A second later the young engineer found himself cornered with a heavy automatic pistol.
“Move, and I’ll fire!” hissed the man whom he now recognised as a revolutionist named Stadler, who had visited the pseudo-Baron at the great castle in the Carpathians.
Then swift as lightning the fellow slipped out of the door, banged it after him, and ere Geoffrey could reach it, he had bolted it on the outside.
Both realised that they were caught like rats in a trap.
Geoffrey in an instant dashed to the window, only, however, to find to his dismay that it was closely shuttered and barred from the outside. Precautions had been taken to prevent their escape!
“Ah!” cried the fellow from the other side of the door, “let the police search! They will never find either of you now. You see the stove? Go across—and open it.”
They both glanced across the room and noticed a round iron stove about five feet in height, used for burning charcoal in winter.
Falconer crossed, and on opening it, saw within what seemed to be a steel cylinder.
“You’ve seen it—eh?” asked the voice mockingly. “That cylinder contains poison-gas! I will give you two minutes before I turn on your lethal draught—two minutes to wish each other a long farewell,” and the brute laughed heartily in his fiendish triumph.
Sylvia gave vent to a loud piercing shriek when she realised the horrible fate in store for them, and then she fell fainting into her lover’s arms. He bent and pressed his lips to hers for a second. Afterwards he placed her in a chair, and taking up another and heavier chair, began to attack the door furiously, smashing the chair in his efforts.