Verdayne's answer sounded very much like an oath. He gave the door one final kick, and finding his rough summons ineffectual, turned to his companions. "Look you!" he said. "I am not at all sure that this house is as empty as it seems. I'm going to ride alongside the garden wall so that I can climb over the top. I want to go investigating." In a twinkling he had put his plan into execution and dropped over the wall into the garden. He walked round the house and found it shuttered, dark and silent. He whistled a long whistle to himself. "I wonder," he thought, "if all the birds have flown. I wonder if they really have left the house entirely empty." Just then Andrieff joined him, and putting their shoulders against the rear door that opened into the garden, they easily forced an entrance. With drawn revolvers they leaped inside, and began to prowl about the place. Finally in a wardrobe on an upper floor they discovered a servant hiding. As they dragged him out at first he showed fight, but one blow from Andrieff's sledge-like fist beat him into submission, and in another moment they had him pinned against the wall. "Tell me where your master is," said Andrieff in a fierce voice. The man remained silent. "Tell me," he said again, "and tell me quickly. Tell me at once or you will regret it." The man gave a sudden wrench and twisted one of his arms free. He reached out and grasped a heavy silver candlestick. But Andrieff was too quick for him. He dealt him a blow on the muscles of his shoulder which half paralyzed the creature's arm. The candlestick dropped with a clatter from his hand. Then Andrieff gave his pent-up passion full play, and it was a miracle that he did not kill his man. He wrenched an antimacassar from a chair and used it as a gag. With one powerful hand he dragged the captive by the neck to the window; with the other he threw up the casement and whistled sharply for Peter, who soon came running up the stairs and through the open door. "We'll bind this cur," said the overseer through his teeth, and he thrust the man back into a deep, cane-hooded chair. Then he and Peter securely lashed the man's feet together, tying his hands behind his back. This work done, they paused and listened; but, in spite of the scuffle there had been, there was no sound of approaching footsteps, nor, indeed, any sign that they had been overheard. "Now, then," said he of the red beard, "heat that poker in the fire." Peter quickly thrust the poker between the bars of the grate, in which the coals were red. "_Stoi_!" cried the man--"Stop! They have gone to the old _Chateau Ivanovitch_." "If you're lying," said Andrieff, "we'll come back and cut you into ribbons for the dogs." "By the beard of my father," the man gasped, "I am telling you the truth. God strike me if I am not!" and he looked at the reddening poker with frightened eyes.