"An awkward corner, gentlemen," he said. "How many are there of you? Four men and a boy? And you have placed guards at all the entrances?" "They have bombs," Sir Archie reminded him. "No doubt. But I do not think they will use them here--or their guns, unless there is no other way. Their purpose is kidnapping, and they hope to do it secretly and slip off without leaving a trace. If they slaughter us, as they easily can, the cry will be out against them, and their vessel will be unpleasantly hunted. Half their purpose is already spoiled, for it is no longer secret.... They may break us by sheer weight, and I fancy the first shooting will be done by us. It's the windows I'm afraid of." Some tone in his quiet voice reached the girl in the wicker chair. She looked up wildly, saw him and with a cry of "Alesha" ran to his arms. There she hung, while his hand fondled her hair, like a mother with a scared child. Sir Archie, watching the whole thing in some stupefaction, thought he had never in his days seen more nobly matched human creatures. "It is my friend," she cried triumphantly, "the friend whom I appointed to meet me here. Oh, I did well to trust him. Now we need not fear anything." As if in ironical answer came a great crashing at the verandah door, and the twanging of chords cruelly mishandled. The grand piano was suffering internally from the assaults of the boiler-house ladder. "Wull I gie them a shot?" was McGuffog's hoarse inquiry. "Action stations," Alexis ordered, for the command seemed to have shifted to him from Dougal. "The windows are the danger. The boy will patrol the ground floor, and give us warning, and I and this man," pointing to Sime, "will be ready at the threatened point. And for God's sake no shooting, unless I give the word. If we take them on at that game we haven't a chance." He said something to Saskia in Russian and she smiled assent and went to Sir Archie's side. "You and I must keep this door," she said.