The man's object was to get him as far from the
inner door as possible while he called help from above, which was, of
course, the wise thing from his point of view, as Armitage recognized.
Armitage stood with his back against a rack of pots; the table was at his
left and beyond it the door opening upon the court; a barred window was
at his right; opposite him was another door that communicated with the
interior of the house and disclosed the lower steps of a rude stairway
leading upward. The Servian now closed and locked the outer kitchen door
with care.
Armitage had lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the
middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about
him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his
tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian's caution, and
he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at
Armitage's head.
He began calling lustily up the narrow stair-well in Servian, changing in
a moment to German. He made a ludicrous figure, as he held his revolver
at arm's length, craning his neck into the passage, and howling until he
was red in the face.
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