nd fellow, brave as
a lion and ready to march cheerfully into the mouth of hell if duty
calls. But he knows no tactics. His very courage is almost a
disadvantage, leading him to disdain reasonable caution. I felt that our
guardians were again going to sacrifice themselves to these vermin. It
was terrible. It was a wicked waste of precious lives. Could nothing be
done to prevent it?

"According to Mrs. Kosminsky, the 'chentlemens' were in the second floor
front--the room with the sliding panel. Then I could, at least, keep a
watch on them. I walked slowly upstairs gnashing my teeth with
irritation. The sacrifice was so unnecessary. I could think, offhand, of
half a dozen ways of annihilating these wretches without risking a
single hair of any decent person's head. And here were the police, with
all the resources of science at their disposal and practically unlimited
time in which to work, actually contemplating a fight with all the odds
against them!

"I stole into the second floor front and, by the light of a match, found
the cupboard. The inside panel--as I will call the one on my side--slid
back without a sound. There was now only the second panel between me
and the next room, and I could plainly hear the murmur of voices and
sounds of movement. But I could not distinguish what was being said; and
as this was of some importance, I determined to try the other panel.
Grasping the handle, I gave a firm but gradual pull, and felt the panel
slide back quite silently for a couple of inches. Instantly the voices
became perfectly distinct and a whiff of foul, stuffy air came through,
with a faint glimmer of light; by which I knew that the cupboard on
their side was at least partly open.

"'I tell you, Piragoff,' a voice said in Russian, 'you are nervous about
nothing. The police are looking for us, but they know none of us by
sight. We can go about quite safely.'

"'I am not so sure,' replied another voice--presumably Piragoff's. 'The
babbling fool who let us the house may talk more; and who knows but some
of our own people may betray us. That woman Kosminsky looked very
queerly at us, I thought.'

"'Bah!' exclaimed the other. 'Come and lie down, Piragoff. Tomorrow we
will leave this place and separate. We shall go away for a time and they
will forget us. Put some more coke in the stove and let us go to sleep.'

"How incalculable are the groupings of factors that evolve the causation
of events! Those last words of the