stood a long table.

He was not permitted to linger here for long, but passed on into a small
room adjoining. Some one, speaking in English, told him to sit down. The
gag was removed from his stiff, inflamed mouth.

"Fetch him some water," said a voice that he was sure he recognised--a
high, querulous voice.

"Hello, Spantz," articulated Truxton, turning to the black-bearded, bent
figure.

There was an instance of silence. Then Spantz spoke, with a soft laugh:
"You will not know so much to-morrow, Herr King. Give him the water,
man. He has much to say to us, and he cannot talk with a dry throat."

"Nor an empty stomach," added King. He drank long of the pitcher that
was held to his lips.

"This is not the Regengetz," growled a surly voice.

"You mean, I don't eat?"

"Not at midnight, my friend."

"It seems to be an all-night joint."

"Enough," cried Spantz. "Bring him out here. The others have come."

King was pushed out into the larger room, where he was confronted by a
crowd of bewhiskered men and snaky-eyed women with most intellectual
nose-glasses. It required but a glance to convince him that the whiskers
were false.

For nearly an hour he was probed with questions concerning his business
in Edelweiss. Threats followed close upon his unsatisfactory answers,
though they were absolutely truthful. There was no attempt made to
disguise the fact that they were conspiring against the government; in
fact, they were rather more open than secretive. When he thought of it
afterward, a chill crept over him. They would not have spoken so openly
before him if they entertained the slightest fear that he would ever be
in a position to expose them.

"We'll find a way to make you talk to-morrow, my friend. Starving is not
pleasant."

"You would not starve me!" he cried.

"No. You will have the pleasure of starving yourself," said a thin-eyed
fellow whom he afterward knew as Peter Brutus.

He was thrown back into the little room. To his surprise and
gratification, the bonds on his wrists were removed. Afterward he was to
know that there was method in this action of his gaolers: his own utter
impotency was to be made more galling to him by the maddening knowledge
that he possessed hands and feet and lungs--and could not use them!

He found a match in his box and struck it. There was no article of
furniture. The floor was bare, the walls green with age. He had a
feeling that there would be rats; perhaps lizards.