'There will be three to luncheon.' Then he looked steadily at me, and that was the hardest ordeal of all.
There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold, malignant, unearthly, and most hellishly clever.

They fascinated me like the bright eyes of a snake.

I had a strong impulse to throw myself on his mercy and offer to join his side, and if you consider the way I felt about the whole thing you will see that that impulse must have been purely physical, the weakness of a brain mesmerized and mastered by a stronger spirit.

But I managed to stick it out and even to grin.
'You'll know me next time, guv'nor,' I said.
'Karl,' he spoke in German to one of the men in the doorway, 'you will put this fellow in the storeroom till I return, and you will be answerable to me for his keeping.' I was marched out of the room with a pistol at each ear.
The storeroom was a damp chamber in what had been the old farmhouse.
There was no carpet on the uneven floor, and nothing to sit down on but a school form.

It was black as pitch, for the windows were heavily shuttered.