He bruised his shin against something, and then all three men were inside the huge steel-girdered barn in which stood the two motor hay lorries that were to take the bombs away.  Kurt and Abel, the two brothers of Peter, had brought the lorries thither in daylight.  They had the upper half of the loads of hay thrown off, ready to cover the bombs, so soon as the king should show the hiding-place.  ’There’s a sort of pit here,’ said the king.  ’Don’t light another lantern.  This key of mine releases a ring....’

For a time scarcely a word was spoken in the darkness of the barn.  There was the sound of a slab being lifted and then of feet descending a ladder into a pit.  Then whispering and then heavy breathing as Kurt came struggling up with the first of the hidden bombs.

‘We shall do it yet,’ said the king.  And then he gasped.  ’Curse that light.  Why in the name of Heaven didn’t we shut the barn door?’ For the great door stood wide open and all the empty, lifeless yard outside and the door and six feet of the floor of the barn were in the blue glare of an inquiring searchlight.

‘Shut the door, Peter,’ said Pestovitch.

‘No,’ cried the king, too late, as Peter went forward into the light.  ‘Don’t show yourself!’ cried the king.  Kurt made a step forward and plucked his brother back.  For a time all five men stood still.  It seemed that light would never go and then abruptly it was turned off, leaving them blinded.  ‘Now,’ said the king uneasily, ‘now shut the door.’

‘Not completely,’ cried Pestovitch.  ’Leave a chink for us to go out by....’

It was hot work shifting those bombs, and the king worked for a time like a common man.  Kurt and Abel carried the great things up and Peter brought them to the carts, and the king and Pestovitch helped him to place them among the hay.  They made as little noise as they could....

‘Ssh!’ cried the king.  ‘What’s that?’

But Kurt and Abel did not hear, and came blundering up the ladder with the last of the load.

‘Ssh!’ Peter ran forward to them with a whispered remonstrance.  Now they were still.

The barn door opened a little wider, and against the dim blue light outside they saw the black shape of a man.

‘Any one here?’ he asked, speaking with an Italian accent.

The king broke into a cold perspiration.  Then Pestovitch answered:  ’Only a poor farmer loading hay,’ he said, and picked up a huge hay fork and went forward softly.

‘You load your hay at a very bad time and in a very bad light,’ said the man at the door, peering in.  ‘Have you no electric light here?’

Then suddenly he turned on an electric torch, and as he did so Pestovitch sprang forward.  ‘Get out of my barn!’ he cried, and drove the fork full at the intruder’s chest.  He had a vague idea that so he might stab the man to silence.  But the man shouted loudly as the prongs pierced him and drove him backward, and instantly there was a sound of feet running across the yard.