A Crown of Straw

In the inner room of a small, dimly lighted house, half hidden behind the dark walls of the arsenal of Stuttgart, in Germany, a group of three men were occupied in loading a pistol.

Their method of proceeding was singular. They were seated around a small deal table which stood at the far end of the room from the door. On the table was a small open lamp, and the dirty yellow flame which struggled upwards from its untrimmed wick flared upon the faces of the three, and brought them into pallid relief against the surrounding shadow. As the sickly light wandered off into the corners of the bare, gloomy room, it revealed the obscure form of a fourth man, younger than any of the first three, who sat by himself on a bench next to the door.

The group engaged in loading the pistol, absorbed in their task, took no notice of their comrade, who watched them with brooding eyes as they bent their heads together across the table, or spoke to each other in low whispers from time to time. Once or twice he turned his head and gazed abstractedly at the door. It was locked; and the high, narrow window at the opposite end of the chamber was closely shuttered and barred.

The leader of the party, a man whose grey hairs and deeply wrinkled face showed him to be by many years the eldest of the four, had commenced the proceedings by opening a small wooden case which lay on the table between the three, and taking out the pistol, which he first carefully examined, and then handed silently to the man seated next to him.

This man, a burly giant, with tremendous red whiskers and beard, in which his face was almost concealed, caught at the pistol with a grunt of satisfaction. In his huge grasp the weapon looked like a toy, as he held it up to the light, glanced down the barrel, and snapped the trigger. At this sound the youth by the door started ever so slightly, and a frown contracted his brows. Then the red-bearded giant passed on the pistol to the last of the three.