eared into the cavernous
alley, shortly to loom up in the deserted courtyard of the hotel. He
counted the windows on the first floor and stopped at the fourth. That
was the window he must enter. Noiselessly he crept along the walls,
stopping now and then to listen. There was no sound except the
monotonous dripping of the rain, which was growing thinner and colder.

Presently he came across the ladder he was seeking. He raised it to the
required height, and once more placed his hand to his ear. Silence. He
mounted the rounds to the window, which he found unfastened. In another
moment he was in the room. Not an object could he see, so deep was the
darkness. If he moved without light he was likely to stumble, and heydey
to his fifty crowns, not to say his liberty for many days to come. He
carefully drew the blinds and struck a match. The first object which
met his gaze was a fallen candle. This he lit and when the glare of the
flame softened, all the corners of the room stood out. Nowhere was there
any sign of a gun. He gave vent to a half-muttered curse. Some one had
pilfered the gun, or the proprietor was keeping it until the Englishman
returned from the duchy. But he remembered that there were two guns, one
of which the Englishman did not use in the hunting expeditions.

So he began a thorough search. It meant fifty crowns, green baize and
the whims of fortune. Cautiously he moved between the fallen chairs. He
looked behind the bed, under the dresser, but without success. His hand
closed savagely around the candle, and he swore inaudibly. He threw back
the bed coverings, not that he expected to find anything, but because
he could vent his rage on these silent, noiseless things. When he lifted
the mattress it was then he took a deep breath and smiled. What he saw
was a gun case. He drew it from under. It was heavy; his fifty crowns
were inside. Next he picked up a candlestick and stuffed the candle into
it, and laid a quilt against the threshold of the door so that no light
would pierce the corridor.

"This is the gun the Englishman did not use in the hunting expeditions,"
he thought. "If it is out of repair, as he said it was, my fifty crowns
are not so many pfennige. The devil! it must be a valuable piece of
gunsmithing, to hide it under the bedclothes. Let me see if my crowns
are for the picking."

He investigated forthwith. The hammers and the triggers worked smoothly.
He unlocked the breech and held the nozzles t