“I can assure you,” Mr. Sabin interrupted, “that I shall take particular care never to visit your delightful country. Elsewhere, I think I can take care of myself. But listen, Knigenstein, all your talk about Russia and playing you false is absurd. If I had wished to deal with Lobenski, I could have done so, instead of with you. I have not even seen him. A greater hand than his has stopped me, a greater even than the hand of your Emperor!”
Knigenstein looked at him as one looks at a madman.
“There is no greater hand on earth,” he said, “than the hand of his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Germany.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“You are a German,” he said, “and you know little of these things, yet you call yourself a diplomatist, and I suppose you have some knowledge of what this means.”
He lifted the lamp from the table and walked to the wall opposite to the door. Knigenstein followed him closely. Before them, high up as the fingers of a man could reach, was a small, irregular red patch—something between a cross and a star. Mr. Sabin held the lamp high over his head and pointed to the mark.
“Do you know what that means?” he asked.
The man by his side groaned.
“Yes,” he answered, with a gesture of abject despair, “I know!”
Mr. Sabin walked back to the table and set down the lamp.