"Be silent! Here, Karl."
There was a sound of unintelligible murmuring as the two spies conferred together. Lanyard writhed in apparent extremity of terror. His hands were free. He sought hopelessly for inspiration. What to do without arms?
"Be grateful to Karl. He urges that perhaps you know nothing of the document."
"Don't you think I'd tell if I did know?"
"Then you have one minute—no, forty seconds—in which to pledge yourself to the Prussian Secret Service."
"You want me to swear—?"
"Certainly."
"Then hear me," said Lanyard earnestly: "You damned canaille!" And in one movement he tore the bandage from his eyes and launched himself head foremost at the man who stood over him.
He caught part of an oath drowned out by the splitting report of a pistol that went off within an inch of his ear. Then his head took the man full in the belly, and both went sprawling to the deck, Lanyard fighting like a maniac.
Sheer luck had guided clawing fingers to the right wrist of his antagonist, round which they shut like jaws of a trap. At the same time he wrenched the other's arm high above his head.