affair was with the Servian alone. The fellow continued to mumble his
threats; but Armitage had resolved to play the part of an Englishman who
understood no German, and he addressed the man sharply in English several
times to signify that he did not understand.

The Servian half turned toward his prisoner, the revolver in his left
hand, while with the fingers of his right he felt laboriously for a lamp
that had been revealed by the fitful flashes of the matches. It is not an
easy matter to light a lamp when you have only one hand to work with,
particularly when you are obliged to keep an eye on a mysterious prisoner
of whose character you are ignorant; and it was several minutes before
the job was done.

"You will go to that corner;" and the Servian translated for his
prisoner's benefit with a gesture of the revolver.

"Anything to please you, worthy fellow," replied Armitage, and he obeyed
with amiable alacrity. The man's object was to get him as far from the
inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of
course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized.

Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his
left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was
at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the
interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway
leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door
with care.

Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the
middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about