Quick! They are
coming--I can hear them;" and at the same instant Barney saw
something drop from the window to the ground. He crossed the alley
quickly, and could have shouted in relief for what he found
there--the end of a knotted rope dangling from above.
His pursuers were almost upon him when he seized the rude ladder to
clamber upward. At the window's ledge a firm, young hand reached out
and, seizing his own, almost dragged him through the window. He
turned to look back into the alley. He had been just in time; the
Austrian sentry, alarmed by the sound of approaching footsteps down
the alley, had stepped into view. He stood there now with leveled
rifle, a challenge upon his lips. From the advancing party came a
satisfactory reply.
At the same instant the girl beside him in the Stygian blackness of
the room threw her arms about Barney's neck and drew his face down
to hers.
"Oh, Stefan," she whispered, "what a narrow escape! It makes me
tremble to think of it. They would have shot you, my Stefan!"
The American put an arm about the girl's shoulders, and raised one
hand to her cheek--it might have been in caress, but it wasn't. It
was to smother the cry of alarm he anticipated would follow the
discovery that he was not "Stefan." He bent his lips close to her
ear.
"Do not make an outcry," he whispered in very poor Serbian. "I am
not Stefan; but I am a friend.
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