He made no reply.
"Did your instructions include the unwarrantable attack I heard being made upon my companion?"
"My instructions were to detain you, and I must really leave all explanations to my superior."
"Then I wish you'd leave the room as well," I retorted curtly, and, to my surprise, he took me at my word, and went out immediately, giving a command, in a tone loud enough to reach me, that the men stationed outside the door were to remain there.
As soon as I was alone I resolved to escape by the window. I got up and stole softly to it. It was shuttered, but the fastenings were on the inside, and as I tried them gently and slowly I found they were easy to release. But I knew the men outside the door would be on the alert, and that the least noise I made would bring them in.
I sat down again, therefore, and began to make a noisy clatter with some of the furniture. I banged the door of the big stove, upset a couple of chairs, and threw down some things from the table. As I stooped to pick them up one of the men put his head in at the door.
"Well, what the devil do you want?" I cried, with an angry scowl.
"I thought you called, sir," he answered.
"That's a ready lie, my man. You came because you heard a noise. That was the noise," and I picked up a chair and threw it across the room at the door. "Just hand it back, will you?"
He picked it up and placed it near the door, and went out, and I heard him mutter something to his companion about my being a "queer sort."