“Don’t make a sound or a move, mind.  If you do—­” and he produced a glittering knife, with a look that could not be misunderstood.

CHAPTER X.

SUSPENSE.

McKay must have slept for many hours.  Daylight was fading, and the den he occupied was nearly dark, when he was aroused by the voices of his Russian fellow-lodgers coming off duty for the night.

They were rough, simple fellows most of them:  boorish peasants torn from their village homes, and forced to fight in their Czar’s quarrel, which he was pleased to call a holy war.  Coarse, uncultivated, but not unkindly, and they gathered around McKay, staring curiously at him, and plying him with questions.

His command of their language soon established amicable relations, and presently, when supper was ready, a nauseous mess of kasha, or thick oatmeal porridge, boiled with salt pork, they hospitably invited him to partake.  He was a prisoner, but an honoured guest, and they freely pressed their flasks of vodkhi upon him when with great difficulty he had swallowed a few spoonfulls of the black porridge.

They talked, too, incessantly, notwithstanding their fatigue, always on the same subject, this interminable siege.

“It’s weary work,” said one.  “I long for home.”

“They will never take the place; Father Todleben will see to that.  Why do they not go, and leave us in peace?”

“It is killing work:  in the batteries day and night; always in danger under this hellish fire.  This is the best place.  You are better off, comrade, than we” (this was to McKay); “for you are safe under cover here, and in the open a man may be killed at any time.”

“He has dangers of his own to face,” said the under-officer in charge of the barrack, grimly.  “Do not envy him till after to-morrow.”

McKay heard these words without emotion.  He was too wretched, too much dulled by misfortune and the misery of his present condition, to feel fresh pain.

Yet he slept again, and was in a dazed, half-stupid state when they fetched him out next morning and marched him down to the water’s edge, where he was put into a man-of-war’s boat and rowed across to the north side of the harbour.

Prince Gortschakoff, the Russian commander-in-chief, had sent for him, and about noon he was taken before the great man, who had his headquarters in the Star Fort, well out of reach of the besiegers’ fire.

The Prince, a portly, imposing figure, of haughty demeanour, and speaking imperiously, accosted McKay very curtly.

“I know all about you.  Whether you are spy or traitor matters little:  your life is forfeited.  But I will spare it on one condition.  Tell me unreservedly what is going on in the enemy’s lines.”

“I should indeed deserve your unjust epithets if I replied,” was all McKay’s answer.

“What reinforcements have reached the allies lately?” went on the Prince, utterly ignoring McKay’s refusal, and looking at him fiercely.  “Speak out at once.”