the world, almost six feet tall, with great hands and jaws. One had
black, coarse hair on his head and a stubble about his face; the other
was bald as an egg.

"That's him," Mrs. Scharpe said--just a trifle hesitantly. "He's the
one. He came to stay with us and we didn't know--"

The man with black hair said: "Uh. Gur."

"Herr Knupf said take him back," the bald one added.

"Herr Knupf?" Jonas said, entering the conversation with a light,
pleasant tone.

"He's the ... the--" Mrs. Scharpe tried to get the word out, and then
pushed by the two men and came into the hut. "I didn't want to but
there's something strange, and we can't afford any suspicion, and--"

Jonas realized slowly that she was crying as she looked at him. "It's
all right," he said uncomfortably.

"You're--"

"I'll be perfectly all right," Jonas said. He stood up. "This Herr
Knupf," he said. "He wants to see me?"

"He said bring you along," the bald man told him.

The black-haired man nodded very slowly. "Gur," he said.

Jonas sighed and went forward to meet the two big men, leaving Mrs.
Scharpe sobbing in the background. The poor woman felt terrible, he
knew; but there was nothing he could do about that. "Then let us go,"
he said, and marched off. Feeling that one more effect wouldn't hurt,
he led the way to the Town Hall; let them figure out how he had known
just where to go, he thought.

Their minds were very, very boring, and quite blank. Herr Knupf, Jonas
reflected, might be a definite relief.

* * * * *

First there was the cell, which was in the basement of the Town Hall. It
was damp and the air was not too good, but there were compensations.
Rats, for instance. Jonas told himself, after the first couple of hours,
that he simply wouldn't have known what to do without the rats. Trying
to trap and kill them, with no weapons beyond his bare hands--even an
eating knife he had carried in his jerkin had been taken away, leaving
him to the uncomfortable reflection that he was going to have to dine
with his fingers--was a pastime that occupied him for several hours on
the first day.

On the second day, the rats began to bore him. By that evening, they
were annoying him, and when the third day dawned bright and warm--as
near as he could tell from the tiny slip of window at the top of his
cell--Jonas was telling himself that any move at all was a move in the
right direction.

He set up a shout for one of th