"I am an American war correspondent," replied Barney, "but if the Austrians get hold of me now it will be mighty difficult to convince them that I am not a spy." And then a sudden determination came to him to trust his fate to this unknown girl, whose face, even, he had never seen. "I am entirely at your mercy," he said. "There are Austrian soldiers in the street below. You have but to call to them to send me before the firing squad--or, you can let me remain here until I can find an opportunity to get away in safety. I am trying to reach Serbia.""Why do you wish to reach Serbia?" asked the girl sus-piciously.
"I have discovered too many enemies in Austria tonight to make it safe for me to remain," he replied, "and, further, my original intention was to report the war from the Serbian side."The girl hesitated for a while, evidently in thought.
"They are moving on," suggested Barney. "If you are going to give me up you'd better do it at once.""I'm not going to give you up," replied the girl. "I'm going to keep you prisoner until Stefan returns--he will know best what to do with you. Now you must come with me and be locked up. Do not try to escape--I have a revolver in my hand," and to give her prisoner physical proof of the weapon he could not see she thrust the muzzle against his side.
"I'll take your word for the gun," said Barney, "if you'll just turn it in the other direction. Go ahead--I'll follow you.""No, you won't," replied the girl. "You'll go first; but before that you'll raise your hands above your head. I want to search you."Barney did as he was bid and a moment later felt deft fingers running over his clothing in search of concealed weapons. Satisfied at last that he was unarmed, the girl directed him to precede her, guiding his steps from behind with a hand upon his arm. Occasionally he felt the muzzle of her revolver touch his body. It was a most unpleasant sensation.
They crossed the room to a door which his captor directed him to open, and after they had passed through and she had closed it behind them the girl struck a match and lit a candle which stood upon a little bracket on the partition wall. The dim light of the tallow dip showed Barney that he was in a narrow hall from which several doors opened into different rooms. At one end of the hall a stairway led to the floor below, while at the opposite end another flight disappeared into the darkness above.
"This way," said the girl, motioning toward the stairs that led upward.
Barney had turned toward her as she struck the match, obtaining an excellent view of her features. They were clear-cut and regular. Her eyes were large and very dark. Dark also was her hair, which was piled in great heaps upon her finely shaped head. Altogether the face was one not easily to be forgotten. Barney could scarce have told whether the girl was beautiful or not, but that she was striking there could be no doubt.
He preceded her up the stairway to a door at the top. At her direction he turned the knob and entered a small room in which was a cot, an ancient dresser and a single chair.
"You will remain here," she said, "until Stefan returns.
Stefan will know what to do with you." Then she left him, taking the light with her, and Barney heard a key turn in the lock of the door after she had closed it. Presently her footfalls died out as she descended to the lower floors.
"Anyhow," thought the American, "this is better than the Austrians. I don't know what Stefan will do with me, but Ihave a rather vivid idea of what the Austrians would have done to me if they'd caught me sneaking through the alleys of Burgova at midnight."Throwing himself on the cot Barney was soon asleep, for though his predicament was one that, under ordinary cir-cumstances might have made sleep impossible, yet he had so long been without the boon of slumber that tired nature would no longer be denied.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. The sun was pouring in through a skylight in the ceiling of his tiny chamber. Aside from this there were no windows in the room. The sound of voices came to him with an uncanny distinctness that made it seem that the speakers must be in this very chamber, but a glance about the blank walls con-vinced him that he was alone.
Presently he espied a small opening in the wall at the head of his cot. He rose and examined it. The voices ap-peared to be coming from it. In fact, they were. The opening was at the top of a narrow shaft that seemed to lead to the basement of the structure--apparently once the shaft of a dumb-waiter or a chute for refuse or soiled clothes.
Barney put his ear close to it. The voices that came from below were those of a man and a woman. He heard every word distinctly.
"We must search the house, fraulein," came in the deep voice of a man.