of the cheek, which merely infuriated the man more.  Up to this moment the man had only used his sword, but now he began to raise his revolver.  Before he could raise it hip high, however, the colonel shot him through the heart.  Though the revolver dropped from his helpless hand, he crouched for one instant and sprang, clutching at the colonel’s face, while four or five of his fellow Serbs attacked the colonel from behind.  The foremost of these ruffians, a Serbian officer, fired at the back of the colonel’s head and missed, but his second shot struck Colonel Frank on the left temple at the moment his real assailant had made his death spring, and down they both went, apparently dead, the Serbian on top.  The other Serbs sprang forward to finish the Russian officer with the usual ugly dagger which Serbian robbers always carry.  The body of the dead Serb, however, formed a complete shield, and this, coupled with the fact that we all thought the colonel dead, saved him from mutilation.

I was not quite an idle spectator, but the fact that at the critical moment I discovered I had no weapon except for my cane reduced me to helplessness so far as dealing with this gang of murderers was concerned.  Directly the fight began every Russian, including the armed militiaman who was supposed to keep order at the station, bolted from the room, leaving the women and children to look after themselves.  Madame Frank went to the assistance of her husband and covered him as only a woman can, and as she grasped her husband’s revolver the Serbs slunk back a pace, while I lifted his head and signed to the Serb officer who had fired at the colonel from behind to lift the dead Serb off the colonel’s body.  This he did and then proposed to the band surrounding us that they should kill us all three.  Their knives glistened and a small automatic revolver was making a bee line for me, when a voice like the growl of a bear came from the direction of the door.  The whole band instantly put up their weapons.  I had stood up to receive my fate, and over the heads of our would-be murderers I saw a tall dark-bearded stage villain in a long black overcoat which reached to the floor, stalk across to the group.  He looked at the body of the dead Serb and then at the prostrate Russian officer who at that instant began to show signs of returning consciousness.  “Ah!  Oh!  Russky polkovnik,” he roared, drawing his revolver.  “Our dead brother demands blood.”

I could not stand and see a wounded friend murdered before my eyes, not even in this land of blood.  I stepped over both bodies and placed myself between this monster and his victim.  I raised both hands and pushed him back, saying, “I am Anglisky polkovnik, and will not allow you to murder the wounded Russian officer.”  He answered that he was “Serbian polkovnik,” and I said “Come into the other room,” and by strategy got him away.  His friends, however, told him something which sent him back quickly to finish his job, but as he re-entered the buffet he encountered about a dozen British and Czech soldiers with fixed bayonets, and it was not so difficult now to convince him that it was not quite good form to murder a wounded man.