er when he held up a long Virginian cigar. Miss
Pleyel and the baroness bowed, and Roncivalli set his cigar over the
lamp until one end of it became incandescent. Then he began to smoke,
and at a wave from Miss Pleyel's hand took an arm-chair close to the
window. The baroness rose from her seat and poured out wine for
him. Motions of hand and eye, change of feature, and movement of lip
indicated an animated social converse, but not a word of it all reached
my ears. I was just meditating on Hinge's luck in the fact that on the
occasion of his watch the conspirators had thrown open the window as if
on purpose that he should secure a hearing of their deliberations, when
the baroness put her hand to her round white throat, with an exaggerated
gesture of oppression, and then waved it towards the window. Sacovitch
bowed and rose from his place. I laid a hand on Hinge, impelling him
downward as the Austrian police spy walked towards the window. We each
glued ourselves to the wall, and prostrated ourselves on the rainy
wood-work of the veranda walk. We heard the grating sound of the window
as it rose; and the mingled voices of the people inside--all _five_
speaking together--came out with a gush, and brought such anticipatory
joy and triumph to my heart as I had never felt before.

"Let us make sure," said Roncivalli, in a laughing tone. "We have
important business to discuss--at least, I am advised so--and it would
be just as well to be certain that we are not overheard." He raised
the Venetian blind by the cord, and for a moment the rattle sounded
as disturbing to the nerves as anything I can remember. But I heard
Sacovitch say:

"The veranda looks upon the river. There is nobody within hearing."

"We will see, in any case," Roncivalli responded, and with that he
thrust his head between the window-sill and the blind, and peeped out
into the river. The lamplight took him from behind and illuminated the
tips and edges of his hair, his beard, and his mustache, so that they
shone bright gold, though he was a man of darkish complexion. As he
turned his head sideways the white of his eye gleamed like an opal, and
bending suddenly he looked downward, seeming to stare me in the face
so intently that I did not even dare to breathe. I was so absolutely
certain that he would give an alarm that it came upon me with a shock of
relief beyond description when he drew his head back into the room, and
said that everything was clear.

"Tha