It was a stark impossibility to hang about on the off-chance of meeting Blenkiron.
I reflected with some bitterness that this was the 17th day of January, the day of our assignation.

I had had high hopes all the way down the Danube of meeting with Blenkiron--for I knew he would be in time--of giving him the information I had had the good fortune to collect, of piecing it together with what he had found out, and of getting the whole story which Sir Walter hungered for.

After that, I thought it wouldn't be hard to get away by Rumania, and to get home through Russia.

I had hoped to be back with my battalion in February, having done as good a bit of work as anybody in the war.

As it was, it looked as if my information would die with me, unless I could find Blenkiron before the evening.
I talked the thing over with Peter, and he agreed that we were fairly up against it.