I was more safe inside the house than out.

They still had my passport and laissez- passer, and without a pass one could not walk a hundred yards.

As the staff had but one plan, and no time in which to think of a better one, the obligation to invent a substitute plan lay upon me.

The plan I thought out and which later I outlined to Major Wurth was this: Instead of putting me away at midnight, they would give me a pass back to Brussels.

The pass would state that I was a suspected spy and that if before midnight of the 26th of August I were found off the direct road to Brussels, or if by that hour I had not reported to the military governor of Brussels, any one could shoot me on sight.