"You scarcely hoped, perhaps, to see me again after our last parting at the gates of your hospitable château? You find it, perhaps, a strange chance that brings me again beneath this roof? Yet perhaps it is not so strange after all, for, helpless though I was at the time, I vowed that some day or other I would return. And thus we meet, sooner than I could have hoped--our parts somewhat changed. I was then a helpless German in France; you are now a helpless Frenchman in what is going to be Germany. When you were up and I was down, you heaped upon me insults and abuse, and struck me--me, a well-born Prussian!--because I did my duty to my country. Did you reflect? Did it ever cross your French mind that a German, a Junker, a soldier, a man of culture, would not brook the insolent perversity of one of your decadent race? Now I am up and you are down, and we can square accounts. You are to learn what it is to strike a German. Of this your château, of you and the vile French brood within it, there shall not remain to-morrow aught but ashes. That is what I have promised myself these three years. I will pay my vow!" During this speech, hissed out in a tone of the bitterest rancour, the German had held his cigar between finger and thumb, lifting his hand now and then to emphasise his words. Perceiving that it had gone out, he cut another, lit it, and lolled insolently in his chair, his long legs stretched beneath the bed, as if gloating over his intended victim. The young captain had not uttered a word. No change of countenance revealed his feelings, or so much as hinted that he had heard the German’s tirade. His eyes appeared to look past his tormentor, but nothing in their expression warned Schwikkard of what he saw. There was a brief interval of silence; then the German drew up his legs. "Sleep well!" he said. "I assure you your sleep shall be a long one!" He flicked the ash of his cigar into one of the medicine glasses, and was about to rise, when a hand shot over his shoulder, and grasped his revolver. Turning on his chair with a start, he flinched as his right ear touched the cold muzzle of a second revolver which Burton pointed at him. [Illustration: AN INTERRUPTION] "Sit down!" said Burton, quietly, in French. "If you make the slightest sound, I will shoot you on the spot." The German’s face blanched under its sun-tan. A muzzle to the right, a muzzle to the left, each within a few inches of his head! Speechless, he sank down into his chair, and the cigar fell upon the floor. V Covering the shrinking German with the revolvers, Burton glanced round the room, and moved towards an electric bell-push in one of the walls. "Does it communicate with the kitchen?" he asked the wounded man, who nodded--weakness and the thrill of emotion bereft him of speech.