m, it
touched his chest very gently, and then he understood. The hand was
creeping upwards towards his throat.

Meanwhile Wogan had seen no face, though the face must be just below the
level of the bed. He only saw the hand and the arm behind it. He moved
as if in his sleep, and the hand disappeared. As if in his sleep, he
flung out his left arm and felt for the sign-board standing beside his
bed. The bed was soft. Wogan wanted something hard, and it had occurred
to him that the sign-board would very well serve his turn. An idea, too,
which seemed to him diverting, had presented itself to his mind.

With a loud sigh and a noisy movement such as a man halfway between
wakefulness and sleep may make he flung himself over onto his left side.
At the same moment he lifted the white sign-board onto the bed. It
seemed that he could not rest on his left side, for he flung over again
to his right and pulled the bedclothes over as he turned. The sign-board
now lay flat upon the bed, but on the right side between himself and the
man upon the floor. His mouth uttered a little murmur of contentment, he
drew down the hand beneath the pillow, and in a second was breathing
regularly and peacefully.

[Illustration: "WITH HIS RIGHT ARM HE DROVE HIS HUNTING KNIFE DOWN INTO
THE BACK OF THE HAND."--_Page 69_.]

The hand crept onto the bed again and upwards, and suddenly lay spread
out upon the board and quite still. Just for a second the owner of that
hand had been surprised and paralysed by the unexpected. It was only
that second which Wogan needed. He sat up, and with his right arm he
drove his hunting knife down into the back of the hand and pinned it
fast to the board; with his left he felt for, found, and gripped a mouth
already open to cry out. He dropped his hunting knife, caught the
intruder round the waist, lifted him onto the bed, and setting a knee
upon his chest gagged him with an end of the sheet. The man fought
wildly with his free hand, beating the air. Wogan knelt upon that arm
with his other knee.

Wogan needed a rope, but since he had none he used the sheets and bound
his prisoner to the bed. Then he got up and went to the door. The house
was quite silent, quite dark. Wogan shut the door gently--there was no
key in the lock--and bending over the bed looked into the face of his
assailant. The face was twisted with pain, the whites of the eyes glared
horribly, but Wogan could see that the man was his landlord.

He stoo