Too drunk to understand the purport of the words, the soldiers raised their tankards to drink, and then let them fall to the ground with a clatter, the untasted liquor splashing upon the floor. Each man jerked forward where he stood, and, when those who held him let him go, fell down with a thud. A groan or two, a convulsive movement, and then they lay still, while something mixed with the spilt liquor and dyed it to a darker hue. The six men who had stood immediately behind them wiped their keen long knives and sheathed them again in silence.
"Go quickly!" shouted the man, still standing on the chair. "See that the Bergenstrasse is clear. They shall rest there to-night, and Sturatzberg may find them there presently and read the lesson as it will."
In the early hours of the morning, when the guests were leaving the
Countess Mavrodin's a man rushed past them into the hall.
"Is Lord Cloverton still here?"
The Ambassador came forward at once.
"What is it?"
"The men who returned to-day—the soldiers."
"What of them?"
"They have just been found lying side by side in the Bergenstrasse, dead—murdered!"