nstead of to their true cause, the creeping over him of the
soft influences of sleep. The faces in the coals were so soothing; the
armchair was so comfortable; so sweet the breath that gently pressed
upon his eyelids; so subtle the growth of the sensation of safety. He
settled down deeper into the chair and in another moment would have been
asleep when the red flag began to shake violently to and fro and he sat
bolt upright as if he had been stabbed in the back.

Someone was coming up the stairs. The boards creaked beneath a stealthy
weight.

Shorthouse sprang from the chair and crossed the room swiftly, taking up
his position beside the door, but out of range of the keyhole. The two
candles flared unevenly on the table at the foot of the bed. The steps
were slow and cautious--it seemed thirty seconds between each one--but
the person who was taking them was very close to the door. Already he
had topped the stairs and was shuffling almost silently across the bit
of landing.

The secretary slipped his hand into his pistol pocket and drew back
further against the wall, and hardly had he completed the movement when
the sounds abruptly ceased and he knew that somebody was standing just
outside the door and preparing for a careful observation through the
keyhole.

He was in no sense a coward. In action he was never afraid. It was the
waiting and wondering and the uncertainty that might have loosened his
nerves a little. But, somehow, a wave of intense horror swept over him
for a second as he thought of the bestial maniac and his attendant Jew;
and he would rather have faced a pack of wolves than have to do with
either of these men.

Something brushing gently against the door set his nerves tingling
afresh and made him tighten his grasp on the pistol. The steel was cold
and slippery in his moist fingers. What an awful noise it would make
when he pulled the trigger! If the door were to open how close he would
be to the figure that came in! Yet he knew it was locked on the inside
and could not possibly open. Again something brushed against the panel
beside him and a second later the piece of crumpled paper fell from the
keyhole to the floor, while the piece of thin wire that had accomplished
this result showed its point for a moment in the room and was then
swiftly withdrawn.

Somebody was evidently peering now through the keyhole, and realising
this fact the spirit of attack entered into the heart of the beleaguered
man