Austria, and late of the old Austrian army. This would permit him to walk about with comparative safety amongst the thousands of Magyar, Austrian, and German war prisoners who thronged the streets, and would even save him from having to answer questions.

Ostensibly he could speak Roumanian, English with a Chicago flavour, and only a smattering of Russian or German. He might, thus equipped, employ the "idiot-boy" method when questioned by Red patrols and so make his way with luck to the Sart's farm.

Xenia's case was more difficult, for Bielschapska, their guardian angel, had decided that she should carry the Plan.

They talked over the matter, weighing the pros and cons of many plans, for a number of hours, and discovered by discussion and thought insuperable objections to all these successive proposals.

Well on towards the day they were visited by another "Falcon," also a Polish girl, who was to provide the Austrian uniform, documents, and other details. These would include a bow of the Roumanian national colours to be worn above the "F. J. I." (Franz Josef Imperator) on the field-grey shako. This sporting of national colours had become the usual thing amongst the heterogeneous mass of nationalities that made up the old Austrian army,

even as the inchoate medley of the so-called Indian army. It would help the subaltern to be able to point to this bow, except that there was a danger that some too effusive Roumanian ally might burst inopportunely into welcome. The possibility needed forethought; the subaltern could only suggest an extemporised gumboil and bandage.

The uniform and papers had to be fetched from the dwelling of a brother Falcon," to whom they had been bequeathed, and who kept them as a sheet - anchor. Xenia's plans had necessarily to be amorphous. The subaltern insisted on seeing her safely out of Beshkent before he would make his own bow to the Reds.

For the moment she was to be equipped with two or three alternative disguises provided by sister "Falcons." They hoped most from the white burqa and stiff rectangular black chas band 2 of horsehair of a Sartianka, below which would peep tiny knee-boots of soft crinkled Persian leather embroidered in the green-andred tracery and love-knots of old Kashmir. The ample folds of the ankle-long burqa gave room for papers and the like.

At last a plan of sorts, which still gave plenty of chinks for disaster to creep in by, shaped itself out.

Iwwaz Bai was an important adjunct; he knew Beshkent

2 Musalman woman's veil.

he realised that the new-comer had recognised her. He waited for an arrest. Rather to his surprise this did not come. The man instead talked oilily to her, smirking and preening himself. Gradually the subaltern realised that this was one of the jelly-fish breed of ci-devant officer who drifted with the tide, putting up with whatever the Reds might choose. He had known Xenia in former days, and was now trying to renew a most unwelcome acquaintance. Xenia bore the trial well, but nothing she could do could rid her of the man, who seemed to imagine a conquest.

Soon a blowsy Red guard lurched up with rifle and fixed bayonet. He tackled both the ex-officer and Xenia, demanded who they were and their papers. A locomotive pushed the carriage and the little group almost out of the subaltern's sight. An altercation seemed to arise; the Red hauled the knock-kneed one towards the guardroom, and then clamoured for Xenia, whom he addressed as "my pigeon," to 'my pigeon," to come along as well. Iwwaz Bai followed humbly, carrying a trunk and a bundle. /

The four disappeared into the guard-room of the station ; the subaltern followed cautiously, and peered through the dirty cracked window. The room had in pre-revolutionary times been the station buffet. It was now bare except for a battered counter and a score of unclean Red soldiers of sorts,

lounging and spitting about it. Their rifles-ancient and untended Vetterlis and Berdans stood in a rack.

A little circle gathered round the four. They were confronted by some one who was evidently a Red official. The subaltern slunk in through the door, and jammed himself into the crowd of onlookers, fingering a hippocket tenderly.

The ex-officer was disposed of at once, and hustled out with a kick into the paved station - yard and the outer dark. The commissar glowered at Xenia and Iwwaz Bai, and started, after a few blood-curdling remarks, to search the small trunk which she had.

"Now comes the time," thought the subaltern. "This is the big crisis: the Plan is probably in that box."

All that heart-in-the-mouth feeling had gone from him; he felt quite calm, as if nothing now mattered very much. He patted his hip-pocket again, which gave him a snug feeling, and glanced at the position of the rifle-rack. Fortunately, it was in a corner, and the subaltern determined that he should be between it and his opponents when the lead began to fly.

Meanwhile the pompous sourfaced official, who seemed to be a commisar of the ControSvietka itself, was rummaging through the trunk. Through all this Xenia Dimitrievna stood and faced her death without a quiver and without a change of colour. Garment after frilly

garment came out, the soldiers gibed lewdly, and it was half empty when a big unshaven man elbowed his way in. He was incongruously dressed in European clothes of grubby grey flannel. He looked, paused, and spoke to the commissar. As far as the subaltern could follow his quick speech, he was that bureaucrat's chief assistant.

There were some important papers waiting in the bureau to be signed. The pompous man looked still more pompous and bureaucratically important behind his round spectacles. The big man offered to complete the search so that his superior might go to sign those papers.

This caused a little diversion. The superior at last stalked off, and the search continued. It seemed less thorough in the hands of the big man, but the elbowing Red soldiers missed little. One emptied the trunk, jabbing a knife in to find a possible double bottom; another snatched Iwwaz Bai's little bundle. He held up the quilted cotton abbah 1 that wrapped it, and ran his fingers down the seams, throwing it down with a curse at finding nothing.

The big man commanded the replacement of everything in the trunk, and went on to a little homily on the wickedness of trying to trick the officials of the Revolution. Luck seemed to be turning again, but where,

VOL. CCXV.-NO. MCCC.

thought the subaltern, was the Plan?

He could hardly believe his eyes and ears when he saw the pair likewise hustled into the empty courtyard. He slipped out like an eel in a bucket of oil, and met them met them in the black shadow under a tree. The train was still in the station. He whispered a few sentences to them and darted off running, regardless of every one, along the side of the line.

He stumbled through the sheds of the goods-yard and amongst countless points and switches. Well clear of everything, he came to a signal-lamp that showed green in a round white metal disc that turned atop of a five-foot steel pillar. He kicked and tore at a rusty iron pin: he could hear the train starting. At last the pin fell out. As the engine rumbled slowly towards him he turned the red light towards it, and vanished into a culvertpipe.

With groans and screechings of brakes and shouts, the train came to a standstill. People jumped out and a little crowd formed, whilst the engineman and brakesman and a gang of conductors walked jabbering to the signal. He saw Xenia and Iwwaz Bai mingle with that little crowd. After ten minutes' vociferation and cursing of signalmen the engine staff replaced the pin, judging that it had fallen out by acci

G 2