He awoke, dragging himself back to consciousness . . . Time had passed—much time, he felt certain of it. Where was he? He blinked up at the light—there were pains in his arms and legs . . . he felt sick . . . the taste of the coffee was still in his mouth . . . But what was this? He was lying on the floor, bound hand and foot with strips of towel, and standing over him was the sinister figure of the woman who was not Dutch. His wits came back to him in a flash of sheer desperate fear. He was in danger . . . great danger . . .

She marked the growth of consciousness in his eyes, and answered it as though he had actually spoken.

‘Yes, I will tell you now. You remember passing through a place called Voogplaat, in Belgium?’

He recalled the name. Some twopenny-ha’penny village he had passed through with his regiment.

She nodded, and went on.

‘You came to my door with some other soldiers. My man was away with the Belgian Army. My first man—not Henshel, I have only been married to him two years. The boy, my little one—he was only four years of age—ran out. He began to cry—what child would not? He feared the soldiers. You ordered him to stop. He could not. You seized a chopper—ah God!—and struck off his hand! You laughed, and said: “That hand will never wield a weapon against Germany.”’

‘It is not true,’ cried Schaefer, shrilly, ‘And even if it was—it was war!’

She paid no heed, but went on.

‘I struck you in the face. What mother would not have done otherwise? You caught up the child . . . and dashed him against the wall . . .’

She stopped, her voice broken, her breast heaving . . .

Schaefer murmured feebly, abandoning the idea of denial.

‘It was war . . . it was war . . .’

The sweat stood on his brow. He was alone with this woman, miles from help . . .

‘I recognised you at once this afternoon in spite of your beard. You did not recognise me. You said it was chance led you here—but I knew it was God . . .’

Her bosom heaved, her eyes flashed with a fanatical light. Her God was Schaefer’s God—a God of vengeance. She was uplifted by the strange, stern frenzy of a Priestess of old.

‘He has delivered you into my hands.’

Wild words poured from Schaefer, arguments, prayers, appeals for mercy, threats. And all left her untouched.

‘God sent me another sign. When I opened the Bible tonight, I saw what He would have me do. Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be . . .’

She stooped and took from the floor a hammer and some long, shining nails . . . A scream burst from Schaefer’s throat. He remembered now the fourth chapter of Judges, that dramatic story of black inhospitality! Sisera fleeing from his enemies . . . a woman standing at the door of a tent . . . Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite . . .