“I warn you to use no violence to officers in discharge of their duty.  We hold a warrant for your arrest.”

“Indeed?” said Wogan, with a great show of surprise.  “I cannot bring myself to believe it.  On what counts?”

“Firstly, in that you stole away her Highness the Princess Clementina from the Emperor’s guardianship on the night of the 27th of April at Innspruck.”

“Did I indeed do that?” said Wogan, carelessly.  “Upon my word, this cloak of mine is frayed.  I had not noticed it;” and he picked at the fringe of his cloak with some annoyance.

“In the second place, you did kill and put to death, at a wayside inn outside Stuttgart, one Anton Gans, servant to the Countess of Berg.”

Wogan smiled amicably.

“I should be given a medal for that with a most beautiful ribbon of salmon colour, I fancy, salmon or aquamarine.  Which would look best, do you think, on a coat of black velvet?  I wear black velvet, as your relations will too, my friend, if you forget which step your foot is on.  Shall we say salmon colour for the ribbon?  The servant was a noxious fellow.  We will.”

The leader of the four, who had set his foot on the forbidden step, withdrew it quickly.  Wogan continued in the same quiet voice,—­

“You say you have a warrant?” And a voice very different from his leader’s—­a voice loud and decisive, which came from the last of the four—­answered him,—­

“We have.  The Emperor’s warrant.”

“And how comes it,” asked Wogan, “that the Emperor’s warrant runs in Venice?”

“Because the Emperor’s arm strikes in Venice,” cried the hindermost again, and he pushed past the man in front of him.

“That we have yet to see,” cried Wogan, and his sword flashed naked in his hand.  At the same moment the man who had spoken drew a pistol and fired.  He fired in a hurry; the bullet cut a groove in the rail of the stair and flattened itself against the passage wall.

“The Emperor’s arm shakes, it seems,” said Wogan, with a laugh.  The leader of the party, thrust forward by those behind him, was lifted to the forbidden step.

“I warned you,” cried Wogan, and his sword darted out.  But whether from design or accident, the man uttered a cry and stumbled forward on his face.  Wogan’s sword flashed over his shoulder, and its point sank into the throat of the soldier behind him.  That second soldier fell back, with the blood spurting from his wound, upon the man with the smoking pistol, who thrust him aside with an oath.

“Make room,” he cried, and lunged over the fallen leader.

“Here’s a fellow in the most desperate hurry,” said Wogan, and parrying the thrust he disengaged, circled, disengaged again, and lunging felt the soldier’s leather coat yield to his point.  “The Emperor’s arm is weak, too, one might believe,” he laughed, and he drove his sword home.  The man fell upon the stairs; but as Wogan spoke the leader crouched on the step