“That is where I believe that Domiloff is hiding,” Brand declared. “Do you see what a rabble that is inside the café?”
The King nodded.
“Russian Jews, every one of them,” he said. “Anyhow, there are too many of them for us to enter the place single-handed.
“Brand, take one of the horses, and ride to the barracks. Bring down a guard of twenty-five men. I will wait here.”
Brand nodded, and hurried away to the corner of the street, where they had left the horses. The King lit a cigar, shielding the light as much as possible with his hand, and leaned against the trunk of the tree.
Five minutes passed, ten, a quarter of an hour. The King, whose thoughts were none of the pleasantest, grew impatient. Suddenly, the cigar dropped from his fingers. He sprang forward with beating heart, bewildered, incredulous. For he had seen a strange thing.
Up at that dark, unlit window had flashed for a moment the pale, terror-stricken face of a woman, drawn back almost at once by an unseen hand. The echoes of her passionate cry for help rang still in his ears. And, strangest thing of all, the face was the face of Marie of Reist.
Ughtred forgot then that he was a King, and that his life was a pledge to his country. He remembered only that he was a man of more than ordinary strength, and that from that dreary little room a woman was calling to him for help. In the passage the few loiterers who disputed his way were brushed on one side like flies. He sprang up the little staircase, which creaked under his weight, in half-a-dozen bounds. The girl’s cries were plainly to be heard now. He thundered upon the door.
There came for a moment no answer. The girl’s cry was stifled, as though by a rough hand.