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Kobe University Monograph Series in Social Science Research

Dai Tamada
Keyuan Zou Editors

Implementation
of the United
Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea
State Practice of China and Japan
Kobe University Monograph Series in Social
Science Research

Series Editor
Takashi Yanagawa, Professor, Kobe University Graduate School of Economics,
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Editorial Board
Masahiro Enomoto, Kobe University RIEB, Kobe, Japan
Kenji Yamamoto, Kobe University Graduate School of Law, Kobe, Japan
Yoshihide Fujioka, Kobe University Graduate School of Economics, Kobe, Japan
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Kobe, Japan
Yuka Kaneko, Kobe University Graduate School of International Cooperation
Studies, Kobe, Japan
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Dai Tamada Keyuan Zou
•

Editors

Implementation of the United

Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea
State Practice of China and Japan

123
Editors
Dai Tamada Keyuan Zou
Graduate School of Law School of Justice
Kobe University University of Central Lancashire
Kobe, Hyogo, Japan Preston, Lancashire, UK

ISSN 2524-504X ISSN 2524-5058 (electronic)

Kobe University Monograph Series in Social Science Research
ISBN 978-981-33-6953-5 ISBN 978-981-33-6954-2 (eBook)
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Preface

China, Japan, and Law of the Sea

The law of the sea has been one of the most important branches of international law
and applicable to both China and Japan as the two countries are parties to the 1982
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which is regarded as the
constitution for the oceans. It is undeniable, however, that the sea itself has not only
produced the wealth to the surrounding countries, but it has also provoked a wide
range of legal issues arising from, for example, navigation, passage, fisheries,
natural resources, common interests, maritime boundaries, jurisdiction, marine
environment, among others. In other words, the law of the sea inevitably covers a
huge amount of legal issues and it is here where the international lawyers are
required to cooperate to analyse such a wide area of international law. Historically
speaking, Japan has long been a maritime nation, surrounded by the sea, and this
geographical typicality urged it to plunge into the study and research on the law
of the sea. This fact explains the reason why many of the disputes, in which Japan
was a party, related to the sea. On the other hand, China has long been a continental
country, mainly surrounded by the land. Considering the long coast of China,
however, this characterisation seems stereotype and old-fashioned. It is necessary to
elucidate China’s new tendency to expand its maritime claims, jurisdiction, and
interests towards the sea, which also provoke a lot of issues and disputes with
neighbouring countries. Against this background, international lawyers from both
countries have conducted an academic collaboration for examining and analysing
some of the issues mentioned above.

v
vi Preface

Structure and Contents

This book is composed of six parts, each of which has two authors, one Chinese and
one Japanese. Six parts are as follows: Part I: Historical Aspects, Part II:
Implementation, Part III: Navigation, Part IV: Mid-Ocean Archipelagos, Part V:
Marine Environment, and Part VI: Dispute Settlement. In some parts, two authors
did have a short discussion on the topic quite fortunately, while in many other parts,
however, there had been no interaction between Chinese and Japanese authors
before. Notwithstanding this, it seems still worthy of arranging two authors in each
part with a common topic, because it enabled us to limit the scope of discussion
between the designated authors. We hope that this kind of corroborative work
contributes to the development of academic discussion, which should be sincerely
adversarial and opened to criticism each other.
Part I (Chaps. 1 and 2) is devoted to the analysis of historical aspects of the law
of the sea, from Chinese and Japanese perspectives, respectively. In Chap. 1,
entitled ‘China and the Law of the Sea: Historical Aspects’, Keyuan Zou explains
the China’s relationship with the law of the sea, including the UNCLOS. Notably,
the author touches upon the historical fishery relationship between China and Japan
dating back to the pre-UNCLOS era and the China’s negotiation position within the
UNCLOS (UN Conference on the Law of the Sea), for clarifying the long history of
China with that of the law of the sea. The author also makes his opinion on the old
and recent topic of the historic right, alleged by China. In Chap. 2, entitled ‘Japan
and the Law of the Sea: Key Historical and Contemporary Milestones’, Shigeki
Sakamoto shows the general sketch of Japan’s policy and attitude towards the law
of the sea, by elucidating especially the domestic law of Japan concerning a variety
of issues, such as the regulation of piracy, the territorial sea and the international
straits, the maritime scientific research. The author does engage in a more con-
troversial aspect of Japan’s policy in the realms of maritime boundary delimitation
dispute with Japan’s surrounding countries, including the issue of whaling.
Part II (Chaps. 3 and 4) deals with the implementation of the UNCLOS within
the domestic legal system, in China and Japan. In Chap. 3, entitled ‘The United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and China’s Practice’, Yongming Jin
first elucidates the basic principles of the UNCLOS which, according to the
author’s viewpoint, are of primordial importance for China, a contracting party to
the UNCLOS. The author then elaborates the relevant Chinese laws, which are
aimed at implementing the UNCLOS in the Chinese domestic legal system, in
terms of their disadvantages, effects, and influences within the China’s domestic
legal system. In Chap. 4, entitled ‘Japanese Implementation of the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea’, Jun Tsuruta explains precisely the legal
framework of the domestic legislation of Japan with regard to the law of the sea,
relating to contiguous zone, territorial sea, EEZ, continental shelf, and maritime
pollution prevention. Based on these legislations, the author clarifies how Japan
integrates the UNCLOS into the Japanese legal system, by way of legislating a
variety of domestic laws corresponding to relevant provisions of the UNCLOS.
Preface vii

Part III (Chaps. 5 and 6) deals with the issues of passage and navigation, which
are both important and, thus, long debated in the law of the sea. In Chap. 5, entitled
‘A Chinese Perspective on the Innocent Passage of Warships, Contemporary Issues
and Analysis’, Yinan Bao analyses the Chinese position with regard to the innocent
passage in the territorial sea, presuming the applicability of it to the South China
Sea. The author tries to clarify, objectively, the merits and demerits of China’s
domestic law and policy in this regard and, furthermore, tries to find the way of
harmonising China’s interests and the other countries’ interests. In Chap. 6, entitled
‘Maritime Counter-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Freedom
of Navigation: A Japanese Lawyer’s Perspective’, Hiroyuki Banzai analyses
Japan’s practice in the maritime counter-proliferation of WMD, which is situated at
the cross-roads between criminal jurisdiction, law of the sea, and anti-terrorism
activities in the international society. Based on this viewpoint, the author examines
precisely the criminal jurisdiction in each relevant sea areas and, then, the PSI as a
pilot plan for the criminalisation of the proliferation of WMD.
Part IV (Chaps. 7 and 8) deals with the same issue of mid-ocean archipelago, on
which a lot of debates have been made so far. In Chap. 7, entitled ‘The Application
of Straight Baselines to Mid-Ocean Archipelagos Belonging to Continental States:
A Chinese Lawyer’s Perspective’, Hua Zhang argues that the straight baselines are
applicable to the mid-ocean archipelagos, such as the South China Sea. This
argument is based not under the UNCLOS, but under customary international law.
The author clarifies the requirements for applying this concept, under customary
international law, and opines that it is actually applicable to several areas of China’s
sea. In Chap. 8, entitled ‘A Critique Against the Concept of Mid-Ocean
Archipelago’, Yurika Ishii counterargues that the concept of the mid-ocean archi-
pelago has not been established neither under UNCLOS, nor under customary
international law and, thus, applicable to no place in the world including the South
China Sea. The author reached this conclusion on the basis of the comprehen-
siveness and superiority of UNCLOS and a thorough analysis on the State practice.
Part V (Chaps. 9 and 10) is relating to marine environment protection. In Chap. 9,
entitled ‘Chinese Law and Policy on Marine Environmental Protection’, Jiayi Wang
introduces China’s policy framework for marine environmental protection, which
has been recently developed in China, touching especially the relevant law and
provisions. The author additionally explains a lot of relevant administrative regu-
lations, which implement the laws, and the enforcement mechanism of these laws
and regulations, for clarifying how China has developed the domestic system for
marine environmental protection. In Chap. 10, entitled ‘Japanese Law and Policy on
Marine Environment Protection: The Recent Activation of Ministry
of Environment’, Makoto Seta focuses on Japan’s law and policy in marine envi-
ronmental protection, within a variety of areas such as marine environmental pro-
tection from shipping, MPAs, and marine litter. The author points out the unique
aspect of collaboration, in the said areas, between the Government’s regulations and
the private activities, such as the NGO’s involvement.
viii Preface

Part VI (Chaps. 11 and 12) is devoted to the dispute settlement system under the
UNCLOS, which is characteristic in international law in terms of the unique
mechanism of compulsory jurisdiction of the Annex VII arbitration. In Chap. 11,
entitled ‘China’s Theory and Practice on Maritime Dispute Resolution’, Bo Qu
elaborates the attitude of China towards the UNCLOS dispute settlement system,
which emphasises the importance of negotiation rather than the compulsory dispute
settlement. The author also analyses precisely the requirements for establishing
compulsory jurisdiction of Annex VII arbitral tribunal, which were lacking in the
South China Sea case, according to the author. In Chap. 12, entitled ‘UNCLOS
Dispute Settlement Mechanism: Japan’s Experience and Contribution’, Dai Tamada
introduces the experience of Japan in the UNCLOS dispute settlement system in
light of actual cases in which Japan has been involved. The author’s analysis covers
almost all kinds of the dispute settlement procedures, including prompt release,
provisional measures, jurisdiction and admissibility. Based on this, the author
clarifies also the contributions of Japan to the dispute settlement system.

Conclusion

The above chapters have summarised the relevant state practice of the two countries
in the context of the UNCLOS. We can see that there are converging and diverging
views between the Chinese and Japanese scholars on legal issues concerning the
law of the sea, which may or may not affect the policy and law of their respective
countries. It is admitted that due to the limit of the book, it has only accommodated
some of the topics which interest the contributors of this book. We have a sincere
hope that future collaborative projects can focus on other issues in the law of the
sea, such as the deep seabed mining, and generic resources on the high seas.

Kobe, Japan Dai Tamada

Preston, UK Keyuan Zou
Acknowledgments

It is acknowledged that this edited volume is a cooperative outcome between

Chinese and Japanese scholars specialising international law and generated through
the on-going progress of the East Asia Forum of International Law initiated by the
Waseda University in Japan and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The
first meeting of the Forum was held in Shanghai in August 2016, second in Tokyo
in November 2017, and third in Shanghai in October 2018. The scheduled
fourth one has been postponed due to the Covid-19. We gratefully render our
thanks to Prof. Haruo Nishihara, Prof. Zhen Wang, Prof. Hiroyuki Banzai and
Prof. Yongming Jin.
This is a good beginning for the legal scholars from the two countries to focus on
some salient issues in international law and to contribute to the solution of these
issues. The law of the sea has certainly become the top priority in our cooperative
and research agenda as it is so important to both China and Japan.
Finally, we render our sincere thanks to all the contributors to this book. Without
their firm and consistent support, it is impossible that this book comes into being.
We also very much appreciate Springer which has accepted and eventually pub-
lished the book.

ix
Contents

Part I Historical Aspects

1 China and the Law of the Sea: Historical Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Keyuan Zou
2 Japan and the Law of the Sea: Key Historical and Contemporary
Milestones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Shigeki Sakamoto

Part II Implementation
3 The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
and China’s Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Yongming Jin
4 Japanese Implementation of the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Jun Tsuruta

Part III Navigation

5 A Chinese Perspective on the Innocent Passage of Warships,
Contemporary Issues and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Yinan Bao
6 Maritime Counter-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
and the Freedom of Navigation: A Japanese Lawyer’s
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Hiroyuki Banzai

xi
xii Contents

Part IV Mid-Ocean Archipelagos

7 The Application of Straight Baselines to Mid-Ocean Archipelagos
Belonging to Continental States: A Chinese Lawyer’s
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Hua Zhang
8 A Critique Against the Concept of Mid-Ocean Archipelago . . . . . . 133
Yurika Ishii

Part V Marine Environment

9 Chinese Law and Policy on Marine Environmental Protection . . . . 151
Jiayi Wang
10 Japanese Law and Policy on Marine Environment Protection:
The Recent Activation of Ministry of Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Makoto Seta

Part VI Dispute Settlement

11 China’s Theory and Practice on Maritime Dispute Resolution . . . . 201
Bo Qu
12 UNCLOS Dispute Settlement Mechanism: Japan’s Experience
and Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Dai Tamada

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Editors and Contributors

About the Editors

Dai Tamada is Professor of International Law at Graduate School of Law, Kobe

University. He holds MA (Kyoto University 2000) and Ph.D. (Kyoto University
2014). His research areas cover international dispute settlement, international
investment law, the law of treaties, and the law of the sea. He has been a committee
member in several Government organs, including Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MOFA), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and Ministry of
Justice (MOJ) of Japan. His recent publications include Malgosia Fitzmaurice and
Dai Tamada (eds.), Whaling in the Antarctic: Significance and Implications of the
ICJ Judegment (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016), Dai Tamada and Philippe Achilleas (eds.),
Theory and Practice of Export Control: Balancing International Security and
International Economic Relations (Springer, 2017), and Piotr Szwedo, Richard
Peltz-Steele and Dai Tamada (eds.), Law and Development: Balancing Principles
and Values (Springer, 2019).

Keyuan Zou is Professor of International Law at Dalian Maritime University,

China and University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom. He specialises in
international law, in particular the law of the sea and international environmental
law. He has published over 200 refereed English papers in more than 30 interna-
tional journals and various edited books. His single-authored books include Law
of the Sea in East Asia: Issues and Prospects, China’s Marine Legal System and the
Law of the Sea, China’s Legal Reform: Towards the Rule of Law, and
China-ASEAN Relations and International Law. His recent edited volumes include
Global Commons and the Law of the Sea (2018), Maritime Cooperation in
Semi-Enclosed Seas: Asian and European Experiences (2019), and The Belt and
Road Initiative and the Law of the Sea (2020). He is a member of Editorial Boards
of International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, Ocean Development and
International Law, Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy, Marine
Policy, Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Territorial and Maritime

xiii
xiv Editors and Contributors

Studies, Chinese Journal of International Law, and Advisory Boards of Global

Journal of Comparative Law, Asia-Pacific Journal of Ocean Law and Policy, and
Korean Journal of International & Comparative Law.

Contributors

Hiroyuki Banzai has been a Professor of Law at Waseda University since April
2009, teaching public international law. His previous teaching experience includes
Associate Professor of Surugadai University in Saitama. For his academic back-
ground, he received Master of Laws and Doctor of Laws Thesis of Waseda
University. His main areas of expertise are on state responsibility for internationally
wrongful acts, sources of law and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
His book “Study on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts” won
the Adachi Mineichiro Memorial Award in 2016.
Yinan Bao is an associate professor at School of International Law, East China
University of Political Science and Law. He did his Ph.D. studies in diplomatic law
at University of Sussex from 2010 to 2014 with a thesis entitled When Old
Principles Face New Challenges: A Critical Analysis of the Principle of Diplomatic
Inviolability. He had previously studied LLM in Public International Law at the
University of Leicester from 2009 to 2010. Dr Bao’s major research interest is in
public international law, especially in diplomatic law, territorial disputes and the
law of the sea. His major academic work includes: “The US Theory of Excessive
Maritime Claims and Its Practice: A Critical Analysis” (Chinese International
Studies, 2017), “International Law Issues concerning the Unauthorized Intrusions
of US Warships into the Adjacent Waters of Chinese Maritime Features in the
South China Sea: A Positivist Analysis” (Pacific Journal, 2019), “Low-Tide
Elevations: A Contemporary Analysis” (The Legal Challenges of Maritime Order in
East Asia, 2018), “On the Historical Evolution of the Principle of Diplomatic
Inviolability” (Chinese International Law Review, 2012) and “International Law
Issues Concerning the Referendum of Crimea: A Preliminary Analysis” (Chinese
Yearbook of International Law, 2015).
Yurika Ishii is Associate Professor at National Defense Academy of Japan. Her
areas of research interests include general public international law, law of the sea
and international/transnational criminal law. She has published a number of papers
on law of the sea, of which topics include maritime delimitation, submarine cables,
migrants at sea, piracy, obligation of due regards, and self-defense at high seas. Her
most recent writings include “The ‘Due Regard’ Obligation and the Peaceful and
Economic Uses of the EEZ other than Fisheries,” International Journal of Marine
and Coastal Law, Vol. 34 pp. 73–88 (2019). She achieved LL.B. from the
University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law, LL.M. from Cornell Law School, and Ph.D.
Editors and Contributors xv

from the University of Tokyo, Graduate Schools for Laws and Politics with a thesis
on international regulation of economic crimes, which was published as
International Regulation of Transnational Crimes (Yuhikaku 2017).
Yongming Jin Ph.D. in Law, is a professor at the School of International Affairs
and Public Administration, a Senior Researcher of Institute of Marine
Development, Ocean University of China. He holds LL.M. (Kansai University of
Japan 2001) and Ph.D. (East China University of Political and Law 2005). His
previous researching experience includes Research Professor of Shanghai Academy
of Social Sciences. He is mainly engaged in teaching and researching international
law of the sea, and his major academic books include: Study on the Solution to the
Issues of the East China Sea (2008), Theoretical Study on Ocean Law of China
(2014), Ocean Power Strategy of China in the New Era (2018) and Study on the
Ocean Policy and Legal System of New China (2020).
Bo Qu is a professor of international law at the Law School of Ningbo University,
and Vice Director of the East China Sea Institute of Ningbo University, China. Her
expertise includes various areas of the law of the sea, and more broadly covers
acquisition of territories, state responsibility, sources of and dispute settlement in
public international law. She has been in charge of many funded research projects
on subjects including maritime delimitation, disputes over islands, maritime secu-
rity and maritime dispute settlement mechanisms. Professor Qu has published about
50 journal articles on public international law. She is a member of the Chinese
Society of International Law and the Chinese Society of Law of the Sea.
Shigeki Sakamoto is Professor of the Faculty of Law, Doshisha University.
Professor Emeritus of Kobe University. Doctor of Laws (Kobe University).
Member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council (2008–
2013). He served as an Advocate for the Government of Japan in “Southern Bluefin
Tuna” Cases (Australia and NZ v. Japan) under UNCLOS Part XV. Former
President of the Japanese Society of International Law, President of the Japanese
Institute for the Law of the Sea. His research interests cover law of treaties, law
of the sea and international human rights law. His recent publications include
Japan’s Ocean Policy and the Law of the Sea (Shinzansha, 2nd ed., 2019),
Interpretation and Application of International Human Rights Treaties (Shinzansha,
2017), Theory and Practice of the Law of Treaties (Toshindo, 2004).
Makoto Seta is an Associate Professor of International Law at Yokohama City
University, Japan. He holds Ph.D. in Law, Waseda University (Japan); LL.M.
London School of Economics and Political Science (UK); LL.B. Waseda
University (Japan). He worked as a Research Associate at the Institute of
Comparative Law at Waseda University from April 2013 to March 2015. He
interned at Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court in 2009. In 2013,
his article “Regulation for Private Maritime Security Companies and Its
Challenges” received an award by the Yamagata Maritime Institute. His primary
interest is the law of the sea, especially ocean governance and universal jurisdiction
Other documents randomly have
different content
 CHAPTER VIII
PETER OF THE BUTTON FACE

S ummer burned itself into fall. The Vistula which had been
growing ever lower and lower with the heat was now but a
narrow ribbon of water and the banks along it were parched
and dried and yellow. Leaves were changing from green to brown
and the birds were making ready to leave for southern lands as soon
as the first suggestion of cold should appear. Across the meadows
now the horses and wagons were marching daily and the dry hay
was filling barn and shelter in all the country about. The fruits of the
autumn were already appearing in the market, the apples of the first
bearing, the golden squashes, and the late cabbage. And over the
city and country hung a sky of deep, exquisite blue, for in all the
world there is no sky so blue as is the Krakow sky, and no sun is so
golden as is the sun of early autumn.
When the Month of the Heather had passed by and the Month of
Hemp Beating was at hand, Joseph had learned all the notes of the
Heynal and could play the little hymn upon his father’s trumpet.
Once even he had played it in the tower; on that night his father had
played it toward the west, south, and east, and then had allowed the
boy to play it at the north window. The girl, Elzbietka, a little quicker
of ear than Joseph, had long since mastered the air and quickly
memorized Joseph’s notes, so that she could not only hum the
music, but reproduce it in writing upon a wall or piece of parchment.
One evening when Elzbietka was visiting Joseph’s mother—and
she came more and more frequently now since the alchemist had
begun to carry on new experiments with Tring—Joseph exclaimed
suddenly:
 “Before long I shall play all four Heynals.”
She let her chin rest upon one hand as she did often when she
thought and when she spoke seriously. “I shall listen,” she said. “It
comforts me more than ever now when I hear the hymn played in
the night time—since there is seldom any one in our rooms when I
awake. Joseph,” she spoke in a very low tone, “do you know I think
that my uncle is possessed?”
He gave a great start. “Possessed—and by whom?”
“I don’t know. But he isn’t himself. It isn’t that he is out of his
wits—no, not that at all. He is just as intelligent and just as kind as
he ever was, but he has become so interested in something that he
is doing in the loft that he thinks but little of me or of his friends in
the world. There is that student, Johann Tring——”
“Yes, I know,” he answered quickly.
“He and my uncle are together in the loft every night. Sometimes
they stay there until it is light. They say queer things, and
sometimes my uncle cries out as if he were in pain. You heard them
the night that I told you to go up the staircase. It is always like that.”
“I told father what I heard that night,” said Joseph, “and he only
said that it was none of our affair, that your uncle is a man who has
been very kind to us, and who knows what he is about. Also he
forbade me ever to spy upon your uncle again. Father said that your
uncle is a great scholar and that he is now probably working upon
something that will win him fame.”
“Ay—perhaps,” she meditated—“but I loved him better as he
was.”
From that time on Elzbietka became more and more a part of
Pan Andrew’s family. In the afternoons she used to bring her sewing
downstairs into the front room and sit there for hours working and
chatting or humming little tunes under her breath. When Joseph
returned from his studies in the afternoon the two were accustomed
to walk out into the city and see its changing wonders, its new
caravans, its pageants, its companies of knights and soldiers, its
processions of guilds. Often they walked out through the gates into
the country where there was rich black earth, and behind them or
alongside or ahead ran the great Tartar dog. The walks took them to
the old Jewish city of the Kazimierz, across the fortified bridge on
the west arm of the Vistula, to the old church on the Skalka, where
the holy Stanislas was murdered at his altar, to the high mound
above the city where it was said that old King Krakus was buried; to
these and to many other places had they wandered while the sun
was bright and the air not too cool.
Once they went to visit the towers of the Church of Our Lady
Mary in the late afternoon. The watchman let them in at the little
gate at the base of the tower and they climbed up to the room
where the day trumpeter was on duty. He was the man that Pan
Andrew relieved at night, and he thought it a great honor to have a
visit from such a little lady as Elzbietka, and he told her many of the
legends which have come down from old days when the church
tower was being built.
Joseph picked up his father’s trumpet from the table. “When I
first play all the four Heynals you must listen and see if you hear a
single note played wrong.”
 “I will listen.”
“If I play a wrong note I will give you my cap. If I play two, then
I will give you Wolf.” He smiled then, as a boyish thought came to
him. “If I ever play the Heynal through to the end, without stopping
at the broken note, then you may run to Jan Kanty and tell him to
summon the watch, for then something will have happened to me.”
“How do you mean?” She was as ever serious, though he was
smiling.
“You know the story of this hymn, the Heynal?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“How, when the Tartars burned the city, the trumpeter stayed on
duty and played the hours as he had sworn?”
“Yes. . . . A brave story.”
“Well”—Joseph liked to see the blue eyes widen—“one night the
Tartars will attack the city, or perhaps the Knights of the Cross. I
shall see them coming from afar, in the midst of fire and smoke, and
I shall hear war cries and their horses hoofs. And I shall be all alone
in the tower that night, for neither my father nor any person will be
here. And when I realize that it is an enemy, I must have a signal,
since I myself may not leave the tower—a signal to some one in the
town who will give the alarm. So I will play the Heynal, but I will not
stop on the broken note. That note does not end the measure, you
know. I will play on, two or three notes further.”
“Excellent,” she cried, and her cheeks were red with the
excitement of it. “If I hear you play the Heynal without stopping at
the broken note, I will run straight to Jan Kanty.”
“Now, come look at the city,” he broke off conversation on the
subject. He was a little ashamed, for he had not expected Elzbietka
to take his remarks quite so seriously. She had not taken the
trumpet signal as the jest he intended, but had rejoiced at it as do
most young people when they have a secret with some important
person. And to her Joseph was a person of very great importance,
not only because of his prowess with the trumpet and his progress in
the collegium, but because, indeed, he possessed somehow more
than ordinary seriousness for a boy of his age.
They peered through a little window. Off to the right ran the
Street of St. Florian with the gate and church beyond: new towers
were being constructed that very year in the walls that ran about the
city and two of them near the Florian Gate were visible from the
tower of the Church of Our Lady Mary. To each city guild was
assigned one of these towers, to be kept in repair and to be manned
in case of attack on the city. The joiners’ and the tailors’ guilds had
watchtowers near this gate. Between these watchtowers and the
church were many palaces with large enclosures in the center, open
to the sun, where guards and soldiers were working or waiting or
disporting themselves, breaking each other’s heads with
quarterstaves or fencing, or shooting with arrows at pigeons tied to
the tops of high poles.
 Directly below them the market was still busy although it was
late afternoon, for the peasants were ready to sell at small profit
what remained of their stock and go home; under the arches of the
Cloth Hall the crowds were still passing from booth to booth
examining the laces and embroidery and fine silks that had come in
from the east and south; beyond the Cloth Hall rose the tower of the
Town House, or Ratusz, and in front of it two luckless wretches
struggled in the pillory while a crowd of urchins pelted them with
mud and decayed vegetables. To the left rose the peak of the
Church of the Franciscans—they passed to the south window and
there saw the twin towers of the old Church of St. Andrew, and far
beyond it the great rock citadel, the Wawel, with its palace and
cathedral glorious in the afternoon sun.

There were blue shadows already lengthening across the market

when they descended from the tower and crossed the market
square. Against the palaces that lined the open space there were
more shadows, and moving like shadows within these shadows,
promenaded black-gowned students and masters. They were moving
definitely in one direction, and when once caught up in the crowd,
Joseph and Elzbietka followed, unresisting, for they knew that some
excitement was afoot in the students’ quarter.
The black figures grew constantly more and more numerous,
until at length the two stopped and pushed right and left in an
endeavor to reach a position of vantage in front of the dormitory in
St. Ann’s Street. The dormitory was set back from the street, and in
front was an open court, grassed over, in the center of which was a
stone statue of Kazimir the Great, the founder of the university. Here
upon the pedestal of this statue, leaning back upon the throne which
bore Kazimir, stood a man in the gown of a Master of Arts speaking
to the assembled students in the Latin language.
“I heard of him to-day,” Joseph told Elzbietka. “He is a celebrated
Italian scholar who comes here to read the writings of the master
poets and to recite some verses of his own. He talks of poets who
bear such names as Dante and Petrarch, and he says that the day
will come when a new learning will rule the world. He says that men
have been in darkness too long, that the barbarism which fell upon
the world after the downfall of Rome will be done away with only
when men write in their native tongues and think for themselves.”
“And can you really understand him when he speaks?”
“After a fashion. He speaks Latin as do all our masters and
priests and scholars. My father had teachers for me when I was
eight years old, and since then I have worked much with the Latin
tongue. At first it pleased me not at all, for there were rules and
tables and grammar, but when I began to understand that Latin
would admit me into the proudest society of the world, then I began
to like it better. In the months that I have been here my teaching
has all been in Latin, and I hope, myself, to be able to speak it
fluently sometime. I can understand much, though not all.”
“Why does not this Italian poet speak, then, in the university?”
 “He might perhaps—but to a certain extent it would stir up strife,
since there are those among the masters who do not like the New
Learning, as it is called. Our old teachings are all of the great
Aristotle, and yet we have never read anything of him in the Greek
language—everything that we study is in Latin. We have many
treatises upon learning which the masters have used for centuries,
and most of them do not desire to change their ways.”
The Italian scholar at that moment began to read his own verses
in the Latin tongue. He had scarcely finished, amid much acclaim,
when a Polish scholar mounted the pedestal and began to read
some of his verses written in the Polish language.
“Why do they not all do that?” asked Elzbietka. “One can
understand them so much better. If I were a poet I should not think
of writing in an old language that no one speaks except a few
scholars. I would write of Poland and its flowers; I would write of
the trumpeter in the tower and the blue sky that one sees behind
the castle on Wawel Hill. Truly, I like this New Learning as you call
it.”
Joseph smiled but knew not what to say.
“And,” she continued, “why is not this learning as good for
women as it is for men? Why is it that all writings of poets and
scholars and men of learning should be read only by men? I would
read such writings, too.”
It was said with such gravity and such an air of wisdom that at
first Joseph was inclined to smile, but as he looked into her face and
saw the seriousness there, he desisted.
“Truly,” he said finally, “I know not why you should not read as do
men, but I know of no woman who ever entered the university.”
As they turned through a short lane from St. Ann’s Street to the
Street of the Pigeons they failed to notice a pair of men conversing
quietly behind the buttress of a house on the farther side. Both were
of short stature, and one was much bent as he spoke he raised his
long, lean fingers close to his mouth:
 “Sh-h. . . . That is the boy.”
The other started and turned quickly, but appeared puzzled.
“When did you say he came?”
The bent-over man, who was no other than Stas, son or the
woman who lived in the court, gave the date to a day.
“Then it must be he,” exclaimed the other. “On the day that I saw
him he was dressed like a country youth and his clothes were dusty
from travel. To-day he is arrayed in velvet like any prince and has
besides the cap of a junior collegian. But his stature is the same.
And you say that he lives above you?”
“Yes. Goes by the name of Kovalski.”
“H’m—it was Charnetski when I knew him. . . . Now, you, look at
me—do you see this piece of gold? That’s true gold, red gold, an’ will
buy many a dainty or many a drink. That is to be yours, for your
very own.”
Stas almost shrieked for joy when the stranger put the piece of
money in his hand.
“But look you—no talking about this anywhere else. This is my
business, mine and yours, and I tell you that when we are finished
there will be more gold pieces for you just like that. Now show me
the place where they live.”
They followed along until Joseph and Elzbietka stood before the
entrance to the court.
“That is the place,” said Stas.
“Well and good. Now keep a close watch and let me know
anything that is new. I will be at the Inn of the Golden Elephant
every afternoon at the third hour, but do not tell any one there that
you are looking for me. Let your words be only for my ears. And
remember, the lantern in the man’s face to-night. There will be much
gold for you. You understand?”
 The man did. His very shoulders seemed to chuckle at the
thought of it. He let himself into the court and went at once to his
room.
In the meantime the other walked briskly to the inn and sat
down at a table. His thoughts were dancing in his head, for by an
extraordinary piece of luck he had succeeded in locating the family
of Pan Andrew. Luck indeed it was because never, if he had come
upon him face to face in the street, would he have known Joseph at
all. It was only because Stas had named him as the son of the man
who went abroad only by night, that he could see any resemblance
to that boy who had sent his horse flying away through the mud on
that morning so many weeks before. For this man was that same
one who called himself Stefan Ostrovski.
“They disappeared that day after the riot,” he thought to himself
as he sat in the inn, “and were nowhere to be found. The earth
might have opened and swallowed them whole. No other Charnetski
in Krakow answered their description—I had well given them up for
lost and with them a castle and coffers of gold in the Ukraine. For
when Ivan, himself, promises, then there is profit to be had. I return
to the Ukraine, but there is no word from them there. My men are
even now riding from city to city in the vain hunt. Meanwhile I,
answering some tiny voice of wisdom that speaks from somewhere
into my ear, come back here.”
He struck the table with his fist. “Men call me Bogdan Grozny—
Bogdan the Terrible,” he exclaimed, “but terror often has brains. This
venture has begun in luck and must end well. And once I get what I
seek from that white-faced Pole he shall rue the day of my
humiliation at the Krakow Gate.” And with the thought of that
adventure a look of hatred came into his eyes.
His attention was diverted for the moment by the sight of a
beggar with a dirty bandage across his face working from table to
table at the inn, begging for alms in a whining tone.
 As the beggar came near, the man dropped a coin in the
outstretched hand and whispered, “You come late to-day.”
“Pardon me, master, I thought I had a scent.”
The beggar seemed to expect a blow, and assumed a defensive
attitude, when the man smiled.
“No matter, the work is done,” he whispered. “Mount your horse
to-night and ride like the wind for Tarnov. There you will send out
our brothers to bring in the men who are hunting. It may take three
weeks—but hurry before the first fall of snow comes.”
The beggar took the orders, ambled out of the inn quietly just as
he had come in, and proceeded in like fashion until he was well
along the street which skirts the market on the west. Then suddenly
stepping behind a house buttress he tore the bandage from his face
and ran with all speed for the gate on the Mogilev Road in order to
get through unchallenged before the night watch came on duty. He
passed through, sauntered down the road until he came to a small
peasant cottage with a stable in the rear; here he found the horse
which he had ridden to Krakow, and with a single word to the owner
of the house, who seemed to understand his movements fully,
galloped off to the distant bridge where ran the Tarnov Road.
The man at the inn continued to ruminate. “That stoop-
shouldered misbegotten thing that calls himself Stas came to us like
an angel from heaven. Often had I noticed him in here talking and
making free with all the beggars, and even at first look of him, I
thought to myself that here was such a man as might serve a
purpose for me sometime. So I have the landlord bring him a
friendly glass, and talking as he drinks it, he drops a word about the
new trumpeter who never goes forth in the daytime!
“That is the boy as sure as man can be sure, despite his new
trappings of velvet; and then the fact that there are three of them,
and the date of their arrival. To-night when the trumpeter leaves by
the door, Stas will hold the lantern to his face, and I hiding near by
will see—but there is scarce need of that, it is as well as proved. My
men will be here in a week or two, and it will be but short work after
that.”
His face was working pale in his excitement—it was all white save
the button mark which stood out on it like a clot of blood.
“What would the honorable Pan Andrew have said that day,” he
chuckled, “had he known that Bogdan Grozny was before him? For
he, and every man in the Ukraine, knows Peter of the Button Face.
That was a good name I gave him—Ostrovski! Ostrovski of the
proud family at Chelm that once called me slave.”
Peter of the Button Face was indeed a name feared everywhere
in the Ukraine. It had been bestowed upon this man whose real
name was Bogdan, chiefly by the Poles, for among the Cossacks he
was known as Grozny or Terrible. A savage outcast, born of a Tartar
mother and Cossack father, he had been involved in every dark plot
on the border in the last ten years. Houses he had burned by the
score and men and women he had put to death cruelly. Under his
command was a band of ruffians who would rise up suddenly in the
Ukraine, overnight almost, and set out upon any adventure of fire
and sword that he suggested.
He was not despised by great folk either—Polish or Muscovite—
when there was unlawful work to be done; nobles often employed
him for unscrupulous tasks that they dared not perform themselves;
the Great Khan of the Tartars even had dispatched him on a mission
among the Golden Horde; his name was a power on both sides of
the boundary, for in Poland also he had confederates who served
him.
And at the present time the great country of the Ukraine which
had come to Poland through the marriage of Jagiello of Lithuania
with Jadviga of Poland about one hundred years previous—this huge
land was full of plots and counterplots in the struggle for mastery
between Muscovy and Poland. Ivan of Moscow had already begun to
turn envious eyes upon this territory which had been the heart of
the old Byzantine Russia with Kiev as its capital, and was making
plans to wrest it from Poland at the first opportunity. And in such
fashion many a dweller such as Pan Andrew Charnetski found
himself bereft of property and fields in a single night. For there were
many such as Bogdan the Terrible, or as the Poles knew him, Peter
of the Button Face, who were ready at a minute’s notice to engage
in some such fearful task with rewards of plunder and captives for
their work.
However, little realizing what savage forces had been let loose
against them, the family of Pan Andrew sat down to a quiet supper.
 CHAPTER IX
BUTTON FACE PETER ATTACKS

C old weather came in late November—or Listopad, the month

of Falling Leaves, as Polish folk call it—and found the poor
people in the villages already fortified in their log huts with
the thatched roofs. Sand had been heaped high about the walls of
the houses, all crevices that led to the outer world were stopped up
with mud or tree branch or stone, wood and charcoal were piled
under table and bench, and from the ceiling hung dried vegetables
and mushrooms and sausage. The geese and pigs still ran about
outside the house but would be taken in with the first frost to share
the “black” or large compartment of the hut with the family. In the
second or “white” compartment of the hut the whole family slept
when the weather was not too frigid, but when the snow was up to
the roof level, and the cold was so great that one could hear trees
cracking in the night, all slept in the “black” room which had not
even a chimney to vent the smoke that poured out steadily from an
open fireplace.
In the city houses, wealthy men were beginning to build high tile
stoves of Italian pattern, but for the most part people depended for
heat and comfort upon the open fireplace. When the first frost came
boys ran hither and thither with flaming coals for starting the first
fires; up in the tower of the Church of our Lady Mary the watchmen
kept eyes constantly wide open in order to detect as quickly as
possible the patches of flame which sometimes broke out from the
roofs of over-heated dwellings, and many a troublesome night was
spent by the water master and his men quenching such fires.
 A light snow was falling on the last Wednesday of the month,
when Pan Andrew started for his nightly duties at the church. The
world had been going well with him, he reflected, as he made his
way through the dark and well-nigh deserted streets: his son was
making marked progress in the collegium, his wife was happy and
contented, he himself was earning enough to support them both
comfortably, and he hoped that before long he would have a chance
to present his offering to the King. For it had not been possible thus
far to gain an audience; either the King had been away on business
in Torun with soldiers and diplomats, or he was in Vilna, the home of
the Jagiello dynasty which now ruled Poland, or in Lvov where the
Ruthenian subjects lived.
In the short snatches of time when he had been in Krakow
neither Pan Andrew nor Jan Kanty had been able to reach him,
because so many had been waiting ahead of them—the
ambassadors from the Czechs who came to offer him the crown of
Bohemia, the delegation from Rome, the scholars from Italy, the
deputation from the Teutonic Knights asking for a compact against
the Hussites, and other men of title and power.
This delay was no great cause of concern to Pan Andrew,
however, since an audience was eventually assured. Late in the
summer Jan Kanty had sent a petition to the very throne itself, and
the King had advised the gentle scholar by message that he would
see him at the first opportunity. In the meanwhile the treasure
seemed hidden in as safe quarters as Pan Andrew could ask for.
It was several hours after Pan Andrew had left his lodgings on
the Street of the Pigeons that there came a violent ringing of the bell
that summoned Stas. Stas unfastened the door and thrust his
lantern directly into the face of the man who stood there, and for his
pains was rewarded with a smart blow upon the chin which tumbled
him into the soft snow which was now beginning to cover
everything.
“Don’t do that again as you value your life,” the stranger
muttered as he picked up the fallen lantern and straightened the
limp Stas upon his feet. “You fool, don’t you know that some one
might have seen my face? If some watchman took me, he would as
well take you; it is for your safety that no man knows anything of
this meeting. Is everything ready?”
“Yes,” responded Stas a bit ruefully.
“Then tell me, who is in the building?”
“Well—there is the lodger on the top floor and his niece, and
there is the boy and his mother.”
“The students?”
“They have gone to a discussion at the Hungarian pension.
Sometimes they do not return before daybreak.”
“Good I Then we can work without fear. A dozen men will suffice,
four to enter the rooms of Pan Andrew, four to quiet the tenants if
need be, and four to stand at the gate. If the guard should come,
we can silence him.”
“Will you see the stairs?”
“Yes, they live——”
“Up one flight.” They ascended the stairs, Stas in the lead. It
seemed to the stranger that the staircase swayed a little beneath
their feet.
“We must take care here,” he muttered. “It seems as if a weight
would bring this down.”
Just then a dog began to bark in the court below.
“What is that?” demanded the man, turning on Stas. “You did not
tell me of a dog.”
“He is chained,” replied the other. “Will you give me the gold
now?”
“Here.” The man thrust him a few coins. He took them greedily
and felt them over in the darkness, for the stranger was holding
under his coat the lantern that he had picked up from the ground.
 “This is not all?” Stas’ voice rose to a whine.
“Swine!” For a moment the man lost control of himself. “Here is
the rest, then,” and he swung his free hand to Stas’ throat, and sank
his fingers in the flesh. Stas fought but could not release himself
from those fingers that dug like iron points—at length the man freed
him.
“No more of that,” he admonished. “The next time you will find
yourself in paradise, or some other world. Listen, fool, once and for
all—if all goes well here I will give you double of that which you
already have. But if you betray me, or make one foolish blunder,
then you will receive, not gold, but a punishment that is worse than
anything you dream of.”
Stas beat a retreat down the stairs, the stranger behind him.
“Remember,” was the final admonishment, “we will be here just
after the second hour has sounded. Let us in, and your part in this is
finished.”
Now it so happened that Pan Kreutz, the alchemist, was working
alone in the loft above his room that night. He had already finished
one experiment, and was about to begin a more difficult one, when
his attention was caught by the sudden barking of a dog in the court
beneath.
“What can that be?” he thought. “There is no moon to cause
barking, nor does the dog bark at any of the dwellers in the court.”
He quickly threw a covering over the lantern that lighted the loft and
opened the door so that he might look down.
His suspicions that all was not well in the court were confirmed in
the next second when he heard a whispered conversation
somewhere below, while the stairs creaked as if two persons were
ascending. Then all at once came an exclamation of pain in a voice
that he recognized as Stas’.
More whispering, and the footsteps descended.
 The next instant the alchemist, leaning forward to listen, heard
the stranger’s final instruction to Stas.
“There is, then, some mischief afoot,” he decided. “Doorkeepers
do not let honest visitors into any house at two o’clock in the
morning.”
He reëntered the attic room, and uncovered the lantern after
making fast the door. For some time he puzzled about what he had
heard. Who was the stranger, and what business did he have with
Stas, the watchman? And what ought he to do about it? He was for
a moment minded to notify the night watch.
“I am perhaps magnifying things,” he finally concluded “More
than likely two o’clock on the morrow was meant. Besides, I myself
could give any marauder here a very warm reception—” he glanced
about the loft. The thought seemed to please him, for he chuckled
for the space of a moment, and then turned seriously to his work.
For an hour or more his experiment, which was difficult and
exacting, held all his attention. But when it was finally finished and
the results carefully noted, the thought of Stas and his mysterious
visitor returned to him. In the stillness of the late hour the affair
seemed to show a graver face.
He jumped up suddenly and set the fires leaping in two braziers.
He melted a gum in one of them and heated some liquid in the
other. At length at the end of fifteen minutes he covered the fires
and took out the substances. With a small brush he smeared the
mixture of the two over his long student gown that hung against the
wall. Then he took the mask which he used when making
experiments with certain poisonous gases, and covered this with the
same drug he had compounded in the braziers—the gum causing it
to cling to the surface of the mask.
“I have but to sprinkle this with aqua phosphorata,” he said to
himself, “and the heavens will not be more brilliant than I.”
He sat back in his chair to wait, and with closed eyes tried to
reason it all out. “What can be the meaning of this?” he thought.
“The stranger with Stas stopped on the landing of Pan Andrew’s
lodging. What mystery can have attached itself to this family? Why
should the name be changed? Who would seek revenge upon a man
and a woman and a boy? Elzbietka has found a mother, and I good
friends. They have no treasure with them, no money of any kind, for
even on that first day Pan Andrew was obliged to sell his cart and
horses for the means of living.”
He was becoming drowsy, for he had worked much of late, and
had had but little sleep, and he was on the point of succumbing to
his weariness when he heard the watchman at the Church of our
Lady Mary strike twice upon the bell and then begin to play the
Heynal. The fourth Heynal was scarcely finished when he heard a
motion in the court below. It was Stas creeping along the wall in
order to open the door. Throwing back his door noiselessly the
alchemist lay flat on the floor and leaned out over the threshold. The
door below creaked a little as it opened. Some one came in. The
alchemist listened. “One—two—three—more! By the lightning, there
must be a dozen of them, if footsteps tell no lies. I did wrong not to
notify the watch. If I shout now, he may come, but there are
enough to silence both him and me. No, I have made my beer and I
must drink it.”
Next the stairs began to creak, and almost instantly the hoarse
barking of a dog cut through the air.
“Silence that dog,” he heard some one whisper from the steps.
Footsteps were heard again in the court as if someone had gone
back to combat the animal. At this same moment the door leading
into the court was slammed shut, and there was a rattle of the chain
that fastened it on the inside.
“A precious jewel, that Stas,” thought the alchemist. “He shall
pay for this to-morrow.”
A cry of pain rang out suddenly from below. It was the cry not of
a dog, but of a man. “Ha,” thought Pan Kreutz, “Wolf finished that
one.” There was a sound of a man running across the court. “I can’t
get near him without injury,” he whispered loudly to the leader of
the party. “He sank his teeth in my leg, and I am faint for pain.”
“Three of you attack him at once,” directed the leader.
There was scuffling again and suddenly the night was made
hideous with the mad howling and barking of Wolf and the shrieking
of men in pain; at this moment Joseph, with a light in his hand,
appeared at the door on the second story:
“Wolf—Wolf,” he called.
He did not call again.
“Whew,” thought the alchemist, “they silenced the boy. A gag,
probably.”
He was right. The leader of the attacking party had seized Joseph
and thrown a cloth bag over his head.
“To the house,” he shouted to the men below. “Four of you stand
guard at the door. Four of you wait at the stairs and let no one
descend, and the rest come with me.”
As the light of the lantern which he had taken from the boy
swung upon his face, the man watching above could see that it was
marked with a great round scar like an immense button.
“Tartar or Cossack,” he exclaimed, “for the plague which leaves
such scars is an Eastern plague; these men have come from a long
distance.”
He was right. This was indeed the band of that ruffian whom the
Poles called Peter of the Button Face and whose bad fame men knew
in all the Ukraine and the lands to the east.
In the next second, almost, they were inside the house—Peter,
and three men following. There came to the alchemist’s ears the
scream of a woman, followed by a crash as if she had been thrown
upon the floor. Then came the sound of the breaking of furniture, of
the tearing up of matting, of the destruction of everything within the
house as if a quick, violent search were being made. The door was
open and the alchemist could hear clearly all the sounds below.
“Look in the bed,” the leader spoke.
Pan Andrew and his wife slept in a large bed in the front room.
Swords were quickly at work ripping this to pieces. They cut open
the pillows, they tore apart the blankets, and it was only after the
bed was a complete ruin that the leader found what he had been
seeking.
“There it is,” he shouted; “that large package, done up in cloth.”
With his sword he ripped away the layers of cloth that bound it—
one by one they fell away upon the floor until the object he sought
stood uncovered in his right hand. But just at that instant as he was
about to dart for the door there came a shrill voice, shrieking, “My
gold—my gold!”
Peter turned like a flash. “Blood of a dog——”
The lantern was held up. Its light disclosed the face of Stas
maddened with the fear that he should not receive the price of his
treachery.
“Gold! I’ll give you gold,” shouted Peter, infuriated. “Some one
take him and throw him down to the dog. Then he can take what
gold we choose to throw him.”
Two men seized him, but he fought madly and dashed into the
room. There the third man headed him off and the two others fell
upon him from behind; his slim body wriggled loose, however, and
he fell across the table already overturned by the intruders in their
search for Pan Andrew’s treasure, and clung there with ferociousness
to the upturned legs. He kicked, he bit, he struck out blindly—but
they tore him loose just as Peter set the prize on the floor to take
the man in hand himself.
The lantern rested on the floor behind him, and as the struggling
men swung toward him, Stas, shot with a brilliant idea, worked a leg
loose and kicked the lantern over. As it fell the door swung open and
the candle went out. Almost instantly, however, the ruffians closed
their grip upon him and hustled him to the door.
Over the rail he would have gone without further ceremony had
not there come the sudden screaming of a girl from the floor above.
“The plague upon them all,” exclaimed Peter, dropping Stas.
“Here everything is as smooth as water in a lake, then all of a
sudden babies and fools raise the dead with their cries. Come, we
have enough—let us get out of this at once.”
He groped his way back to Pan Andrew’s bed, and was feeling in
the dark for the precious thing that was the object of his raid, when
there came a crash like that of thunder from above, and through the
open door appeared a terrible red light that seemed to come from
the sky and enveloped everything for the moment in a garment of
red.
 CHAPTER X
THE EVIL ONE TAKES A HAND

P eter rushed to the door and stood, staring.

Balls of red fire were shooting out into the air from the
opened casement of the room in the loft, flooding the place
with light as they burst with terrific explosions. In the light Peter
could see his men standing horror-struck, four below him at the
bottom of the stairs, and four on guard at the door. Those who had
been clinging to Stas on the landing had recoiled in fright before the
fiery balls, and the half-wit had seized the opportunity to slink
stealthily away through their legs, and make for the lower steps.
For a moment Peter stood motionless. In bodily things he was
braver than the brave, but in the face of such magic as this he was a
coward; yet though he trembled, he realized that he must play a
man’s part if he wished to keep the leadership of his band, and
accordingly, spurring himself up to a pitch of bravado, he rushed up
the stairs from the second floor to the third and stood there just as
another bomb soared out into the air.
“Come back! Come back!” they were shouting from below.
“Come up! Come up!” he commanded. “What are you frightened
of?”
“It is the Evil One, himself!”
Peter shook his curved Cossack sword in the darkness. “Come up
—come up, I tell you, you cowardly dogs—come up or I’ll separate
your coward heads from your useless bodies. Come up, I say—come
up!”
 And so much was he feared that the three men on the second
floor landing crossed themselves in the manner of the Greek Church
and went creeping up after him.
“We have the treasure,” pleaded the nearest man in a trembling
voice, “let us escape from here. This is nothing human. This is the
work of the Evil One. Devils are abroad and a man is not sure of his
soul.”
“Devils,” roared Peter, “bones and fiddlesticks! Come up here,
you, and be men. This is no devil. This is some joker who values his
head but lightly. If we do not silence him he will alarm the whole city
before we get back to the gate.”
“Up that,” he commanded a second later, shoving the first man
against the staircase to the loft. “Up that, and tell us what you see.”
The man mounted, trembling violently, for he was sure that the
powers of darkness themselves were working against them.
“The door is open here,” he whispered, “and no lights within.” A
man below him on the stairway passed the word along to Peter.
“Then up, every mother’s son of you,” ordered the leader. “There
is a man there. Put a knife in his throat and descend quickly.”
The rest pulled themselves up and entered the loft. After a few
minutes of impatient waiting Peter climbed the steps himself and
pushed himself across the dark threshold.
“What have you found?” he demanded impatiently.
“Nothing,” the answer came faintly from one corner of the loft.
“If there is any one here let him speak now,” Peter bellowed. His
voice drowned the quiet opening of the door of a closet in the back
of the room. “If we find any one it will go hard——”
Like a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky the loft was suddenly
illuminated with a glow of red fire as there leapt into existence out
of the blackness of the night the very incarnation of the Evil One in
his worst mood. Clad in fiery garments which smelled of fire and
brimstone and which seemed to blaze and burn and give off a
greenish smoke and flame, he moved slowly forward, waving in his
right hand a scepter of flaming red which was crackling with heat as
a green bough crackles when it burns, while from its end little balls
of fire were dripping.
It was so sudden, so unexpected, this apparition in a pitch-black
world of night, of a red, fiery, glowing devil, that Peter, stout-hearted
as he was, let out a sudden shriek, and trembled like a leaf.
But if he trembled, the others went mad with fear. “Out! Out!”
they shrieked, crowding to the stairway.
Upon their heels came the fantastic demon waving his scepter
right and left and favoring first one and then another with smart
blows, as they fought to be first at the stairway. Two reached it at
one time and went scrambling down to be joined by the third a
second later, who came tumbling down upon them just as they
gained the third-floor landing.
Peter, however, stood his ground for a moment. Turning about at
the head of the stairs he shouted, “Be you man or demon I will see
what you have in you,” and rushed with his drawn sword upon the
weird figure. That one simply stood aside as he rushed, and waved
his hand in the direction of the man’s face.
“Ahew—ahew!” the brigand screamed with pain, for something
choking and powdery was filling his eyes and throat. “Help—cowards
—I am in the hands of a thousand devils. Help, I say!”
There was no sound outside save the noise of the men
scrambling down the next stairway.
Peter stumbled blindly to the steps, and fairly slid down them,
fearful lest the phantom should follow and give him another dose.
But the phantom, though following, did not repeat his attack; he
came slowly down the stairs after the retreating party, hurling little
bombs of colored fire into the air, which as they exploded flooded
the court with lights of rainbow hues.
 Below, the din was deafening. The dog had worked his head
loose from the bag which had been thrown over it, and was barking
at the top of his lungs. Men were shouting and crying out in terror,
forgetful of caution and the necessity for silence. Joseph who had
been gagged and bound in the rear room of the family’s dwelling
had gotten his feet loose from the ropes and was kicking with all his
force against the wooden partition wall, Elzbietka was crying out for
aid, and heads were beginning to emerge from open casements in
all the adjoining buildings. Some one in the street outside was
calling loudly for the watch, and Stas, having rescued himself from
one predicament, was for no reason at all pulling at the rope of the
bell that hung over the door, its clamor adding to the general uproar.
On the landing at the second floor the three retreating ruffians
collided with the four men standing there and almost toppled them
into the court. They had barely regained their balance when the
lower supports of the stairs, which had been groaning already from
the unaccustomed weight and traffic, suddenly collapsed and
catapulted the whole company, amidst indescribable turmoil, into the
court below. Peter, coming behind the three, managed to save
himself by leaping nimbly to the threshold of Pan Andrew’s dwelling,
but the flaming figure behind him remained momentarily on the
stairs above the second floor where the supports and staircase held
firm. Not for long did he remain there, however, for as Peter turned
his back to disappear into the house the pursuer leaped from the
lower step of the remaining stairway and landed squarely upon
Peter, hurling him with a crash to the floor well inside the front room
of Pan Andrew’s dwelling.
Below in the court there was a veritable pandemonium—the
crashing apart of beam and beam where the staircase struck the
ground, the shrieking of the frightened, the moaning of the injured—
for two men had been pinned beneath the fallen staircase—the
terror and distraction of the ruffians on guard below whose one idea
now was to escape through the outer door before the arrival of the
watch.
 While all this was transpiring in the court the alchemist, who with
his chemicals and powders had caused all the trouble, shook his
heavy scepter, a club smeared with glowing resin, in the face of
Peter who lay prostrate beneath him and demanded:
“Now—what do you seek here?”
But Peter had gotten some of his courage back, and besides the
voice sounded more like that of a man than a devil. “I will not tell!”
“You will!”
“I will not.”
“You will be turned over to the watch.”
“I care not. They can learn nothing.”
“First let us have another look at you.”
He carefully drew a fire ball from a fold of his gown, keeping his
weight upon the man under him and holding one hand at his throat.
The ball he ignited by rubbing it against the floor and when it was
burning he tossed it upon the stone hearth. There was a flash of
light and the room was suddenly as bright as even day could make
it.
But, after all, he did not look at Peter! For there was something
else in the room that claimed his attention at once. It was the large
round object that Peter had sought in Pan Andrew’s bed—there it lay
upon the floor a short arm’s length away, gleaming like a thousand
prisms of finest glass.
“Oho,” he exclaimed, “oho! So that’s it. Well, Pan Robber, it
seems that your expedition was no ordinary one. No common house
looting, this. . . . Lie still there, or I’ll sink these fingers into your
windpipe,” for Peter had tried to wriggle to one side while the
alchemist’s attention was taken with the new object.
“Who sent you here?” demanded the latter.
Peter was silent.
 “But you must talk. Do you hear that—below?”
It was the night watch shouting, “Stand, in the name of the
King.”
Peter whose courage was now revived, since he realized that it
was a man and not a devil that he was dealing with, decided to try a
little strategy.
“I will tell you all, if you will hide me here.”
“I give no promises. But tell me what you know.”
“Then see that.” He twisted one hand away from his captor as if
to point toward the shining object on the floor which was now
gleaming like a miniature sun in the last rays of the nearly burnt-out
fire ball.
“I see it.” The alchemist glanced at it; the instant’s relaxation
proved fatal, however, for with the moment the under man’s right
hand came clear and tore the alchemist’s grip from his throat. In the
struggle that followed, the alchemist was no match for the lithe and
wiry Cossack. They rolled back and forth across the floor, tight in
each other’s arms, they broke table legs, they brought down
crockery from the shelves, they crashed into walls—and through all
this the Cossack little by little overcame the advantage which the
other had held in the beginning. First he twisted his legs in such
fashion that he caught Pan Kreutz’s body as if in a vise, a trick that
he had learned in the old days in the Ukraine, then he snapped his
hands free from the other’s grip and wound his arms in under his
shoulders. Tighter and tighter he drew arms and legs until the
alchemist’s bones began to send out cracking noises; then with a
quick movement he had reversed their positions and it was he who
was on top and the alchemist underneath. “Smash!” He had bumped
the man’s head against the floor with all his force, a blow sufficient
to stun a giant, and in an instant had tossed him against the wall.
There the alchemist lay.
 Like a panther moving to attack, Peter seized the object which he
had come to procure, and leaped for the door.
He did not reach it unscathed. Pan Kreutz had also a last
stratagem. It was fortunate for him that when the Cossack bumped
his head against the floor, it was his mask that had borne the brunt
of the blow—otherwise it is doubtful if he could ever have risen. But
when the Cossack tossed him aside he lay there feigning
unconsciousness, and as the other turned, he reached with a
swiftness as quick as Peter’s into a pocket of his gown, where he
had concealed a small package of explosive powder which might be
ignited only by concussion. A wonder it was indeed that the powder
had not exploded while they were wrestling on the floor.
This Pan Kreutz poised in his right hand as Peter made for the
door. In another second the man would be gone—the alchemist
caught his balance and hurled the package with all his strength.
It was a fair shot! It caught the Cossack with full force square on
the back of the head and burst with a loud report.
Those below, now already turning their attention to the noise and
the confusion on the second floor, heard the sharp explosion and
saw the court flooded with light. In the midst of the glare there
came a shriek that seemed to stir every corner of the courtyard, and
almost immediately a man with hair flaming and garments streaked
with fire sprang from the threshold of Pan Andrew’s lodging to the
edge of the stairway that had not collapsed, and darted to the floor
above. He stopped there only for one fleeting glance below. The
court, blazing with torches and alive with tumult, was full of figures
—students, watchmen, soldiers—so that escape that way was
impossible. He leaped to the loft stairway and mounted it. Clutching
at the roof which was not far above his head, he swung the low door
back until it lay alongside the house and then climbed over it to the
roofing. Along this he rushed like a meteor, his blazing hair
streaming behind him in a trail of sparks—he leaped to an adjoining
roof, and then to another, until he came to a place where the roofs
sloped down to a wall, and there he was seen last.
 A hue and cry was set up, but the man had escaped. Some said
that he ran along the top of the wall and leaped into a monastery
garden beyond—others that he only pretended to descend and had
crept back among the housetops. At any rate he was not discovered.
When temporary stairs were finally put in place the watchmen
released Joseph and his mother from the small room in their own
quarters where they had lain bound, and brought Elzbietka down to
them. Pan Kreutz, who had retired to his loft where he shed his torn
gown and his mask, was bleeding and weak from his struggle and
lost no time in getting into his bed. It was thought by all that the
robbers had carried away nothing, but when Pan Andrew returned in
the morning the house was searched thoroughly only to find that the
treasure was missing. Spectators swore that Peter could not have
carried anything with him when he made his perilous escape over
the roofs, and a few said that they had noticed that his hands were
empty.
However, hunt high or low as they did, the treasure was gone,
and Pan Andrew, in spite of the views of the spectators, was fully
convinced that the robber had stolen it.
Those of Peter’s band who had been injured in the fall of the
stairs or had been unable to escape from the court were taken to jail
and sentenced to various punishments. Several were put away into
dungeons where they could do no more harm, two were banished
“for a period of ninety-nine years,” and the rest were delivered to
justice in other towns where they had committed previous crimes.
But the most vigorous questioning could get no information from
them, and it was concluded that they knew little of the designs of
the leader upon Pan Andrew. As for Stas, his mother would have
naught of him after this act of treachery. She lost little time in
turning him out of her house and never would she receive him back
again. It was heard some time later that he had become a waiter in
the Inn of the Golden Elephant, but after the robbery of a guest
there one night, he disappeared and was never heard of in Krakow
again.