In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an impatient question:
“Well? What you make of it—hein?”
Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining by the light of the brazen lamp.
“Number One says,” he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow forefinger moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: ‘“The blow falls to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do that which you know is to be done.’”
“At last!” The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with exultancy. He threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm described a wild, dramatic gesture.
“At last—der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!”
Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took three hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a silken cord which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck between chin and Adam’s apple. His cry of protest was the last articulate sound he uttered. And the last sounds he heard, as he lay with face hideously congested and empurpled, eyeballs starting from their deep sockets, and swollen tongue protruding, were words spoken by Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one hand holding fast the ends of the bowstring that had cut off forever the blessed breath of life, the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper.
“Fool! Look, fool, and read what vengeance visits a fool who is fool enough to play the spy!”
He brandished the papers before those glazing eyeballs.
In an eldritch cackle he translated: