en them.

"You will pay me that which you owe," he stormed again.

"Stand aside!" said the German, and then to Marishka,

"If the Countess Strahni will be good enough to accompany me?" he said,
civilly.

But Marishka stood fixed, staring at him with alien eyes, as the Effendi
rushed forward toward her, his arms extended.

"She shall not go. She will see what has been done. He is _not the man_.
She will remain here in my house until----"

"Stand aside, Effendi!" cried Goritz furiously, and as the man did not
move, he caught him by the shoulder and thrust him roughly aside. He
scorned to use a weapon, and the other man and the woman seemed
completely dominated by his air of command.

"You will please come at once, Countess Strahni. There is no telling how
soon the police will be coming."

And as Marishka did not move--

"You heard?"

"I will not go," stammered Marishka.

Goritz paused, examining her keenly, as though he had not quite
understood.

"I have asked you quite courteously, Countess----"

"I will not go," repeated Marishka. Her voice was ice-cold, like her
body, which seemed to be frozen into immobility.

"I beg to remind you of your promise--to go with me----"

"I will not go," she said again.

"Then I must take you," he said, striding toward her furiously, and
reaching out a hand to seize her by the wrist.

Then a strange thing happened. The man in armor, in the corner behind
Marishka, strode clanking forth into the room, while a voice
reverberated in the iron helmet. What it said no one understood. The
Effendi gazed at the moving thing in terror, and then with a shriek fled
down the stairs, Zubeydeh and her companion, _calling in loud tones upon
Allah_, at his heels. Goritz glanced at the thing and then stood
irresolute a moment, as the man in the armor slowly raised an arm, for
at the end of the arm Goritz saw a revolver pointed directly at him.

"Hold up your hands, Captain Goritz," rang the voice from the depths of
the helmet. "Quickly, or I'll shoot."

Goritz bit his lips.

"Clever--Herr Renwick," he said coolly in English. "You've taken the
trick."

"Hold up your hands----"

But Goritz with a sudden leap had sprung behind Marishka. Renwick fired
once as he jumped, and missed. And now Goritz, shielding himself behind
Marishka's body, drew his automatic and fired again and again, riddling
the ancient armor like a sieve. Marishka struggled wildly in the arms of
the German, and m