"Where is Milikoff?" Steve Dushan asked the soldier, as soon as they were outside. They had left the boathouse, of course, by the land side, and moved swiftly away from the water side.
"He is at the house by the pond," answered the soldier. "The others were there too, ten minutes ago. But since then anything may have happened!"
"Yes," said Stepan, grimly. "It was stupid work--letting Hallo get away, when once they had him in their grip! Still, there is no use in crying over spilt milk. We must get him back, that is all. He knows the thing that we have got to learn, and I think we shall be able to persuade him to share his knowledge with us!"
"No doubt," said the soldier, shrugging his shoulders. "The man who plays with both sides is always weak. It is always a dangerous thing to run with the hare and ride with the hounds!"
The country hereabout was flat and waste, low-lying marsh lands, with here and there a pond coming close to the road. Beside one of these ponds, which, at a guess, might be useful in winter for the ice it would carry, stood a small house, from one window of which a light showed.
"Wait for me here," said Steve to the soldier, and went inside. He gained admittance by a peculiar knock, and the door was opened for him at once by a man in the garb of a priest. Stepan laughed at himself for starting back.
"Aha, you didn't know me!" said the priest, with a merry laugh. "Now I know that this is a good disguise!"
"Yes, it's a good one, Milikoff," said Stepan. "But what is this about Hallo? Did you actually let him escape after holding him here?"
"Yes," growled Milikoff, all his pleasure in the excellence of his disguise vanishing. "He has been here fifty times before; that was the chance we took, since we had to meet him somewhere. He came alone to-night, and we were able to seize him very easily. And then, just as I saw that it was nearly time for you to come, he had gone!"
"He fooled us all by showing something none of us thought he had--a little courage! He dropped from the window above. That was how we knew he was gone, for he broke a pane of glass in one of the greenhouse beds as he dropped. We rushed out--"
"You were so near as that, and still he got away?" said Stepan, with a groan.