that murder in
Serajevo was an awful thing--"

"It was frightful!" declared Stepan, passionately. "Every true Servian
will tell you the same thing! But it is a wicked Austrian lie to say
that Servia had anything to do with it! It was Austrian subjects who
were, perhaps, Serbs in blood, who planned it. We Servians did all we
could. Our government learned that trouble was brewing, and our minister
in Vienna begged the Archduke Franz Ferdinand to stay away or at least
to take especial precautions. The Serbs in Bosnia hated him because they
thought he was the man who planned the annexation. But to say that the
Servian government knew what was planned is to say what the Austrian
government knows to be false.

"No, that is only an excuse. Austria is afraid of us, of our patriotism.
She has determined to crush us before we are too strong. She is
trembling because of her memory of how we crushed the Turks."

CHAPTER V

UNDER FIRE

It was after midnight when Steve finally decided that it was safe to
venture from their retreat. And then they did not emerge by the way in
which they had entered it.

"This place has saved the life of many a Servian patriot in these last
few years," said Steve. "I think the Austrians have come near to finding
it once or twice. They have pursued some of our people to the very
entrance. But what has always puzzled them is that we never go out by
the way in which we come in. And one entrance we have never used except
for flight, and then only in a grave emergency. No Austrian pursuer has
ever seen that, or come near it. It is the one by which we shall escape
now. Keep still. That is all that is necessary. Keep still and follow
me."

Dick had guessed already that there were other entrances. He was not
prepared, however, for the elaborate system of rooms and passages that
were revealed as he followed Steve, who had now possessed himself of an
electric flashlight, and had given Dick one also.

"We could almost have stood a siege down here," explained Steve.
"Here--we seem to be in a dead alley, don't we?"

They had passed from the room in which they had waited to another, where
Dick had seen a plentiful supply of provisions and of drinking water in
great bottles. From this they had gone into a narrow passage, dark and
damp. Now Steve flashed his light on a blank wall. But a touch at the
right place brought a handle into view. This, when it was pulled, showed
that there was really a doo