It was altogether a house capable of offering stout resistance to any attack; and I saw in a moment that if I could once get inside, with a few resolute men, it would be possible to hold it for a long time against either mob or troops; and I concluded that, in common with many others in the city, it had been strengthened in view of the turbulent outbreaks which had been frequent enough in Belgrade.
The strength of the house reassured me somewhat until I found a weak spot. Some fifty yards along the smaller street were the stables; and I remembered that when I had been in the house on the previous day waiting in my vain attempt to see Gatrina, I had noticed a newly made door at the end of the garden, just at the point where, as I could now see, it would lead to the stables; while from the room where I had been placed, a French window quite unprotected led down a flight of steps to the garden path.
That was a weak spot indeed. But if it would render the house open to attack, it would also provide the means by which I could gain access if the need arose.
I was weighing all this in my mind most earnestly as I stood opposite the entrance to the stable, when Chris moved and growled. I silenced him, laying my hand on his head, and drew back with him into the deep shadow of a tree which stood in front of the portico of a house, and listened.
He never warned me without cause; and soon I caught the sound of approaching footsteps. I had no wish to be seen, so I slipped into the portico and pressed close against the wall, while I kept watch on the newcomer. He came along at a quick pace until he reached the stable, when he paused.
My first idea was that he was a servant who had overstayed his hours of leave and was puzzling how to get into the house without attracting notice.
But I was wrong. Presently he came out into the roadway and stared at the upper windows of the house. Then he went round to the front and again he paused and stared up at the windows there; and apparently not seeing what he sought—for the whole house was now in darkness—he scratched his head as if in perplexity, and came sauntering back toward the stables.
He was very slow in his movements, and his slowness irritated me. Presently a light shewed for an instant in one of the top windows at the back, and was almost instantly extinguished. This was repeated twice, at short intervals; and I heard the window raised very cautiously.
It was evidently the signal for which the man in the street had been waiting, for he whistled, just two notes softly, shewed himself in the roadway and then stepped back in the shadow of the stables and waited.
A vulgar assignation, I thought then, not without disgust; and I wished that he and his sweetheart would be quick over their love-making. It was well past eleven. At midnight I had to be back to receive Karasch’s report; and yet could not venture to be seen.