The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan [best book club books txt] 📗

been to convince me that I was playing the fool, and that had failed. But the old man spoke again.

“I’ll go bail for my nephew. That ought to content you, Mr. Hannay.” Was it fancy, or did I detect some halt in the smoothness of that voice?

There must have been, for as I glanced at him, his eyelids fell in that hawk-like hood which fear had stamped on my memory.

I blew my whistle.

In an instant the lights were out. A pair of strong arms gripped me round the waist, covering the pockets in which a man might be expected to carry a pistol.

“Schnell, Franz,” cried a voice, “Das Boot, das Boot!” As it spoke I saw two of my fellows emerge on the moonlit lawn.

The young dark man leapt for the window, was through it, and over the low fence before a hand could touch him. I grappled the old chap, and the room seemed to fill with figures. I saw the plump one collared, but my eyes were all for the out-of-doors, where Franz sped on over the road towards the railed entrance to the beach stairs. One man followed him, but he had no chance. The gate of the stairs locked behind the fugitive, and I stood staring, with my hands on the old boy’s throat, for such a time as a man might take to descend those steps to the sea.

Suddenly my prisoner broke from me and flung himself on the wall. There was a click as if a lever had been pulled. Then came a low rumbling far, far below the ground, and through the window I saw a cloud of chalky dust pouring out of the shaft of the stairway.

Someone switched on the light.

The old man was looking at me with blazing eyes.

“He is safe,” he cried. “You cannot follow in time⁠ ⁠… He is gone⁠ ⁠… He has triumphed⁠ ⁠… Der Schwarzestein ist in der Siegeskrone.”

There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had been hooded like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk’s pride. A white fanatic heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time the terrible thing I had been up against. This man was more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot.

As the handcuffs clinked on his wrists I said my last word to him.

“I hope Franz will bear his triumph well. I ought to tell you that the Ariadne for the last hour has been in our hands.”

Three weeks later, as all the world knows, we went to war. I joined the New Army the first week, and owing to my Matabele experience got a captain’s commission straight off. But I had done my best service, I think, before I put on khaki.

Colophon

The Thirty-Nine Steps
was published in 1915 by
John Buchan.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
David Grigg,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1996 by
Jo Churcher and Al Haines
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Wandering Shadows,
a painting completed in 1878 by
Peter Graham.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
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