s it would have been confiscated at the frontier. I'm a
civilian, and--I've been in Russia before! But if you'd had a
six-shooter--"

"There would have been no fight; they would have run the sooner,--all
the better for some of them," he answered, and as he spoke the mirth
passed from his face, leaving it stern and sad. "I ought to have had a
revolver, of course, but I was pitched out of bed without any warning,
as I presume you were. By the way, Mr. Wynn, in the official report no
mention is made of our--how do you call it?"

"Scrimmage?" I suggested.

"Ah, that is the word. Our scrimmage. Your name is in the list of
those wounded by the explosion of the bomb. It was a bomb, as perhaps
you have learned. Believe me, as you are going to Petersburg, and
expect to remain there for some time, you will be the safer if no
one--beyond myself and the few others on the spot, most of whom can be
trusted--knows that you saved my life. Ah, yes, indeed you did that!" he
added quickly, as I made a dissentient gesture. "I could not have kept
them off another minute. Besides, you saw them first, and warned me;
otherwise we should both have been done for at once."

"Do you know who they were?" I asked.

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I have my suspicions, and I do not wish others to be involved in my
affairs, to suffer through me. Yet it is the others who suffer," he
continued, speaking, as it seemed, more to himself than to me. "For I
come through unscathed every time, while they--"

He broke off and sat for a minute or more frowning, and biting his
mustache.

A sudden thought struck me. I rose and crossed to the French window
which stood open. Outside was a small balcony, gay with red and white
flowers. I nipped off a single blossom, closed the window, and returned
to where he sat, watching my movements intently.

"I, too, have my suspicions, sir," I said significantly. "I wonder if
they coincide with yours."

I laid the flower on the table beside him, flattening out the five
scarlet petals, and resumed my seat.

I saw instantly that he recognized the symbol, and knew what it meant,
doubtless better than I did.

He glanced from it to me, then round the room, crossed to the door,
opened it quickly, saw Mishka was standing outside, on guard, and closed
it again.

"Now, who are you and what do you know?" he asked quietly. "Speak low;
the very walls have ears."

"I know very little, but I surmise--"

"It is safer t