"Do you understand?" demanded Felix coolly.
"Perfectly. Is it—er—Russian or Spanish?"
"Neither. I call it the International. Are you ready?"
A thunderous blow shook the door. Another and another fell on lock and hinges.
"Felix!" said Alec, turning from Joan and stooping over the hunchback.
"Don't bother me, I am busy," growled the Pole.
"But we must act. We are done for now, and Joan must be saved. I mean to draw the enemy's fire. When I am hit, you and Beaumanoir must take Joan to the third window over there—take her by force if necessary——"
"My good Alec, at present you are a King without power. Please don't talk nonsense. Keep in your corner, pacify Joan, and leave the rest to me."
"Felix," and Alec's tone grew curt and sharp, "this is no time for jest! Look, you madman, the door is splitting! Is Joan to die, then, to please your whim? Either attend to me or stand aside!"
Poluski groaned. He was such an amalgam of contrarieties that he hated the notion of explaining to a monarch the subtle means he had devised for ridding the world of its unpopular rulers. Where Alec was concerned, the bomb ought to remain a trade secret, so to speak. He would not have trusted even Beaumanoir with its properties had he not known that his own nerve would fail at the critical moment. For that was Felix Poluski's weakness. He could not use his diabolical invention—an anarchist in theory, in practice he would not harm a fly.