"They must not. One man could hold the place indefinitely from the
protection of the gate. If the man would only wake!"

But Strohmeyer slept on.

"And Goritz?" she said anxiously. "Surely tonight he cannot be
sleeping."

"Perhaps he is so sure of himself--yes--in the passage below I
heard--there was to be a signal--one stroke of the postern bell----"

"But if the man sleeps----"

"If they come again--no matter what happens, we must warn him," he
decided.

"Sh----"

Renwick felt his arm seized suddenly by Marishka's icy fingers and
turned, following her wild gaze into the room behind them listening. The
anxieties of the night had made Marishka's senses keen. "The door!" she
whispered. "The secret door by which you came!"

Renwick listened. In a brief lull in the commotion outside, he heard a
slight sound, near and startlingly distinct like that of a rat in a
partition. Then in the blackness of the room, a gray streak appeared,
slowly widening. The door into the secret passage had opened, and the
starlight from the loophole beyond now showed a dusky silhouette.
Renwick felt Marishka's arm clutch his in terror, as Goritz noiselessly
stepped forward into the room. Renwick had instinctively drawn the
hanging behind him, and he and Marishka were in deep shadow while every
move that Goritz made was clearly defined. First he took a pace toward
the bed, then paused and turning struck a match and searched for the
candle.

He was in shirt sleeves. Renwick had drawn his automatic and could have
shot him easily. But murder, in cold blood--even when his life and
Marishka's depended upon it! Renwick could not. He saw Goritz turn from
the lighted candle and stare toward the empty bed and then quickly
search the shadows of the room. It was a long moment before he saw the
blaze of the candle beside him reflected in Renwick's eyes which peered
down the barrel of his automatic.

"What nonsense is this--Marishka----?" he began.

But Renwick's voice cut the darkness like a steel blade.

"Don't move--Goritz. Hands up--high!"

"Who----?"

"Hands up, I say----" And as he slowly obeyed, "Now turn toward the
bed----"

Goritz was now staring at Renwick as though he had seen a ghost, but he
knew better than to take his hands down.

"You----" he muttered. "You're----"

"I'm Renwick," said the Englishman crisply. "Now do as I tell you
or----"

He paused uncertainly, for at that moment, behind him through the window
came th