'Then why do you have him hanging about here day after day, risking everything? The man is mad.'
'Because, my dear colonel, I have a use for him too,' Tzerclas replied. Then he turned to me. 'Listen, knave,' he said harshly. 'Do you understand what I have been saying?'
I did, and I was desperate. I remembered what I had done to him, how we had outwitted, tricked, and bound him; and now that I was in his power I knew what I had to expect; that nothing I could say would avail me. I looked him in the face. 'Yes,' I said.
'You had the laugh on your side the last time we met,' he smiled. 'Now it is my turn.'
'So it seems,' I answered stolidly.
I think it annoyed him to see me so little moved. But he hid the feeling. 'What guns are in the orchard bastion?' he asked.
I laughed. 'You should have asked me that,' I said, 'before you told me what you were going to do with me. The dead tell no tales, general.'
'You fool!' he replied. 'Do you think that death is the worst you have to fear? Look round you! Do you see these windows? They are boarded up. Do you see the door? It is guarded. The house? The walls are thick, and we have gags. Answer me, then, and quickly, or I will find the way to make you. What guns are in the orchard bastion?'
He took up a paper with the last word and looked at me over it, waiting for my answer. For a moment not a sound broke the silence of the room. The other men stood all at gaze, watching me, Neumann with a scowl on his face. The lights in the room burned high, but the frowning masks of boards that hid the windows, the litter of papers on the table, the grimy floor, the cloaks and arms cast down on it in a medley--all these marks of haste and secrecy gave a strange and lowering look to the chamber, despite its brightness. My heart beat wildly like a bird in a man's hand. I feared horribly. But I hid my fear; and suddenly I had a thought.
'You have forgotten one thing,' I said.