Cartoner looked quickly round him.  All was darkness except an open doorway, from which a shaft of light poured out, dimly illuminating cranes and carts and piles of iron girders.  The gate-keeper was hurriedly bolting the gate.  Cartoner led his horse towards the open door, but before he reached it a number of men ran out and fell on him like hounds upon a fox.  He leaped back, abandoning his horse, and striking the first-comer full in the chest with his fist.  He charged the next and knocked him over; but from the third he retreated, leaping quickly to one side.

“Bukaty!” he cried; “don’t you know me?”

“You, Cartoner!” replied Martin.  He spread out his arms, and the men behind him ran against them.  He turned and said something to them in Polish, which Cartoner did not catch.  “You here!” he said.  And there was a ring in the gay, rather light voice, which the Englishman had never heard there before.  But he had heard it in other voices, and knew the meaning of it.  For his work had brought him into contact with refined men in moments when their refinement only serves to harden that grimmer side of human nature of which half humanity is in happy ignorance, which deals in battle and sudden death.

“It is too risky,” said some one, almost in Martin’s ear, in Polish, but Cartoner heard it.  “We must kill him and be done with it.”

There was an odd silence for a moment, only broken by the stealthy feet of the gate-keeper coming forward to join the group.  Then Cartoner spoke, quietly and collectedly.  His nerve was so steady that he had taken time to reflect as to which tongue to make use of.  For all had disadvantages, but silence meant death.

“This near fore-shoe,” he said in French, turning to his horse, “is nearly off.  It has been loose all the way from Wilanow.  This is a foundry, is it not?  There must be a hammer and some nails about.”

Martin gave a sort of gasp of relief.  For a moment he had thought there was no loop-hole.

Cartoner looked towards the door, and the light fell full upon his patient, thoughtful face.  The faces of the men standing in a half-circle in front of him were in the dark.

“Good!  He’s a brave man!” muttered the man who had spoken in Martin’s ear.  It was Kosmaroff.  And he stepped back a pace.

“Yes,” said Martin, hastily, “this is a foundry.  I can get you a hammer.”

His right hand was opening and shutting convulsively.  Cartoner glanced at it, and Martin put it behind his back.  He was rather breathless, and he was angrily wishing that he had the Englishman’s nerve.

“You might tell these men,” he said, in French, “of my mishap; perhaps one of them can put it right, and I can get along home.  I am desperately hungry.  The journey had been so slow from Wilanow.”

He had already perceived that Kosmaroff understood both English and French, and that it was of him that Martin was afraid.  He spoke slowly, so as to give Martin time to pull himself together.  Kosmaroff stepped forward to the horse and examined the shoe indicated.  It was nearly off.