own everything in the
universe, even to the high seas. Well, we'll settle with your country
for its munitions and its notes and its driveling talk about atrocities
a little later, when we have finished up the Allies. And I'll deal with
you to-night if you dare to lift a hand."

There seemed only one answer possible, and my muscles were stiffening
for it when suddenly Miss Falconer's handkerchief, a mere wisp of linen
which she had been clenching between her fingers, dropped to the floor.
With a purely automatic movement, I bent to recover it for her; she
leaned down to receive it. Her pale face and lovely dilated eyes were
close to me for a fleeting second, and though her lips did not move, I
seemed to catch the merest breath, the faintest gossamer whisper that
said:

"The stairs!"

Blenheim's gaze, full of suspicion, was upon us as we straightened, but
he could not possibly have heard anything; I had barely heard myself. I
racked my brains. The stairs! But the man Schwartzmann was guarding them
with his revolver. I couldn't imagine what she meant; and then suddenly
I knew.

Throughout the entire scene, whenever I had glanced at her, I had
noticed the steady way in which her look met mine and then turned aside.
It had seemed almost like a signal or a message she was trying to give
me. And which way had her eyes always gone? Why, down the hall!

I looked in that direction and felt my heart leap up exultantly. Perhaps
twenty feet from us, just where the radius of the candle-light merged
off into the darkness, I glimpsed what seemed the merest ghost of a
circular stone staircase, carved and sculptured cunningly, like lacy
foam. Up into the dusk it wound, to the gallery, and to a door. Behold
our objective! I wasted no precious time in pondering the whys and the
wherefores. At any rate, once inside with the bolts shot we could count
on a breathing-space.

I cast a final glance at Blenheim where he lolled across the table, and
at the shadowy menacing figure of the armed sentinel on the stairs. The
men at the hearth had piled their wood and were bending forward to light
it.

"Be ready, please!" I said to the girl, aloud.

As I spoke I bent forward, seized the table by its legs, and raised
it, and concentrated all the wrath, resentment and detestation that
had boiled in me for half an hour into the force with which I dashed it
forward against Blenheim's face. He grunted profoundly as it struck
him. Toppling over wit