his temples, for the line of the open window grew larger, increased,
and the shadow of a man gradually rose on the balcony. Rouletabille drew
his revolver.

The man stood up immediately behind one of the shutters and struck a
light blow on the glass. Placed as he was now he could be seen no more.
His shadow mixed with the shadow of the shutter. At the noise on
the glass Natacha's door had opened cautiously, and she entered the
sitting-room. On tiptoe she went quickly to the window and opened it.
The man entered. The little light that by now was commencing to dawn
was enough to show Rouletabille that Natacha still wore the toilette in
which he had seen her that same evening at Krestowsky. As for the man,
he tried in vain to identify him; he was only a dark mass wrapped in
a mantle. He leaned over and kissed Natacha's hand. She said only one
word: "Scan!" (Quickly).

But she had no more than said it before, under a vigorous attack, the
shutters and the two halves of the window were thrown wide, and silent
shadows jumped rapidly onto the balcony and sprang into the villa.
Natacha uttered a shrill cry in which Rouletabille believed still he
heard more of despair than terror, and the shadows threw themselves on
the man; but he, at the first alarm, had thrown himself upon the carpet
and had slipped from them between their legs. He regained the balcony
and jumped from it as the others turned toward him. At least, it was
so that Rouletabille believed he saw the mysterious struggle go in the
half-light, amid most impressive silence, after that frightened cry of
Natacha's. The whole affair had lasted only a few seconds, and the man
was still hanging over the balcony, when from the bottom of the hall a
new person sprang. It was Matrena Petrovna.

Warned by Koupriane that something would happen that night, and
foreseeing that it would happen on the ground-floor where she was
forbidden to be, she had found nothing better to do than to make her
faithful maid go secretly to the bedroom floor, with orders to walk
about there all night, to make all think she herself was near the
general, while she remained below, hidden in the dining-room.

Matrena Petrovna now threw herself out onto the balcony, crying in
Russian, "Shoot! Shoot!" In just that moment the man was hesitating
whether to risk the jump and perhaps break his neck, or descend less
rapidly by the gutter-pipe. A policeman fired and missed him, and the
man, after firing back