and do not even know it. They too will
face a squad of execution before the sun rises tomorrow. And they
never dream of it up there----"

She made a hopeless gesture:

"What is the use! When I came here from the Turkish Embassy, hearing
that you were here but believing the information false, I discovered
you conversing with a Russian spy--overheard her warn you to leave
this house.

"And there, all the while, unknown to me, in the _salle de jeu_ were
Curfoot and that unspeakable scoundrel Brandes! Why, the place was
swarming with enemies--and I never dreamed it!... Yet--I might have
feared some such thing--I might have feared that the man, Brandes, who
had betrayed me once, would do it again if he ever had the chance....
And he's done it."

There was a long silence. Ilse stood staring at the melancholy greyish
light on the window panes.

She said as though to herself:

"I shall never see another daybreak."... After a moment she turned and
began to pace the attic, a strange, terrible figure of haggard youth
in the shadowy light. "How horribly still it is at daybreak!" she
breathed, halting before Neeland. "How deathly quiet----"

The dry crack of a pistol cut her short. Then, instantly, in the dim
depths of the house, shot followed shot in bewildering succession,
faster, faster, filling the place with a distracting tumult.

Neeland jerked up his pistol as a nearer volley rattled out on the
landing directly underneath.

Sengoun, exasperated, shouted:

"Well, what the devil is all this!" and ran toward the head of the
stairs, his pistol lifted for action.

Then, in the garret doorway, Weishelm appeared, his handsome face
streaming blood. He staggered, turned mechanically toward the stairs
again with wavering revolver; but a shot drove him blindly backward
and another hurled him full length across the floor, where he lay with
both arms spread out, and the last tremors, running from his feet to
his twitching face.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A RAT HUNT

The interior of the entire house was now in an uproar; shots came fast
from every landing; the semi-dusk of stair-well and corridor was
lighted by incessant pistol flashes and the whole building echoed the
deafening racket.

"What do you make of it?" shouted Sengoun furiously, standing like a
baited and perplexed bull. "Who's fighting who in this fool of a
place? By Erlik! I'd like to know whom I'm to fire at!"

Ilse Dumont, creeping along the wall, looke