Ken had hardly thought of his own danger. His lips were bleeding, and the foul blow had for the moment rendered him perfectly reckless.
'Is this the way you treat prisoners? he thundered, his eyes blazing. 'Small wonder a people who do such things are despised by every other nation on earth!'
'Himmel, you dare to talk like that?' snarled back Hartmann. 'You, a private soldier, venture such insolence to an officer?'
'An officer!' he said with bitter contempt, 'or do you mean a bathroom steward?'
Hartmann's sallow face went livid with excess of rage. He bit his lip till the blood showed upon it in a thin red line.
'You will sing a different song when you stand before the muzzles of the firing party,' he said in a grating voice.
Von Steegman, who seemed to be the only man among them to remain quite unmoved, raised his hand.
'All this is highly irregular,' he said harshly. 'Captain Hartmann, it is our duty to interrogate these prisoners.'
'What's the use of interrogating us if you have already made up your mind to shoot us?' retorted Ken.
'Because,' he answered in his harsh German English, 'it is bossible that, by giving us certain information, you may yed save der lives which you haf justly forfeited.'
Ken stared back, and there was something in his face which made even the German's bold eyes drop.
'I don't advise you to say any more,' he answered grimly. 'You'd better proceed at once with your firing party, you miserable German murderer.'
Von Steegman's hand dropped to his sword hilt, his face went the colour of a ripe plum, for a moment Ken thought--hoped that he was going to have a fit.
Before he could speak there came a stir behind, the door leading from the house to the yard opened sharply, and a stout, coarse-looking man in the uniform of a colonel in the Prussian Army, strode heavily in.
Hartmann and Von Steegman rose like two ramrods, and saluted him. They stood at the salute while he came across to the table.
'So these are the two prisoners,' he said in a thick guttural voice, as he seated himself, 'the two who were captured spying behind our lines.'
He stared first at Roy, then at Ken. As his bloodshot eyes fell upon the latter he started ever so slightly. At the same moment Ken seemed to recognise him, for a look of disgust crossed his face.