At that moment Malcolm felt something heavy slipped into the loose pocket of his jacket and a quivering voice, harsh with fear, whispered in his ear:
"Keep it, gospodar. To-morrow I will come for it at the Grand Hotel at the middle hour!"
The crowd was now surging forward and the girl was being pressed back into the little lobby by their weight. Suddenly the door opened with a crack and the old man slipped through.
"Come, come," he cried.
Malcolm leapt forward, clasped the girl about the waist and swung her behind him.
The shrieks of the crowd broke and a new note crept into the pandemonium of sound, a note of fear. From outside came a clatter of hoofs on the cobbled roadway. There was a flash of red and white pennons, the glitter of steel lances and a glimpse of bottle-green coats as half a sotnia of Cossacks swept the street clear.
They looked at one another, the girl and the man, oblivious to the appeal of hand and voice which the old man in the doorway was offering.
"I think you are very brave," said the girl, "or else very foolish. You do not know our Kieff people."
"I know them very well," he said grimly.