struck a match to look for the front door. Close to me was a staircase leading to the upper rooms; and at the end of the passage a second flight down to the basement.

Like so many houses in Lisbon this was built on a steep hill, and guessing that I should find a way out downstairs at the back, I decided to use that means of leaving, as it offered less chance of my being observed.

I had just reached the head of the stairway, when a door below was unlocked and several people entered the house. A confused murmur of voices followed, and among them I heard that of a woman speaking in a tone[17] of angry protest against some mistake which those with her were making.

[17]

The answering voices were those of men—strident, stern, distinctly threatening, and mingled with oaths.

Then the woman spoke again; repeating her protest in angry tones; but her voice was now vibrant with rising alarm.

“Silence!”

The command broke her sentence in two, and her words died away in muffled indistinctness, suggesting that force had been used to secure obedience.

Then a light was kindled; there was some scuffling along the passage; and they all appeared to enter a room.

I paused, undecided what to do. The thing had a very ugly look; but I had had quite enough trouble to satisfy me for one night. I didn’t want to go blundering into an affair which might be no more than a family quarrel; especially as I was trespassing in the house.

A few seconds later, however, came the sound of trouble; a blow, a groan, and the thud of a fall.

I caught my breath in fear that the woman had been struck down.

But the next instant a shrill piercing cry for help rang out in her voice, and this also was stifled as if a hand had been clapped on her mouth.

That decided things for me.

Whatever the consequences, I could not stop to think of them while a woman was in such danger as that cry for help had signalled.

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