BY ORDER OF THE CZAR, 73
tion was unapproachable from without, seeing that on one side it was shut in by the warehouse before-mentioned, .and on the other by the beginning of the overhanging rocks which were the commencement of that curious geo- logical formation the secret of which Moses Grunstein had discovered long ago, to his great satisfaction if not to his financial profit.
Ferrari, with the master key of the place in his hand, being also on the right side of all the bolts and bars, stood in the little courtyard of the underground retreat, and listened. He had given the knife which had served nim so well on the night of his escape from Klosstock's house to Anna alas ! to so little purpose but he had replaced it from Grunstein's store with a superb example of the cutler's art. It was not a dagger in the general acceptation of the term j it was something between a butcher's knife and the stiletto of the Spaniard ; it had the fine temper of the latter with the strength of the former, and it rested in a heavy leathern sheath ; it had not the handle of the dagger, but was attached by a strap to the wrist. In a pocket upon Ferrari's hip was a revolver, and in his resolute eyes there was a whole armory of weapons ; for whatever one may have previously seen of the ugly side of Ferrari was as nothing compared with the murder- ous look there was now in his face as he stood listening for the mob, conscious of his power and full of a determin- ation to avenge on somebody the death of the rabbi and the almost worse than assassination of Anna Klosstock.
Let us glance at him in the streak of sunny daylight that falls into the narrow gorge we have called the courtyard, between the well and the Grunstein warehouse. Wearing a coarse grey shirt of woolen texture, a pair of breeches with high boots, he is stripped for battle. He is of me- dium height, bony, lithe, some would say thin, and his muscles are of iron. His shirt is open at the throat,
