“WHAT are you doing, M. Denver?” asked Helga.

Her inopportune arrival took me so completely by surprise that for the moment I could think of no plausible answer.

“I—I was seeing to the security of the door,” I said very lamely.

“Making it secure by drawing back the bolts, do you mean?”

Her voice had still the hard steely tone that had so hurt me before, and her glance was coldly penetrating.

“One must first draw back a bolt before shooting it again to see that it is in order.”

“You had already drawn back two and were on the third when I stopped you. You were going to open the door.”

“You know so well what I was doing that I suppose you know also I was going to open the door to let the men in. I am a spy and was acting like you no doubt think a spy would. Why should I try to hide things any longer? You know me so well.” I spoke as if now reckless.

“Ivan has told me everything you said to him, monsieur.”

“Then Ivan’s a fool and ought to have his head punched. You told me before that means must be found to stop his chattering tongue. Of course he only knows what I chose to tell him.”

“You were going out to these men in a forlorn hope of making them see you are not the Emperor.”

I laughed and shrugged my shoulders.“That’s what I told him. But you know me better than to think me such a fool. You know I was going out as one spy to other spies.”

“Then you were really going out to them?”

“My capacity to harm you in here being checkmated, it was natural enough I should look for some other means. Surely you can see this.” And after a short pause I added with another laugh, “You have made me your enemy, you see, and must take the consequences.”

For a moment or two she said nothing, keeping her eyes fixed intently on my face, with an expression that baffled me.

“How were you going to do what you said to Ivan?”

“Isn’t that just a ridiculous question? I had to make up some sort of yarn for him. But you know how good I am at acting. I said what came first, of course; but I tell you I was going out to give these men the chance of getting at you easily—to set them on you, that is.”

Her eyes clouded and she frowned.

“Can you never tell me the truth, never be candid with me?”

“Surely you are unreasonable. How could I make a more perfectly candid declaration of war?”

“Do you wish me to think you utterly vile, that you paint yourself in these colours?” The cold steel tone gave place to a note of passion.

“I know what you think of me. You told me to-night; and I don’t see that anything could make it much worse.”

“Yet you have forgotten.” Her voice was cold steel again.

“Perhaps. Of course a spy must have unpleasant things said to him, and have to learn to forget quickly. It’s a happy gift at times I assure you.” I spoke as indifferently as I could.

“There is not a true note in your voice. You do remember that I said I would not owe my safety to you. I repeat it, I will not.”

“Is that any reason you should object to my going out to betray you?”

“Do you wish to insult as well as humiliate me, monsieur?”

The pendulum of her mood was swinging over to passion again.

“Have you spared me?” I asked sharply. “When the lash of your contemptuous words is burning and scorching like fire strokes now? Had you not deemed me utterly base and mean, would you have said what you did? If you thought it then, you must think it now; and you may as well think I am foul and cowardly enough to go out and betray you? It would be no great effort of imagination for you. I beg your pardon,” I said, thrusting my momentary anger away. “I did not mean to lose my temper. I have been sorely tried, but I will not do that. No, I do not wish to humiliate or insult you. I thought perhaps I could help you a bit out of this mess I have got you into.”

“I should regard your help as a humiliation, monsieur.”

“Knowing that, I did not mean you to hear of it. That’s Ivan’s fault.”

“You shall not go out to them, monsieur.”

“Very well, mademoiselle.”

I bowed, and she stamped her foot angrily at the gesture.

“You know your life would not be worth a moment’s purchase.”

“You have done me the honour to show how worthless it is.”

“You twist everything I say to you,” she cried impatiently. “You will give me your word of honour that you will not go out.”

“You are very inconsistent. At one moment you all but order me out of your house; at the next you prevent my going. It is absurd.”“When I told you you could leave, we did not know of the danger.”

“What is my life to you?” I took a leaf out of her book and asked the question in a tone as cold and hard as she had used, while I looked at her very steadily. She met my look but did not answer my question. “You think me a spy, what then——”

“I do not think you a spy, monsieur. You know that. You heard me tell M. Boreski that I would answer for you. You can be bitterly unjust.”

So there was some feeling after all under her cold manner.

“We will not speak of injustice, mademoiselle,” I said, in the same tone. “But I had forgotten Boreski. I owe this to him even more than to you perhaps; so that I cannot pass my word not to go out. He would not object—nor his Duchess either.”

“You will drive me mad, monsieur,” she cried impetuously.

“Because I use the tone you have taught me?”

“I say you shall not do this insane thing.”

Her passion mounted fast enough now, and I was not unwilling to feed the fire. Anything rather than her contempt.

“Very well. Then shall we go in and play a hand at cards while these gentlemen outside complete their plans? Allow me,” and I made a mocking pretence to offer my arm.

She drew back and trembled with anger.

“How dare you!” she cried.

I flung up my hands.

“You are difficult to please, mademoiselle,” I said, smiling airily.

“Will you give me your word?”

“Can you suggest any other way out of the thing? That is much more to the point.”

“You shall not risk your life in this mad way.”

“Hush!” I held up my hand. My ear had caught the sound of grating steps on the stone outside the door. We stood and listened, and the sound came again, followed by a gentle knock at the door.

I led her a few paces away.

“I’m going to answer that knock myself. Trust me. I will not betray you. Go into the room to Boreski.”

“Not for a thousand worlds,” she answered vehemently.

“Let this misunderstanding cease. I will run no unnecessary risks.”

There are moments when many things are made plain; and that was one of them for Helga and me.

“I cannot trust you—to run no risks, I mean. I cannot.”

“In other things?” She was silent. “Helga?”

She started as I used her name, and drew a deep breath which escaped in a tremulous sigh.

“You know,” she whispered.

My heart gave a great leap.

“Thank God!”

The knock at the door was repeated.

“Do as I ask and leave me to deal with this. I shall run no risks—now.”

“I—I cannot.”

Ivan had heard the second knock and now came to us asking for instructions.

“Can you ascertain how many there are at the door here, Ivan? Try and make out from some upper window.”

“You will not venture out?” said Helga as soon as he had gone.

“Everything is altered now. I go back to my former plan. We can stay here until it is safe to leave—since we know these men are dogging us, daylight will probably be the safest; and we will get to the Emperor when you are safely concealed in the city.”

I had too much to live for now to care about putting my life to the hazard in the way I had purposed in my mood of desperation. It was once more my desire now to make the men believe that I was indeed the Emperor, so that the pursuit of me should cease the instant I could get back to the Palace.

But my plans were still fated to be thwarted.

“I can only make out two men, monsieur; but there may be many others hidden close by,” said Ivan, returning.

“We can at any rate speak to them. Call a couple of the men to be ready at hand in case of need,” I told him; and in that way like a fool played into their hands.

Ivan at my bidding went to the door and called through it—

“Who is there?”

“We are police. Open.”

This was either a very ugly new development or a lie. I chose to regard it as the latter.

“What do you want?” was Ivan’s next question.

“We seek M. Vastic. Open at once.”

“There is nobody here of that name. We open the door to no one at this time of night.”

“We shall break it in,” said the voice. “Open, in the name of the Emperor.”

“Tell them to break it in if they can,” said I, and Ivan gave the reply; whereupon they commenced to hammer and bang at the door with such a clatter that the mere noise itself ought to have roused my suspicions. But my wits were as dull as a dunce’s to their ruse; and I had not a thought of their trick until a loud noise with a great smashing of glass at the back of the house told us their object had been merely to distract our attention downstairs while the real attack was delivered on an upper floor.

“Go to Boreski, mademoiselle,” I cried as I dashed up the broad stairway, followed by Ivan and the men. The others had rushed up by a back staircase and met us on the landing.

“Where have they got in?” I asked.“That room,” said one of them, pointing to a door. A glance at it showed me the key was outside, and in a moment I had turned it upon those within. Not a second too soon. As the lock shot home the handle was rattled by some one inside.

Ivan had seen me and immediately rushed through into an adjoining room where I heard him lock and bolt the door.

“The room leads into this dressing-room, monsieur,” he said as he came out. “But the door is only a slight one and will not keep them back.”

I went in and examined it, and, coming to the same conclusion, promptly abandoned it as a point of defence. I then sent Ivan to fetch Boreski, and while he was away thought out an impromptu scheme for defending the landing place.

It lent itself well enough to such a purpose. It formed a square, on one side of which were the stairs; and it was thus possible to place men so that they could command the doors by which the men must come out; and my simple plan was to form a sort of barricade with some heavy pieces of furniture from behind which we could operate.

With Boreski came Helga full of pluck, resource and ideas. I explained my plan to them and sent two men downstairs to keep watch against a further surprise.

“We can keep the watch, the Duchess and I,” said Helga instantly; “and thus leave you much stronger.” But the Duchess as promptly declared she had no nerve for work of the kind and further tried to induce Boreski to stay with her.

He was no coward, however, and when Helga vetoed the suggestion with great indignation and I joined with her, he sided with us and she had to give way, doing so with great reluctance.

Helga then went downstairs and our preparations were soon complete.

Meanwhile the men in the room were suspiciously quiet. Probably they realized, as we did, that they had gained very little by getting into the house by the way they had chosen and were really caught in a kind of trap, from which further progress into the house would be attended with more danger than they cared to face.

A glance at my watch showed me, to my surprise, it was nearly eleven o’clock. The hours had flown very quickly.

“At what hour is it daylight?” I asked Boreski.

“About half-past three,” he said.

“Then we shall have four or five hours of this. They’ll clear off when the light comes.”

“Hadn’t we better speak to them?”

“By all means if you can do any good. You know them, I don’t.”

He climbed over the barricade and rapped at the door.

“Who is there?” he asked. “I am Boreski.” No reply was made, and he knocked and called again. “I don’t believe any one is in there,” he said to me in a whisper. “I can’t hear a sound.”

“Let’s hope they’ve gone then, but I doubt it,” I replied, and then as a suspicion flashed on me, I turned to Ivan. “What about the upper storey. Are there any ladders about the place long enough to reach it?”

“Yes, monsieur, at the stables.”

“That explains the silence then. Come with me quickly;” and climbing the barricade I rushed up, followed closely by Ivan. We were in the nick of time.

They had already planted a long ladder reaching to the window of one of the front rooms and three of them were more than half-way up. I threw the window open.

“Come, gentlemen, quicker please. You keep us waiting,” I called.

The result was almost comical. The man at the top muttered something to those below him, and in an instant all three went sliding helter-skelter to the ground, and picking themselves up scurried off in the darkness to cover.

“They won’t be in a hurry to try that again,” I said as I closed the window; “but we must watch them. Let one of the men come up here and keep a lookout;” and I went down again to Boreski.

Another long wait followed during which we heard plenty of movement in the room close at hand.

“Something’s doing,” I said. “I wish to Heaven we knew what.”

“I’ll try to speak to them again,” he replied, and made a second attempt with no better result.

Later, Helga sent for me. I found she had got the women-servants well in hand and all were engaged in keeping a vigilant watch.

“We can see them going up and down that ladder, and each man seems to carry something up and come down empty handed. See,” and she led me to a small barred window from which I could see the ladder.

What I saw made me catch my breath. A couple of men went up with an armful of straw and a third followed with a bundle of small wood. They were going to set fire to the house. I did not speak this thought to Helga.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“I’ll try to find out.”

“You think I’m afraid, I suppose? You know that they mean to set the house on fire, and you won’t say it.”

“I mean that I’ll find the way to stop that. Call to me the moment those three men come down again.”

I returned to Boreski and told him.

“We must enter that room and stop it.”

“Yes, I’m with you.”

“You go in by the dressing-room door and take Ivan. I’ll take this man. When I call to you, get in as fast as you can. Turn out all the lights here or they’ll see us enter.”

Out they went promptly and we stood in the darkness waiting for Helga’s voice.

“They’ve come down, monsieur,” she called a few minutes later, and in a trice I had turned the key and burst into the room.

The luck was ours. The room was empty. Never dreaming that we should venture in, they had left it unguarded. All round the sides were piled heaps of straw and dry wood, ready to be fired, and the evidence of their dastardly trick lay plain to our eyes.

Had it not been for Helga’s quickness the infernal plan would have been successful.

“We have them now,” I said eagerly to Boreski. “We’ll trap them here. They’ll be back in a moment. We’ll wait and give them an unexpected welcome.”

We hid in the darkness, the four of us, and presently heard the sound of heavy feet mounting the ladder.

“No shooting,” I whispered. “Just seize them. We may catch more by-and-by in the same trap. And wait until all are in the room. Silence like death, till I move.”

Not a sound escaped us, and for my part I held my breath when the head and shoulders of the first man appeared at the open window, and he stepped all unsuspecting into the room; and a second and then a third followed, each with his bundle of straw or wood as fuel.

One of the men came so near me to deposit the burden that he almost touched me, and as he stooped to put it down, I gave the signal.

“Now,” I cried in a loud voice and sprang upon my man. A scene of wild tumult followed as the series of tough struggles commenced. The men fought hard, and we stumbled and tumbled and wrestled in the darkness, blundering hither and thither, taking and giving fierce blows, often knocking up against one another, mingled at times in dire confusion, all straining with desperate effort, breathing hard and speaking scarce a word save when some sharp ejaculation of anger or pain, or a violent oath leapt from between tight-clenched teeth.

Ivan was the first to beat his man, and soon afterwards, as my hand chanced to knock against a heavy billet of wood, I seized it and dealt my antagonist a blow on the head which laid him out.

I was considering how to use the victory when some one came to the foot of the ladder, ran up a few rungs, and called—

“Start the fire.”

At the same instant a tremendous crash was heard in the lower part of the house, followed by loud screams from the women and the gruff tones of men. Then Helga’s voice came loud and piercing, calling to me for help.