Drexel’s poise began to return to him. He took off his shuba and tossed it upon the crookbacked couch. “All right, boys,” he said drily. “Just as you say. It’s a rule of my life to be obliging to the man who’s got the drop on me.” “Will you be quiet, or”--Nicolai motioned toward a few pieces of rope in a corner. “Oh, I’ll be quiet--for the present.” He sat down. “By the way--who is this White One?” “We do not know,” said Nicolai. “We have never seen him. Our orders came through a second person.” Ivan moved from the door across to Nicolai, begged Drexel’s Browning pistol with a mute look, and gave in exchange the big revolver. “That was really Nicolai’s, but he let me carry it,” he explained to Drexel. He patted the black, fearsome weapon, his face glowing on Nicolai. “Ah, comrade, what a beauty!” Suddenly Drexel leaned back and roared with laughter. That he should on the one hand be searched for by the police, and on the other hand be held prisoner by the revolutionists--the absurdity of the situation was too much for him. And the situation seemed all the more absurd as he considered the personality of his captors--two starveling, threadbare lads. Yet even as he laughed he did not forget the grimness of his state--the prey of both contending parties. And ere his humour had subsided, he was beginning to rate his guards a little higher; for Ivan, hunched up on the floor with his back to the door, Drexel’s weapon on his knees, was as watchful as a terrier, and there was a high and purposeful determination in Nicolai’s pale face that could but command respect. It was a quality of Drexel’s, one of the several on which his uncle based his predictions of his nephew’s business success, that when in a plight where he could not help himself, he could easily throw off all strength-exhausting thought and worry. He now stretched himself on the sofa, whose bones all painfully protruded through its starved skin, and drew his coat over him. “You fellows can make a night of it if you want to, but I’m going to sleep,” said he, and a few minutes later he was peacefully unconscious. When he awoke the niggardly light of a leaden-hued Russian morning was creeping through the single window. For a time he walked restlessly up and down the room. Then he paused before the double-glazed window, which was curtained at the bottom, and looked out. “You see the pavement is of cobblestones, so to jump would be dangerous,” commented the quiet voice of Nicolai. Drexel glanced back. “Huh!” he grunted. But all the same he was startled at the keenness with which Nicolai had read his mind. “Besides,” Nicolai went on, “the windows are screwed down. And even if you burst them and got safely to the ground you would only be arrested by the police.”