And yet I was well on my way to the East, the Danube could not be fifty miles off, and that way ran the road to Constantinople.

It was a fairly desperate position.

If I tried to get away Stumm would prevent me, and the odds were that I would go to join Peter in some infernal prison-camp.
Those moments were some of the worst I ever spent.

I was absolutely and utterly baffled, like a rat in a trap.

There seemed nothing for it but to go back to London and tell Sir Walter the game was up.