could think of no better plan for throwing the discoverer off his
guard than to reply.

Then a soft voice floated down to him--a woman's voice!

"Is that you?" The tongue was Serbian. Barney could understand it,
though he spoke it but indifferently.

"Yes," he replied truthfully.

"Thank Heaven!" came the voice from above. "I have been watching
you, and thought you one of the Austrian pigs. Quick! They are
coming--I can hear them;" and at the same instant Barney saw
something drop from the window to the ground. He crossed the alley
quickly, and could have shouted in relief for what he found
there--the end of a knotted rope dangling from above.

His pursuers were almost upon him when he seized the rude ladder to
clamber upward. At the window's ledge a firm, young hand reached out
and, seizing his own, almost dragged him through the window. He
turned to look back into the alley. He had been just in time; the
Austrian sentry, alarmed by the sound of approaching footsteps down
the alley, had stepped into view. He stood there now with leveled
rifle, a challenge upon his lips. From the advancing party came a
satisfactory reply.

At the same instant the girl beside him in the Stygian blackness of
the room threw her arms about Barney's neck and drew his face down
to hers.

"Oh, Stefan," she whispered, "what a narrow escape! It makes me
tremble to think of it. They would have shot you, my Stefan!"

The American put an arm about the girl's shoulders, and raised one
hand to her cheek--it might have been in caress, but it wasn't. It
was to smother the cry of alarm he anticipated would follow the
discovery that he was not "Stefan." He bent his lips close to her
ear.

"Do not make an outcry," he whispered in very poor Serbian. "I am
not Stefan; but I am a friend."

The exclamation of surprise or fright that he had expected was not
forthcoming. The girl lowered her arms from about his neck.

"Who are you?" she asked in a low whisper.

"I am an American war correspondent," replied Barney, "but if the
Austrians get hold of me now it will be mighty difficult to convince
them that I am not a spy." And then a sudden determination came to
him to trust his fate to this unknown girl, whose face, even, he had
never seen. "I am entirely at your mercy," he said. "There are
Austrian soldiers in the street below. You have but to call to them
to send me before the firing squad--or, you can let me remain here
until I can find a