred similar sorties taking place all along the Allied lines hardly worthy of mention in the press.

Trent, when he had gained a clearing in the wood, saw Devlin go down like an ox from the clubbed rifle in a Prussian hand. Trent had put a shot through the man’s head almost before Devlin’s body fell to the soft earth. He had an excellent chance of escape alone but he could not leave the American officer who was his enemy to bleed to death among his country’s foes. He was almost spent when he reached his own lines and the Red Cross relieved him of his inert burden. They told him Devlin still lived.

Three days later Trent was called to the hospital in which his officer lay white and bandaged. Although Devlin’s voice was weak it did not lack the note of enmity which ever distinguished it when its owner spoke to Anthony Trent.

“What did you do it for?” Devlin demanded.

“Do what?”

“Bring me in after that boche laid me out?”

“Only one reason,” Trent informed him. “Alive, you have a certain use to your country. Dead, you would have none.”

“That’s a lie,” Devlin snarled, “I’ve figured it out lying in this damned cot. You saw I wasn’t badly hurt and you knew some of the boys would fetch me in later. You thought you’d do a hero stunt and get a decoration and you reckoned I’d be grateful and let up on you. That was clever but not clever enough for me. I see through it. You’ve got away with out-guessing the other feller so far but I’m one jump ahead of you in this.” He paused for breath, “I’ve got you fixed, Mister Anthony Trent, and don’t you forget it. You think I’m bluffing I suppose.”

“I think you’re exciting yourself unduly,” Trent said quietly. “Take it up when you are well.”

“You’re afraid to hear what I know,” Devlin sneered. “You’ve got to hear it sometime, so why not now?”

Trent spoke as one does to a child or a querulous invalid.

“Well, what is it?” he demanded.

“Never heard of any one named Austin, did you?”

“It’s not an unusual name,” Trent admitted. But he was no longer uninterested. Conington Warren’s butler was so called. And this Austin had met him face to face on the stairway of his master’s house on the night that he had taken Conington Warren’s loose cash and jewels.

“He’s out here,” Devlin said and looked hard at Trent to see what effect the news would have.

“You forget I don’t know whom,” Trent reminded him. “What Austin?”

“You know,” Devlin snapped, “the Warren butler. I was on that case and he recognized me not a week ago and asked me who you were. He’s seen you, too. We put two and two together and it spells the pen for you. He was English and although he was over age the British are polite that way. If he said he was forty-one they said they guessed he was forty-one. I went to see him in a hospital before he ‘went west’ and he told me all about it.”

Anthony Trent could not restrain a sigh of relief. Austin was dead.

“That don’t help you any,” Devlin cried. “Don’t you wish you’d left me in the woods now? That was your opportunity. Why didn’t you take it?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Trent answered. “For one thing you dislike me too much to see anything but bad in what I do. That’s your weakness. That’s why you have always failed.”

“Well, I haven’t failed this time,” Devlin taunted him. “I’ve laid information against you where it’s going to do most good.”

He hoped to see the man he hated exhibit fear, plead for mercy or beg for a respite. He had rehearsed this expected scene during the night watches. Instead he saw the hawk-like face inscrutable as ever.

“I’ve told the adjutant what I know and what Austin said and he’s bound to make an investigation. That means you’ll be sent home for trial and I guess you know what that means. I’m going to be invalided home and I’ll put in my leave working up the case against you. They ought to give you a stretch of anything from fifteen to twenty years. I guess that’ll hold you, Mister Anthony Trent.”

The other man made no answer. He thought instead of what such a prison term would do for him. He had seen the gradual debasement of men of even a high type during the long years of internment. Men who had gone through prison gates with the same instincts of refinement as he possessed to come out coarsened, different, never again to be the men they were. He would sidle through the gaping doors a furtive thing with cunning crafty eyes whose very walk stamped him a convict. How could so long a term of years spent among professional criminals fail to besmirch him?

He took a long breath.

“I’m not there yet,” he said. “It’s a long way to an American jail and a good bit can happen in three thousand miles.”

He was turned from these dismal channels of thought by a hospital orderly who summoned him to the adjutant’s quarters.

In civil life this officer had been a well known lawyer who had abandoned a large practice to take upon himself the over work and worries that always hurl themselves at an adjutant.

He had heard of the rescue of Lieutenant Devlin by a man of his company and was pleased to learn that it was an alumnus of his old college who had been recommended for a decoration on that account. He looked at Trent a moment in silence.

“When I last saw you,” he said, “you won the game for us against Harvard.” He sighed, “I never thought to see you in a case of this sort.”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Trent answered him.

“For some reason or another,” the adjutant informed him, “Lieutenant Devlin has preferred charges against you which had better been left until this war is over in my opinion as a soldier.”

“I am still in the dark,” Trent reminded him.

Captain Sutton looked over some papers.

“You are charged,” he said, “with being a very remarkable and much sought after criminal. Devlin asserts you purloined a ruby owned by Mr. Dangerfield worth a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and an emerald worth almost as much.”

“What a curious delusion,” Trent commented with calmness.

“Delusion?” retorted the adjutant.

“What else could it be?” the other inquired.

“It might be the truth,” the officer said drily.

“Does he offer proofs?”

“More I’m afraid than you’ll care to read,” Captain Sutton told him. “You understand, I suppose, that there are certain regulations which govern us in a case like this. I should like to dismiss it as something entirely irrelevant to military duties. You were a damned good football player, Trent, and they tell me you’re just as good a soldier, but an officer has preferred charges against you and they must be given attention. Sit down there for a few minutes.”

Devlin, feeling the hour of triumph approaching, lay back in his bed gloating. The hatred that he bore Anthony Trent was legitimate enough in its way. By some accident or another Devlin was enlisted on the side of the law and his opponent against it. One was the hunter; the other the hunted. And the hunter was soon to witness the disgrace of the man who had laughed at him, beaten him, cheated him of a coveted position. Naturally of a brave and pugnacious disposition, Devlin saw no lack of chivalry in hounding a man over whom he had military authority. If Trent had been his friend he would have fought for him. But since he was his foe he must taste the bitterness of the vanquished.

So engrossed was he over his pleasurable thoughts that he did not see the distress which came over the face of the nurse who took his temperature and recorded his pulse beat. Nor did he see the hastily summoned physician reading the recently marked chart over the bed. Instead he was filled with a strange and satisfying exaltation of spirit. Catches of old forgotten songs came back to him. He felt himself growing stronger. He was Devlin the superman, the captor of Anthony Trent who had beaten the best of them. It was almost with irritation that he opened his eyes to speak with the doctor, a middle-aged, gray man with kindly eyes.

“Lieutenant,” the doctor said gently, “things aren’t going as well with you as we hoped. You should not have exhausted yourself talking. It should not have been allowed.”

Devlin saw the doctor put his hand under the coverlet; then he felt a prick in his arm. Dully he knew that it was the sting of a hypodermic. Then he saw coming toward him a priest of his race and faith and knew he came in that dread hour to administer the last rites of the church.

“Doc,” he gasped, “am I going?”

It was no moment to utter lying comfort.

“I’m afraid so.”

Then he saw an orderly bringing the screen that was placed about the beds of those about to die.

When Captain Sutton and Anthony Trent came into the ward the priest had finished his solemn work and was gone to console another dying man and the physicians to make one of those quick operations unthinkable in the leisurely days of peace.

Trent had no knowledge of what had taken place during his absence. He saw that his enemy was more exhausted. And as he looked he noticed that the eyes of Devlin lacked something of their hate. But it was no time for speculation. Trent saw in the sick man only his nemesis, the instrument which fate was using to rob him of his liberty. He was not to know that here was a man so close to death that hate seemed idle and vengeance a burden.

“Lieutenant,” Captain Sutton began, “I have here a copy of your statements and the evidence given by Sergeant Austin of the British army. I will read it to you. Then I shall need witnesses to your signature.”

“Let me see it,” Devlin commanded and drew the typewritten sheets to him. Then, with what strength was left him, he tore the document across and across again.

Captain Sutton looked at him in amazement.

“What did you do that for?” he asked.

But Devlin paid no heed to him. He gazed into the face of Anthony Trent, the man he had hated.

“I made a mistake,” said Devlin faintly. “This isn’t the man.”

And with this splendid and generous lie upon his lips he came to his life’s end.

FINIS