“Stop that man,” I called, pointing to him.
In an instant his path was blocked; and I hoped that he was going to have a taste of the treatment of which he had secured such a full meal for me.
He would have had it surely enough but for an interruption from outside.
The luck had turned right in our favour. Three or four men shouldered their way into the house and in their midst I saw my friend Ladislas. He was known to many of the crowd, who made way for him with a loud cheer.
In a few words I made the situation clear to him, and added that Bremenhof was in the room above, and that if the crowd got wind of it in their present temper, they would tear him to pieces.
He succeeded ultimately in inducing the people to leave the house; and putting Burski in charge of three men, Ladislas, Volna and I went up to Bremenhof.
He was in a condition of desperate terror and, as we entered, started up and stared at us wide-eyed, trembling and abject.
“You are in no danger, Colonel Bremenhof,” said Ladislas. “They shall take my life before I will see you harmed.”
“Not quite so fast as that, Ladislas,” I declared. “Colonel Bremenhof knew what his man, Burski, intended in setting the crowd on me, and I have a reckoning to settle.”
The hunted expression in his eyes which had been calmed somewhat by my friend’s words, returned as he asked: “What do you mean?”