Almost immediately the Annabel Lee herself flung an exactly similar American flag to the breeze. But a strange thing happened at Morris's. An American flag was first hung from an upper window over the east verandah. Then, after a moment, it was withdrawn. Then a red flag was put out. But almost immediately Cleggett saw a man rip the red flag from its fastenings and fling it to the ground.
Cleggett, resorting to his glass, perceived that it was the tall man with the stoop shoulders and incongruous clothing who had torn down the red flag. He was now in violent altercation with the man who had hung it out—the fellow whom he had called Heinrich some days before.
As Cleggett watched, the two men came to blows; then they clinched and struggled, swaying back and forth within the open window, like a moving picture in a frame. Suddenly the tall fellow seemed to get the upper hand; exerting all his strength, he bent the other backward over the window sill. The two contending figures writhed desperately a moment and then the tall man shifted one powerful, sinewy hand to Heinrich's throat.
The binoculars brought the thing so near to
