“What will happen here if they do take the men away?”

“They won’t take them all.  Only the younger ones.  There will be enough left to look after the place and after us.  Though if they come, I shall have to hide you, my cousin!  I am just thinking of that.  I shouldn’t wonder if those stupid people would have sent word to someone.  We had better be prepared.  Come with me—­I will show you something.”

Fred followed Boris, and in a few minutes found himself in a great room that was obviously the dining-room of the house.  In this room there were many pictures, and the walls were panelled in oak, blackened by smoke and age.  Boris looked about to make sure that they were not observed, then he touched a spot in one of the panels, and it slid open.  Beyond this, however, was revealed an unbroken wall.  Again Boris touched a certain spot, and now this wall, seemingly solid and unbroken, gave way, just as the oaken panel had done.

“Even if they discovered the panel, you see, they would not have the secret,” said Boris.  “I will show you the exact spots you must touch.  Then if they come, you can reach this place by yourself.  Once in here, you will be safe.  Carry an electric torch always with you.  I will give you one later.  You will find two sets of arrows marked every few feet through the passages to which this leads.  The upper ones point to the outside door that is at the end of a passage far beyond the house.  The lower ones, if you follow their course, will bring you back to these panels.  So you cannot lose your way.”

“By George, that certainly sounds mysterious!  Have you always planned for something like this?”

“Oh, these passages are very old.  This house, you see, was built at a time when intrigue was more common than now.  But when my father began to see, as he did years ago, that Germany was sure to force war upon us, and that it would probably come in his lifetime, he made many changes.  This is not really a private house at all—­it is a little outpost of Russia, here in the midst of an enemy’s country.  And it is not the only one.  In Silesia and in Galicia we have places like it.”

“Perhaps the Germans will find that Russia is not so slow after all!”

Outside now there rose a peculiar sound, but one that Fred identified at once.

“That sounds like your Germans coming now, Boris,” he said, quietly.  “I’ve heard crowds making just that same noise at home—­on election night, for instance, when they were coming to make the winner give them a speech.”

Boris listened for a moment, then he went to a window.

“Yes,” he said.  “But it’s not the sort of Germans we need to worry about.  It’s only the people from the village.  Old men, and women, and children—­boys, of course.  I’m surprised that they should come for they know they can’t get in.”

But even as he spoke, there came a thunderous sound of knocking at the outer door and the sharp grounding of arms—­a noise as ominous as it was unmistakable.