We will." The leader of the four, who had set his foot on the forbidden step, withdrew it quickly.

Wogan continued in the same quiet voice,-- "You say you have a warrant ?" And a voice very different from his leader's--a voice loud and decisive, which came from the last of the four--answered him,-- "We have.

The Emperor's warrant." "And how comes it," asked Wogan, "that the Emperor's warrant runs in Venice ?" "Because the Emperor's arm strikes in Venice," cried the hindermost again, and he pushed past the man in front of him.
"That we have yet to see," cried Wogan, and his sword flashed naked in his hand.

At the same moment the man who had spoken drew a pistol and fired.

He fired in a hurry; the bullet cut a groove in the rail of the stair and flattened itself against the passage wall.
"The Emperor's arm shakes, it seems," said Wogan, with a laugh.