Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: In the first year or two of the 20th Century, when the Turkish Ottoman Empire is fraying at the edges, and trouble is bubbling in the Balkans, an adventurous young man finds himself drawn into deep trouble when h inadvertantly becomes possessor of the "Diocletian Diamond", the near-legenday but still potent symbol of the Kings of the (mythical) Kingdom of Bythnia, wedged in between Russia, Germany and the Ottoman Empire. Characteristic helter-skelter adventure yarn of the era, with our young hero foiling revolutionaries, fighting off Cossack raiders, and even dining with the Kaiser.

THE SHADOW

Paul Urquhart

From the serial in the

Brisbane Week
commencing 8 May 1908

1908

Contents

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Chapter 15 | Chapter 16

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18

Chapter 19 | Chapter 20

Chapter 21 | Chapter 22

Chapter 23 | Chapter 24

Chapter 25 | Chapter 26

Chapter 27

__________________

1

AN INSTANT LATER, and there would have been a tragedy before the very front door of the most select club in London.

I sprang down the steps just as the man dashed up in a hansom. Shouting to the driver to pull up, he jumped out on the pavement while the horse was still sliding on its haunches. I could only see the back of the other man, who was walking, and had just passed the club, but I saw the gleam of a revolver in the evening light, and with a bound got the wrist of the man who had come out of the cab. The thing banged off, and a ricochet bullet went into the gutter, tearing up the wood paving with disappointed spite. Had I not caught the fellow's arm,  he would have blown the head off the man front of him. He glared at me with the hate of defeat, and wrenching himself free with a nasty trip that he cleverly played on me, pointed his pistol lull at my face.

It was then that Henry Wickliffe, who had come out of the club after me, knocked up the pistol with his walking cane, and catching the man by the coat collar grounded him. He went down with a thud on the pavement, and Wickliffe, who is a dapper man when he likes, I promptly had his knee on the recumbent rascal's chest.

The police, warned by the two shots in succession, came up, and a crowd gathered as crowds will, from nowhere; but when I looked round for the man whose life I had saved, he was gone. At any rate, nobody owned to being the man, and as I had only had a back view, there was no earthly chance of recognising him unless he chose to reveal himself.

Not a word could the police get out of their prisoner to enlighten us. In the absence of other evidence, he was brought up and charged with pointing his pistol at me, for which be got punished, with an order to follow for his expulsion from the country, if his own country could be discovered. That he was a foreigner was certain, but when last I saw him led out of the court his land of origin was still uncertain.

It was in this way that Henry Wickliffe and myself were brought more closely together. We had known each other as casual club friends. He was a languid person, with a cynical turn of mind, and being or an active disposition myself, I had never admired him till I saw, that night, he was a man with a quick eye and a strong muscle, if he cared to use them.

He came to my chambers often. One night, as we strolled home together, ho looked in, as it was too early to go to bed, and too late to go anywhere else.

My man informed me a gentleman had been calling for me all the evening, had come back several times, and was, moreover, waiting for me now. Wondering what on earth could so Interest anybody in me, I asked Wickliffe to excuse me, and leaving him went into the little anteroom where the gentleman was waiting.

The man was very brief and to the point, and obviously anxious to get home. He was a messenger from Messrs. Morton and Stanley, solicitors, with whom he held the responsible position of managing clerk. He had but a very few minutes to catch his last train, and he would like a formal receipt for a letter and a box which he would hand me. He opened the box with a spring, displayed to my amazed eves an enormous diamond, handed me the letter, took his receipt, and was off.

Remembering that he had been waiting for a long time, I called after him to I know if I could not offer him some refreshment. He murmured "last train"  over his shoulder as be ran downstairs, and appeared heartily glad to get rid of his burden.

I took the diamond and the letter into the other room. The missive was lengthy one, and, after scanning through hurriedly, I tried again to fathom it.

"Something complicated?" asked Wickliffe, mixing himself a drink.

"Rather," I replied slowly, "listen to this."

My dear Nephew,

The little affection I bear you will hardly account for the intrusion I purpose to make upon your valuable time. The principles, manners, and general outlook on life of your revered father and grandfather were so ill suited to my temperament that I left home at the age of 21, after a somewhat unseemly brawl, the details of which I will not trouble you with. Neither my father nor brother did I ever see again in the flesh— a fact which has not caused me a minute's uneasiness.

In the course of my wanderings up and down the face of the earth I have had many adventures, but I only propose to bore you with the narration of one of them— the one which' explains to some extent the purpose of this letter.

Though I have travelled in North and South America, explored Africa, and wandered through the wide extents of Asia, only, one feature of the numerous phases of the human, race have I made my particular study— some people, might say hobby. From my earliest days, life in that land where Asia overflows into Europe, and the ideals of the Orient and the Occident are mingled in a strange hodge-podge of opposing types and sentiments, has had a peculiar fascination for me. I may say, without boastful— and there is no need for an old man who has death for his bedfellow to waste his breath in empty words― that I know more than any Englishman living of life in the European 'near east' This it a digression, my dear nephew, but it will serve as a preface to the somewhat remarkable story that I have to tell you.

I am unaware as to the nature of your education, whether you are a bookworm, seeing all life through the opaque glass of a printed page, or whether you are one of the trifling young modern men who console themselves thoroughly with the pleasures of the moment, and take no interest in the doings of your fellow-men who live their lives beyond your immediate ken. In truth, it matters little, to me what you are, for I have long renounced all pretence of affection for my own blood. But assuming that you are not aware of the fact, I may mention that there lies within the compass of the Balkans one of those little kingdoms which were lopped off the Empire founded by the arms of Mahomet the Second. It is called Bythnia.

In 1848, when the spirit of freedom arose once more from the boulevards of Paris, and spread through Europe, the Bythnian people shook off the yoke of servitude, and, under the leadership of Michael Georgovitch, founded an independent kingdom. Michael, who started life as a swineherd, founded the dynasty of his name, and ruled for five turbulent years as King Michael the First.

Michael owed his authority to a somewhat curious circumstance. In the sack of Neva, the capital of Bythnia, the Sultan's Pasha was killed by the hand of Michael, who took from his turban the great jewel which is incidentally the subject of this letter. How the jewel came into the possession of the pasha is a problem which I have never been able to solve, for it was accounted for by the Sultan and his predecessors as a species of mascot. The story attaching to the jewel is a strange one. It was a jewel, a magnificent diamond, which, was reputed to have been worn by Diocletian, the second Roman Emperor to assume a crown. In your Gibbon you will find the following extract

"From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman princes, conversing in a familiar manner among their fellow citizens. Were saluted only with the same respect that is usually paid to senators and magistrates, their principal distinction was the imperial or military robe of purple. ' Tho pride or rather the policy, of Diocletian engaged that artful prince to introduce to stately magnificence  of the court of Persia. He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans, as the odious ensign of royalty.'

Tradition declares that this symbol of imperial power passed to the Emperor Constantine and in the succession the whole line of the eastern emperors. One jewel, at least—the great diamond, of which I am writing—is said to have been retained from the original diadem, and was regarded by the emperors themselves with that peculiar reverence which attaches to all symbols which have stood the trials and chances of centuries. In time this great diamond came to be looked upon as inevitably bound up with the welfare of the Emperors of Constantinople. Its reputation is said to have been reported to Mahomet the Second, and when that prince led his victorious troops through the walls of Constantinople, and extinguished for ever the last flicker of the eastern empire, one of his first cares was to seek out and obtain this great jewel. It is said to have been found on the body of the last Roman Emperor, Constantine, and to have been placed by Mahomet the Second himself on his turban, as a sign and symbol that the empire of the Romans bad passed to the descendants of the prophet.

Throughout the Turkish empire this great diamond was regarded with peculiar reverence, and soon a tradition grew up around it to the effect that its owner and wearer would enjoy sovereign power.

In Bythnia itself this tradition was well known, and when, therefore, Michael Georgovitch added to the reputation he had won in the fight for Bythnian freedom, by showing that he possessed the Imperial diamond, he was hailed king with the unanimous consent of the people.

At the end of five years, he was an exile and an outcast, and another dynasty, founded by Maxim Polewski, enjoyed the wealth and regal power that he had accumulated. The revolution was military in its origin, and in the sack of the palace of Neva, though Michael himself escaped, the imperial diamond passed into the hands of Maxim Polewski. For forty years the Polewski dynasty reigned in Bythnia, and then, in 1893, another revolution, in which King Maxim the Third and his wife were brutally massacred, took place, and the Georgovitch family came again into their own. King John, the present sovereign of Bythnia, who reaped the benefits without incurring the shame of these brutal murders, is still seated on the throne.

Fate ordained it that I should be in Neva, the capital of Bythnia, those little kingdoms within the province of the Balkans, on the occasion of the 1893 massacre. I had been long acquainted with King Maxim the Third, and might, but for a chance, have done him a signal service, but unfortunately for my own self-esteem, I mistook two plots for one, and before I had discovered my  error, the tragedy had taken place.

I had been out riding in the country beyond Neva, and on returning home my horse had shed a shoe. Giving the animal into the hands of the village blacksmith, I went to a neighbouring café and, as was my invariable custom, ordered the refreshment I required in English and by signs, so that I might study the manners and conversation of the people present without its being suspected than I was cognisant of their language. Seated at a table near me were two Turks engrossed in private conversation. At my first entry they had  stopped speaking, but finding, as they imagined, that I knew nothing of the language, they continued their conversation in low tones.

This letter has already run to an absurd length, and I will not bore you therefore, with every minute detail or what occurred. It will suffice for you to know that I gathered from their that they were In the employment of the Sultan, and were to be engaged that very night on an enterprise which had for its object the theft of the Imperial diamond. A company of soldiers on duty in the palace had been heavily bribed, and the agents of the commander of the faithful were to have easy access to the royal treasure house where the diamond lay.

Armed with this information, I sought an audience with his majesty, and, acting on my advice, Colonel Alexieff was summoned to the royal presence, in order to change the guard on duty. Could either his majesty or myself have read the thoughts that lay behind that scoundrel's placid features, it would have been better to have entrusted the affair of the Bythnian sovereigns to the guards that had been corrupted by the Sultan than to a gang of murderers whom the king deliberately substituted in their place. For what he believed to be kindly intervention, King Maxim, knowing my interest in jewels, allowed me to spend as long as I pleased in the treasure house that night, making what note I chose of the regalia and sovereign, jewels, many of great historical value, which were kept there.

As I passed out of the royal presence, I overheard a whispered conversation between two officers, with reference to something that was to take place that night. Dolt that I was, I imagined it had reference to the contemplated theft of the imperial diamond actually, it related to the intended massacre.

I was busily engaged studying the various treasures in the treasure chamber, oblivions to all else, when suddenly the sounds of an uproar reached my ears. I hurried out of the chamber, locking the door behind me. I arrived in the throne room just as Colonel Alexieff blew out the brains of King Maxim's consort. King Maxim already lay dead, his head battered beyond all recognition by the brutal soldiers. I witnessed the scene, fortunately for myself, from a doorway entirely hidden by a curtain which communicated with the private apartments. The scene horrified me, hardened as I am to horrors, and in spite of the philosophic calm with which I attempt to regard the passions of man, I felt an intense loathing and hatred for the men concerned in this butchery. Rumours had readied me for long of an attempt to be made, on the part of the supporters of the Georgovitch family, to bring-back the first dynasty of Bythnia to the throne.

I realised at once that I saw before me the fruition of the plot, and acting on the spur of the moment, and influenced solely by my passion, I determined at least to rob that dynasty of the support of superstition. I hurried back to the treasure chamber, intent on taking tho imperial diamond, and thus depriving the Georgovitch family of its chief symbol of sovereignty. To my amazement, I found the door that I had closed, open. Within I could hear the sound of somebody moving about stealthily. There was not in moment to be lost, as far as I was concerned. Drawing my revolver, I entered without hesitation, switching on at the same moment the electric light; which had been turned off. As I did so, I saw a man, one of the men I had overheard talking in the village cafe, spring back swiftly from the case which has held the imperial diamond.

With the greatest satisfaction— a satisfaction which, probably, you will not understand— I shot him dead, and taking from his hand the great diamond which be clasped, I turned and made the best of any way out of the palace.

Since that time the imperial diamond has remained in my possession, and a very unpleasant possession it has proved.

Twice have emissaries of the Sultan attempted my life. Again and again have the agents of the Georgovitch family approached me with the offer of vast sums for the jewel. Had I wished, I could have handed it over to the natural brother of King Maxim the Third. But neither force nor bribery would induce me to give it up. The sight of King Maxim's consort being done to death in the Royal Palace of Neva, has clouded my reasoning faculties, and in the hope that the retention of this imperial jewel may create discord and turmoil in Bythnia, thereby punishing the Bythnian people for the brutal murder in which they participated, I have kept it stubbornly in my possession.

Why, you will ask, do I trouble you with these facts? It is because I am going to give you the diamond. If I know anything of my brother's flesh and blood, you will accept the gift in spite of the dangers attaching to its possession.  It is from no motives of sentimental affection for my own flesh and blood that I thus make you a present of one of the most valuable, and, from an historical point, one of the most interesting jewels in the world. On the contrary, I frankly admit that my object is to hand over to you, as a bequest, the dangers attaching to the possession of this jewel. That my bequest may be carried out thoroughly, I have been at some pains to inform the various parties interested in its whereabouts as to the person into whose care the jewel has passed. If you are the true son of your father, you will suffer as you deserve; if you are a fool, and not simply avaricious (I distinguish the vices for the occasion), your future life will be peculiarly unpleasant. If you are wise, you will have sufficient courage to throw the diamond of Diocletian into the sea.

I am sending you, in short, a touchstone for your character, and the only thought that troubles me is that I shall not he present to enjoy the result of the test. For I write this, my dear nephew, in the face of death. By the time it roaches you my little fretful hour upon the stage will be over, and the certain will have rung down upon the life of

Your affectionate uncle (as the phrase is),

JOHN HARLAND.

"And what do you intend to do ?" I asked Wickliffe, when I concluded the letter.

"There is only one thing to he done. I must keep the diamond until I am satisfied that nobody else has a better claim to it."

"And then?"

"I shall give it up to its rightful owner, of course."

"Both resolves do more credit to your heart than your head, my dear Stephen, but that's not my affair. I should pitch the thing in the sea, or sell it. By-the bye, what about the Heathlands?"

I  had really forgotten the Heathlands at the moment, and thus in the I first hour of its possession, I felt the sinister Influence of the diamond. Elaine Gibney, the daughter of Sir Henry Gibney, had been my one thought in life for weeks past. We had met at a mutual friend's, had met again, and met so often that now I was convinced beyond all possibility of doubt that there was no ambition in life like the love of a good woman, and—

Wickliffe had heard it all, and had got to the yawning stage whenever I philosophised on the beauties of the English home. We are both invited to the Heathlands, the residence of Sir Henry, and had agreed to travel down tomorrow.

"Oh; of course, we meet at the station to-morrow!" I said.

"And the diamond?"

"I shall have to take it with me."

"And you'll wish to heaven that you had seen it further, I have no doubt," said Wickliffe, rising to go. "But I won't argue with you. I suppose it will end up by the diamond being made into a brooch for— well, goodbye till tomorrow," be added, pulling himself up with a laugh. "It strikes me that diamond will give you a trifle more to think about in life."

Little did I think how much there was in that laughing comment.

2

"YOU HAVEN'T brought that uncanny thing with you, have you— that jewel affair, you know, that we were talking about last night?"

I looked up in astonishment at this question from Henry Wickliffe. Surely I had made it quite clear to him the night before that I was bringing it to the; Heathlands with me, and here, as we sat in opposite corners of a first-class railway compartment, he talked in the most casual manner about "that jewel affair"— the thing that had kept me awake all night— as though it were a mere trinket picked up at a church bazaar.

"Of course I've brought it," I replied somewhat tartly. "didn't I tell you last night I was going to take it to "the Heathlands ?"

"Well, I don't admire your wisdom, or your tact," said Wickliffe, burying his face in his newspaper and leaning well back in his corner.

For my part, I was rather glad of solitude. I wanted to indulge in the daydream of anticipation. Whatever had happened to my Uncle John, or was going to happen to his precious diamond, I was in for a pleasant holiday at Sir Henry Gibney's charming Elizabethan mansion, and for some days I should breathe the same pure air as his daughter Elaine. And in my pride of joy, I rather pitied the blasé person opposite me, who was going the round of visits to this house me into the light of Elaine Gibney's eyes.

Her father, Sir Henry, was a splendid type of the cultured English gentleman, and the manner in which he received and entertained his guests explained his success in the diplomatic world. It was said that wherever there was a very difficult and delicate problem to be dealt with, the British Government sent Sir Henry Gibney. Since the death of his wife he had devoted himself to the education of his only daughter, but there were rumours that after his intimate, and eventful association with the affairs of the Powers of Europe, the life of a simple country gentleman hardly served to satisfy his active mind.

We were not a large party, for which I was devoutly thankful. Elaine's duties as hostess were also made lighter by reason of a wise choice of guests who were well known to each other, and well able to look after themselves.  Wickliffe and I found the rest of the party already there. They were people we met almost every day when we were In town, and introductions were unnecessary.

"You both know everybody, I think, except Edith," said Elaine, ''but I must introduce you to Edith. She was my closest chum when father was ambassador at Bythnia, and has come all the way to England to visit us. She is down here all alone as my guest— my permanent guest, I hope, for a very long time— though her uncle, the Bythnian Minister in London, is anxious to show her the sights of the place."

"Is her uncle here?" asked Wickliffe.

The sharpness of this apparently simple question startled me. What on earth excited the man? Surely he had seen a diplomatic minister before! I looked round at him, but his face resumed the old air of stolid indifference as soon as Elaine explained that Edith's uncle was detained in London, and would not be able to leave town for some days, or possibly weeks.

By this time the lady under discussion appeared. She paused in the doorway and looked at us in doubt out of two big, black, passionate eyes. With her marble white skin, perfectly moulded features, her glorious wealth of black hair, she was a true daughter of the Balkans, though where on earth she got such an English name as Edith Beverley from, I could not for the moment understand. Indeed, it so interested me, that I made a note to ask Elaine about it later on. Wickliffe was standing in the shadow of a huge palm; and when Elaine led her chum over to him Miss Beverley's back, was perforce turned to him. I thought there was something severely frigid and formal in their greeting, but as they shortly afterwards began to talk together in low tones, leaving Elaine and myself to talk in our own sweet way also, that did not trouble me.

We were a jolly party at dinner. I found myself beside Miss Beverley, and very soon the conversation, beginning at first in a casual remark of mine that I might hope to visit Bythnia in my travels, became a general one on eastern problems and history. Sir Henry had a marvellous store of experiences. Wickliffe, who, to do him justice, could talk when he liked, ably filled up the gaps when Sir Henry found it necessary to pause in order that he might not appear to be monopolising the conversation, and I began to feel that it was due to me as one who hoped to leave that house party a prospective son-in-law of the host to make myself in some way or another entertaining.

By a curious coincidence the conversation turned on precious stones and historic jewels.

"Talking of curious stones I fancy, Harland could show us something interesting," said Wickliffe later on, when, having joined the ladies after dinner the subject was renewed by Edith Beverley.

I modestly explained to them that the gem had come into my possession   through a curious bequest, but told them nothing of its history. It was at the bottom of a heavy trunk upstairs, and I promised they should all see it as soon as I unpacked next morning. One or two members, of the party were obviously excited, and more than one gentle hint was conveyed to me that I might unpack at once. The subject, however, dropped for the moment. We were an up-to-date crowd of people, and when Miss Madge Maxwell, who prided herself on being a bachelor girl, suggested billiards, I was glad of the turn that had come to the conversation which was beginning to show signs of veering round again to the diamond. Now that the thing was actually talked about, I began to get sick of it.

My triumph, however, was short-lived. When we got to the billiard-room, Edith Beverley boldly challenged me to play her a game of billiards, the stake to be whether I should unpack to-night or to-morrow morning.

It was no good trying to escape it. Without accepting the challenge I went , upstairs with the best grace I could command, flung my carefully packed clothes and belongings all over the room, and finally dived into the bottom of the brass-bound trunk with a big padlock which I had carefully seen deposited in the luggage van before setting out from London.

When I arrived in the billiard-room with the plain box in my hand, all attempts at games or conversation were superseded. The fascination of a sparkling piece of stone in one of the unexplained and inexplicable facts of life. Men and women crowded round me as I lifted the diamond from its wadded box and threw it on the billiard table.  Under the fierce light of the overhanging electricity it glistened and glittered with a brilliancy too dazzling to be beautiful, yet you could not look away from it. It was like a serpent's eye; its tempting, fascinating rays glinting in successful rivalry to the artificial brightness above. It held one spellbound.

Taking it for all in all, it was a wicked thing, yet it was a glorious stone beyond all question. Elaine and the rest of the ladies only saw its richness and what they called its beauty. Everybody else admired it. I alone of the party realised its sinister influence, but then I knew its history and they did not.

Sir Henry Gibney did not happen to be present. He had gone off to his study to make a note of a point mentioned in a conversation that reminded him of a forgotten reference. Wickliffe, who allowed the ladies to crowd in front of him, offered no opinion about it. Like myself he had an inkling that as many tragedies owed their inception and their hideousness to this dazzling gem as ever were laid to the charge of a Jezebel or a Cleopatra.

"It's like a beautiful woman," he said, at last. "If true a priceless gift."

"lf false?" said Elaine, with a challenging smile.

Wickliffe shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

''In the words of an immortal countryman of yours, my dear Harland, take  away that bauble and let's play billiards. I'll challenge Miss Beverley and Miss Gibney that I will give them twenty and beat them single-handed," be said.

I dropped the jewel into its box, and the ladies, pulling off their bangles, selected their cues. In a few minutes, to my intense gratification, the diamond was forgotten. The possession of it was going to be a greater nuisance than I had imagined, and personal convenience began to confirm the desire to be honest. The diamond was as much mine as anybody's; my uncle had as much right to it as the person from whom he took it; but, still, there must be somebody with a greater claim than any of us. After the rest of them had gone to bed, I talked in this way to Harry Wickliffe, as we smoked a late pipe together in the billiard-room.

"Well, your notion of returning it to some rightful possessor yet to be discovered is about as quixotic as your stupid determination to carry the beastly tiring about with you wherever you go," he said, fanning a cloud of smoke gently away from his eyes.

"But what on earth am I to do? I have no burglary-proof safe in my chambers in town. I can't be bothered to take it away to my country house, which I don't intend to visit until I—"

"Exactly," said Wickliffe, rising impatiently, and walking over to the mantelpiece. "I know until you honour the place by bringing there the best, the sweetest, the most beautiful— yes, I've heard it all before, my dear man. But about this stone. .You simply can't carry the thing in your clothes trunk, like a golf ball.  Why on earth don't you seal it up, take it to the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit, get a receipt for it, and then, after taking this proposed holiday of yours and making up your mind what do with it, come back and get it?"

"Splendid idea!" I replied. "Why on earth did I not think of it before?"

"Because the man who ought to think of a thing is seldom the man who does think of it," said Wickliffe, in his quiet, purring voice. "Now, let me take you up to town tomorrow, and get the thing put out of harm's way. Meanwhile, let me tie it up for you. Wait here a moment, I'll go and get some wax and paper."

He left me for a few minutes and returned with a sheet of paper, a piece of string, and a stick or sealing-wax. Neatly wrapping the paper round the box, he tied it up with the string, dropped a big lump of burning wax on the knot, and sealed it with a curious seal that hung on his watch key. He plastered it so well with wax that a drop of it still on fire squirted on his finger as he pressed the seal home. With a yell of pain he threw the box aside.

"What's a good thing for burns?" he asked. "Heavens, how the stuff does bite you! It has taken the skin off. Have you any oil or soap or anything of that kind about?"

I ran to a marble washing-bowl, in a small ante-room off the billiard-room, and brought back a lump; of glycerine soap, which, with a wry face, he rubbed diligently over the injured finger.

"And now put the confounded thing away, and be up in the morning in time for an early visit to town. Come on, get to bed."

"No, I'm going to have another pipe," I said, stubbornly.

"Well, take this thing, then," he said, handing the box to me. "That'll be said for the next six months after to-morrow. I guarantee nobody will open it without being detected. There isn't another seal like that in existence."

I glanced at the seal. It certainly was a curious design, but I was not interested enough to examine it. I threw the box back on the mantelpiece, and contemplated it in solitude. I was uneasy about it, and, while I felt Wickliffe was right, was annoyed that I should be condemned to spend the best part of the next day away from Elaine.

However, I could not sit there all night. I would just take a breath of the night air, and then go to bed. I went over to the window. The billiard-room was in a wing of the house, surrounded by a shrubbery, with a short stretch of lawn leading up to French windows on a level with the ground.

Pulling aside the heavy curtain in front of the window, I opened it and stepped outside. The night wind revived mc somewhat, and I stood there for several minutes watching the stars. There was a switch of the electric light just inside the window, and I turned it off to get a better effect for the natural scene without.

Comparing diamonds and stars and Elaine's bright eyes with each other to the vast superiority of the last-named, I turned aside to the open window, and was about to pull the curtain hack when the door of the billiard room slowly opened.

Holding the curtain in front of me, I watched a figure enter the room. With a thumping heart I saw it was Elaine, clad in a dainty dressing gown, and holding a lighted candle in her hand. What on earth could she be doing there at this time of night? In a mischievous mood I determined to watch her for a few minutes, and then give her a fright, but merriment gave place to horror as I saw her walk slowly up to the mantelpiece, examine the articles one by one, and then lift the jewel box.

At that moment something sprang upon me with the noiselessness of a cat. Before I could utter a word I was effectually throttled and borne to the ground. My senses gradually left me. The one hideous thought that my Elaine was a thief burnt itself into my brain— and then all was blank.

3

I DO NOT KNOW exactly how long I lay like a log of wood outside the French window. I had a hazy notion that somebody was trying to bring me round, but when at last I stumbled to my feet I found myself alone. The French windows were open, the billiard-room was still in darkness, and when I switched on. the electric; light and stumbled, across to the mantelpiece, the jewel box was gone. Its absence was damning evidence that my worst suspicions were only too well founded. The sight of this bewitching gem, with its dazzling, fascinating, brilliant charm, had been too great even for the pure soul of Elaine. I had cynics say that in dress and love women had neither pity nor conscience. Were they right, after all, these bitter critics? Had Elaine simply shown the weakness of her sex, or was she worse than other women? In either case, the facts were sufficiently revolting.

But who was my unknown assailant? Was he an ally of Elaine? That was out of the question, surely! He, then, must he a rival thief, and he had been too late, for Elaine had already possession of the box before he collared me. Was it possible that he was some faithful henchman of Sir Henry Gibney's, who seeing me in the shrubbery, had at first mistaken me for a burglar, and then, having discovered his mistake, had endeavoured to bring me round, and left me to find my way back to the house, in the hope that nothing more would be said about it? My mind was too muddled to think out these varying problems. I closed the window, left the room, as far as I could remember, exactly as it ought to be, and went upstairs to snatch an hour or two of sleep, if that were possible. In any case, I was determined to keep my own counsel, and I turned up at breakfast with the rest, though my head was splitting, and the cheery talk of my fellow-guests was simply so many buzzing sounds in my ears.

Wickliffe watched me narrowly, and I knew he was trying hard to catch my eye, but I persistently avoided him. After breakfast, however, he followed me into the library.

"Why on earth didn't you announce at breakfast that we were going up to town together?" he said. "We can't slip off without a word."

"No, we can't slip off, and I don't intend to slip off," I replied.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"That I am not going to town to-day."

"More procrastination! I suppose it is to-morrow, or next day, or some other day. Any time will do, till at last this beastly thing lands you in some trouble, and then you will wish to goodness you had acted promptly. Now, don't shilly-shally any more, but catch this next train with me."

He went over to a writing table, and picking up a local time-table, ran through the pages.

"You needn't bother with that timetable," I said. "I don't intend to go to town to-day."

"Then when do you intend to go?"

"Not at all. I have changed my mind."

I said this in a tone which I intended to indicate that I had said my last word, but there, was no putting the man off. He argued with me, worried me, and so pestered me, until at length I was forced to the conclusion that I must tell him something.

"Wickliffe." I said, putting my hands on his shoulders, "I  don't want you to say anything about this, but there is a special reason why I should not go up to town. The fact of the matter is, I have nothing to take up to town."

The man clutched me hysterically by the coat collar.

"What do you mean?" he stammered, "that you have lost the diamond?"

"It may be lost, stolen, or strayed, but the fact is I have not got it."

"But I left you with it on the mantelpiece here."

"I know you did, but that does not alter the fact that I have not it in my possession. Somebody has taken it— how, when, and where, I don't know, and don't want to know. It's gone, and there's an end of it―"

"It's not an end of it at all, my dear fellow. Do you know that the most valuable gem in all Europe has been stolen from you? The thing can't rest here."

There was a rustling at the other end of the room, and. I noticed lady's skirts disappearing through the door. Miss Madge Maxwell had come in just as we were hurling the last few sentences at each other— I stubborn and taciturn, Wickliffe excited and eager.

"Promise me you'll say nothing about this," I said to Wickliffe. "I don't want it to be known. There are special reasons. Good God, don't you see, man, that the possession of this thing would only be a curse to me? Let it go, and may all its past mischief go with it."

"I'll promise you, since you seem to wish it so," he said soothingly, "but I am afraid you are too late. If I mistake not, we just dropped the critical and fatal sentences as the lady was passing through the room. All the household will know it by this time."

Sure enough the household did know of it, and came bounding in with Sir Henry Gibney at its head.

"My dear Mr. Harland," said the courtly gentleman with genuine concern, "I am grieved to hear that you have been robbed under my roof. Of course, the terrible affair must be investigated. I will telegraph at once to Scotland Yard, communicate with the local police, parade all the servants, and find out if any suspicious people have been seen about."

"Spare yourself all this trouble. Sir Henry," I said, "and spare me the pain of being made the central figure in a detective story. I assure you I am not merely talking common-place platitudes when I say it really doesn't matter. I would very much prefer to let the whole thing drop. Indeed; I must ask you as your guest to favour me and to allow it to drop."

The experienced diplomatist looked at me keenly, and accustomed to read the thoughts of men, he was apparently satisfied that I meant what I said.

"You make a strange request to me," he said in his quiet, dignified tones. "I am not sure that it is quite consistent with my duty as a man bearing the King's commission and as a justice of the peace to acquiesce, but if you put it to me as your host, I suppose I must."

"I do put it to you in that way," I replied, "and in do doing I assure you I am actuated by motives which, could I explain them completely, you would be the first to appreciate."

There was an involuntary catch in my voice as I said this. I thought of what this grand signor would think—what anguish would be his were it ever known to him that his. only daughter was little better than a common thief, robbing her father's guests under his own roof.

This thought was all the more painfully sincere as I caught a look from Elaine, who stood silently by her father. She was agitated—more so than the rest; and, taking her father's arm, said:—

"Yes, you must respect Mr. Harland's wishes, Indeed, I am afraid we are all troubling him too much about this curio. You remember he was rather reluctant to bring it down last night. It is not right to worry him."

A slight suspicion of a snigger among the other ladies present followed on this ingenious remark. Nearly everybody present had a good idea of the relations between us, and most of them had come down in the expectation of being participants in a betrothal house party. With a few muttered words of sympathy, they went off to their morning recreations, some to golf, others to fish; and one or two to test the mettle of Sir Henry's saddle horses.

Miss Edith Beverley was slowly following the rest when Wickliffe crossed over and whispered something in her ear. She turned and looked at him steadily for a moment, then nodding her head, passed on with the rest. In a few moments he left me too, and a feeling, of deepest embarrassment took hold of me as I realised that Elaine and I had the library to ourselves. Not knowing what to say, or how to begin, I walked over to the window and for a few moments looked sadly out on to the retreating figures of my fellow guests. Wickliffe strolled across the lawn towards a monstrous old oak, the branches of which swept the grounds on one side. He pulled up as he came to the tree, and, lighting a cigarette, appeared to be waiting not very patiently for somebody.

This trivial incident I noticed, I suppose, because I wanted to think of something that would keep out of mind the maddening incident of the previous night. Elaine coughed once or twice demurely, then, walking towards mc, said softly, "I am sorry to see you so troubled, Stephen"— we had already begun to call each other by our Christian names, although the formal engagement had been delayed till this, the first opportunity I had had of meeting Sir Henry.

I looked gloomily across the lawn at the man with the cigarette who was now pacing up and down on the sheltered side of the oak tree.

"Did you really care anything about the diamond?" she asked.

I turned round impulsively, and catching her small white hand in mine, I whispered in a frenzy of mingled despair and joy:―

"The diamond, Elaine, is the greatest curse that has ever fallen upon men. Why it has been so, you, of all others, will understand."

"Why should I know anything about it?"

I threw her hand from me and walked across to the mantelpiece. Leaning my arms on it, and pressing my hands to my aching temples, I almost wept at the duplicity of this woman for whom yesterday, aye, or even to-day, I would have given my soul. Her affected simplicity only made matters, worse. Had not the evidence of my own eyes been too hideously convincing, I might almost have been deceived; but the sight that met me last night as I pulled aside the  curtain, was there before me wherever I looked.

"Is this all you have to say to me? Is your diamond of such importance?"

"My diamond— great heavens! Elaine, can you not understand that the thing is nothing to me― that I would have yielded up at a bare word at any time?' It is not the value of the thing. Tell me, confide in me—oh, Elaine! why don't you on all?

"Tell you all! What on earth are you talking about? The trouble seems to have sadly affected your senses, surely."

I crossed over to the window hurriedly, for no other reason than that my nerves were at such a pitch that I could not rest in one attitude for more than a minute or two. Looking across the lawn, I saw that Miss Beverley had joined Wickliffe, and they were in animated conversation. The acquaintance of few hours seemed to have ripened rapidly. He was gesticulating, and laying down the law, as he usually did when he was really in earnest about anything. She was standing imperiously near him— her statuesque form gave her three or four inches the advantage of him, and he was by no means a small man.

These little trivialities impressed themselves upon mo, notwithstanding my agitation, or, perhaps, because of it. I have often noticed that little things stand out with unnatural importance at the most critical moments of our lives. Elaine stood patiently by regarding me with a pitying tenderness that only maddened me the more.

She turned to leave the room, but I could not lose her without at least one last effort.

"Elaine," I said, rushing after her, "Let the past be past. I saw everything, but let that pass. When you have the confidence in me, and the moral courage yourself to confess all, come to me; but for the presents― well, let us live for the present."

I shouted this last exclamation with hysterical fervour, and tried to clasp her in my arms. She drew herself proudly, and, holding me at arm's length, said;

"I do not understand you, Mr. Harland. Confess to you! Do you realise the insolence of that last speech of yours? I am not accustomed to be insulted in this manner by my father's guests."

She was hopeless. The most accomplished criminal could net he less self-conscious. Her audacity was the. worst feature of all. One whispered word of contrition, and she might have stolen all the diamonds that ever man was fool enough or knave enough to rake out of the earth, for ought I cared. Her callous indifference, however, was intolerable. She went to open the door, and, the instinct of courtesy uppermost, I held it for her, but shut it with a bang before she had time to get out.

A sudden thought had come upon me, that if our quarrel became known it might lead to scandal. A horrible suggestion had come to me in my nervous condition of mind that somebody else might have seen her come into the billiard room— Wickliffe, if I remembered, had not long left me. At all costs, there must not be the breath of a suspicion in the mind of anybody else as to the real reason for the postponement of our engagement.

"Is it in accordance with your usual custom to keep a lady prisoner when she has signified plainly that she wishes to go?" asked Elaine, coldly, as I stood in front of the closed door.

"I will detain you not a moment longer than is necessary," I replied, as calmly as I could. "It need not I known, surely, that we have quarrelled?"

"I not see that anybody will be the slightest degree concerned or interested one way or the other."

"But, Elaine, you know— that is— well, it must have been obvious to most people—they all expect—"

"Well, I am waiting till you have the grace to open the door."

I had paused, in the vain hope that she would fill up the blank. I did not know exactly how to express it, or what to say, but at last I blurted out, "Well, everybody knows we are about to be engaged."

"Then it's just like everybody's impertinence."

"I know, Elaine, but, well, don't you see the best plan will be to say nothing but to let them suppose—"

"I have no power to prevent anybody supposing anything. If there is nothing to be said, surely nothing need be said, and now, will you have the goodness to open that door?"

I offered her silently, and stood meekly by as she brushed past me. As she got into the passage, a sudden impulse to spring forward and take her in my  arms came over me, but this time she slammed the door.

My head was now aching ten times harder. The sight of that box with its bauble polluting that fair hand was swimming, before my eyes. I paced up and down the room aimlessly, and picking up one of Sir Henry's choicest books that lay on the table, I flung it across the room. This minor act of violence relieved my feelings a bit, and from fever-heat passion to settled gloom, I leaned my burning forehead against the cold glass of the long library window.

Edith Beverley and Henry Wickliffe were still talking beneath the oak tree. With a toss of his head he seemed to bring some controversy to an end with a sudden decision, and they walked away together.

Just at that moment a young man wearing the outdoor livery of the Gibney estate burst through the shrubbery and ran towards the house. He was making for the front door, shouting as be ran. I did not at first distinguish what he was saying, but in a few moments a crowd of other servants had gathered up behind him. He was obviously too excited to give any coherent explanation to them. He was at length hustled into the hall, and I heard him demanding to be taken to Sir Henry.

Opening the library floor, I stepped out into the excited group, and at last we managed to subdue the young man sufficiently to get some sort of a rational statement from him..

"He's there, dead as a doornail. I found him as I was sweeping up the dead leaves. Sure enough, he's dead."

"Who is dead? Try and calm yourself and tell us all about it?"

"Who he is I don't know, sir," said the young man, steadying himself with a desperate effort ; "but as I was sweeping up the dead leaves I came across a man lying there― a foreigner, I think, by his black hair and his white face; dead, I tell you, as dead as a doornail."

"And whereabouts did you find him?"

"Just a yard or two in the shrubbery, right in front of the French window of the billiard-room."

4

THEY BROUGHT the body of the man into the house by Sir Henry's orders. He was well dressed, young and, in his way, handsome, altogether a well-set-up man, and as I glanced at the well-knit limbs, the long, slender fingers, I recognised in my mind's eye my assailant outside the window of the billiard-room. Henry Wickliffe and Edith Beverley came in together just as they were carrying the dead foreigner away to the room in a disused wing, which was hastily fitted up as a temporary mortuary. As they saw his face, Edith involuntarily clutched Wickliffe by the wrist. A look of terror and hate came into her luscious eyes.

Wickliffe calmly stroked his moustache, but there was a hard look on his face which, under the circumstances, I thought just a bit brutal. The dead man had not been kind to me, but he had paid a terrible penalty, and I felt sorry for him, cut off thus, in the very prime of manly vigour.

Sir Henry Gibney had noticed the effect the sight of the dead man had on Edith Beverley.

"I understand your feelings," he whispered to her, "but we are in England."

Her look softened under the influence of this kindly gentleman, and, with a last look at the body of the stricken man, she walked away without a word.

The diplomatist noticed my look of interrogation, and, stepping quietly up to me, said:

"Hereditary hate dies hard. The dead man is a Turk. Like myself, Miss Beverley recognised this in a moment, and she has the blood of long generations of oppressed Bythnians in her veins. How on earth the man came into my grounds I cannot conceive, but at all events we have now an explanation of the robbery."

I knew, he was wrong, but I jumped at the opportunity. The dead man could suffer no more harm, and fortune was good in a qualified sense in thus placing in my way a plausible story which would divert all suspicion from the one quarter where too well I knew suspicion was most deserved. They took the Turk away and informed the police, and so, bearing with him the credit for the crime, he passed out of the drama of our lives— my life and Elaine's—for the present.

The young gardener was severely cross-examined as to what he found upon the body, but with native simplicity, he said he would not dare to touch a dead body until he had found somebody in authority to give him orders. The clothes or the Turk were thoroughly searched, but nowhere upon him was the slightest sign of the missing jewel box. I naturally was not at all surprised at this. Sir Henry Gibney and the rest of them jumped to the conclusion that the man had an accomplice; that the two had quarrelled as to which should take charge of the spoil, and he had been murdered by his colleague. This explanation served everybody so admirably that it would have been inartistic of me to have done anything but accept it tamely with the rest. Sir Henry was obviously relieved that the crime was not to be laid at the door of anyone of his own retainers, and was thus the more ready to admit that he had no personal interest or occasion to make a personal investigation.

Wickliffe, on the other hand, was as keen as ever in talking to me about the diamond and its loss. He considered himself exonerated from his promise now that Sir Henry Gibney and the rest knew all about it.. He pestered me with questions as to where I last put it, when I last saw it, but I stubbornly refused to give him any further information.

"Wickliffe, I tell you the thing is gone, it is not in my room. Search it if you like, it Is not at this moment on my person, search me if you like. Not a single word more are you going to get out of me, so shut up, and be hanged to you."

We were having a cigar after lunch when this spirited little argument took place. Loss of sleep, and the events of sweet temper, and pitching my half smoked, cigar away, I left my tormentor and went off in search of less troublesome company.

Sir Henry Gibney, whom I met as I crossed the hall, greeted me affectionately.

"Harland, my boy, a drive will do you good after all this excitement. There is room in the dog-cart if you don't mind riding behind as we come hack. I am going off to the station to fetch another guest. A groom has already gone on to bring his baggage with other things we need from town, so I am driving myself and want company."

With what joy would this invitation have come to me under happier circumstances ? What better opportunity could I have had of talking to him about Elaine? Perhaps he, with the memory of his own youth, had purposely given me this opening which made the situation all. the more embarrassing. I could not refuse his invitation, yet I felt It would be at best a dull drive for both of us.

As we drove along I talked nervously on all kinds of subjects, avoiding even the most Indirect allusion to the one subject which, but for what I had seen last night, and what had happened this morning, would have been the only topic in the world for me to-day; and was heartily glad when we reached the station and met Mr. Herbert Langdon, the new recruit to the house party.

Mr. Langdon was, as Sir Henry explained to me, great traveller, who had been in every country, and now sought a few months repose of English life. He had been introduced by letter through such a valued friend that Sir Henry had made him his own friend by proxy, and had cordially, invited him to the Heathlands.

Events proved that he was justified, Mr Langdon was a well preserved, middle-aged man, strong in physique, with a chin that betokened a strong will, and a remarkably strong knowledge of everything that seemed to be worth knowing. He was one of the most entertaining companions I had ever met. He and Sir Henry between them kept me so intensely interested that the drive, which I expected to prove a dull affair, turned out to be a pleasant relief from- the worries of the morning.

I was a few minutes late in getting down for dinner. My haymaking performances with my clothes, when I was hunting for the diamond the night before, had scattered everything I wanted, and the suit in which I was rolled in the shrubbery by the terrible Turk was hardly fit to wear. When I came down. I saw at once that somebody had been telling Mr. Langdon about the loss of the jewel, and I could see also that he had been warned not to talk of it in my presence, as it was a painful subject to me.

He sat beside Elaine at dinner, and his entertaining, conversational style, tinged though it was with an innate cynicism, had the same effect on her as it had had upon me. I was the skeleton at the feast, picking at my food; and making an appearance of being one of the company, I was yet out of it in sympathy. Several times I caught myself gazing hungrily at Elaine, and once I caught her eye, but she turned quickly aside and addressed a hurried remark to Mr. Langdon.

He was clearly an acquisition, and Wickliffe, with his usual taste in picking out a man who knew something, took care to see plenty of his society, during the next day or two. For myself, I wanted to find some reasonable excuse for going away. To be near Elaine, to pass the ordinary compliments, and repeat the ordinary, imbecile remarks of orthodox, conventional good society in the presence of others, and to meet each other alone with sealed dips, and averted eyes, grew more and more intolerable every hour. Yet, true to my purpose, I dare not break away from the party, or the tongues of the gossips would be set going. I roamed about the grounds, and tried to avoid the woman for whose sake alone I had come to The Heathlands.

One morning, when I came suddenly round the bend of a cosy corner in a wood adjoining the house, Miss Beverley was leaning forward on the rustic, seat with her beautifully moulded chin resting on her hand, looking away into the distance, dreamily, while Wickliffe, looking more enthusiastic than I had ever seen him before, spoke to her in swift, passionate sentences. She suddenly turned her marble-like face towards him, and instinctively stepped aside. Any other full-blooded, sensible man would have debated the red lips thus invitingly held out to him, but Wickliffe merely stroked the girl's hair, and went on talking in the same appealing voice. I was tod far off to hear what he said, but I began to come to the conclusion, for the first time, in my life, that Henry Wickliffe was a trifle slow or a bit of a fool. I cut into another path, and passed through the wood without, their noticing me. To my intense gratification the next person I met was Mr. Langdon, but here, again, disappointment awaited me. The man, by such a discreet and roundabout method that I never got time to stop-him, worked up to the diamond, and before I knew exactly what I had said, I told Mm all about the stone, though I pulled myself up in time, and did not tell him precisely how I came to lose it, though he questioned me very hard on the point. I was on the verge of saying something rude to him, when he had the good sense to change the subject.

"Your friend, Henry Wickliffe," he remarked, "seems a very interesting man. Have you known him long?"

"I cannot say that I have, but just long enough to have struck up a fairly close acquaintance with him."

"His people are an old English family, I suppose, like the rest of our fellow-guests?"

"I am afraid I cannot answer that. To be quite candid, I do not know any other member of his family. He has never introduced me to any of them, and, so far as I am aware, he has no relatives nearer than far-off cousins living, and I do not know even whether they are in this country. He and I met at college, and we have been thrown together, since at various times and places— sometimes under circumstances which rendered us particularly useful to each other."

Mr. Langdon looked at me quickly with his shrewd eyes, and apparently wanted to follow up this line, but just at this moment, by a coincidence, Wickliffe burst through the wood, beating a pathway through the undergrowth for Miss Beverley, we were soon engaged in a general four-handed conversation, which gradually developed into two separate conversations— one between myself and Miss. Beverley, the other between Mr. Langdon and Wickliffe.

The two men drifted away from us a few paces, and as I glanced in their direction over Miss Beverley's shoulder I rather admired the contrast between them. Each was a cynic in his way— Wickliffe one of those cool men with a tremendous reserve of enthusiasm behind it all; Mr. Langdon a man of the world, who appeared to have weighed up everybody, and to have taken everybody's measure. He wore a loose lounge jacket, and stood with his clenched fists stuck in the side pockets till they bulged out like the bags round a billiard table. Suddenly he pulled a red bandanna handkerchief out of one of them. Wickliffe glanced casually down as he did so, and then went white to the lips. Mr. Langdon wiped his forehead with the bandanna, and putting it back into his pocket, turned round to join Miss Beverley and me.

"I was just saying, to Mr. Wickliffe," he remarked with a laugh, "that a young man's life is made up of seeking after the unattainable, and losing the possible."

There was nothing very deadly to this, I thought, and Wickliffe must be hard hit with Miss Beverley if he thought it had any application to his desire in that direction. He was nervously anxious, nevertheless, to get away from us, as anxious as he had been, earlier on, to draw Mr. Langdon into conversation. Leading Miss Beverley off, he left us to wander together, and I remember that in this delightfully rustic; spot, letters were fetched twice a day, and unless I caught the next post an important piece of business would have to be delayed.

Mr. Langdon decided to continue his stroll alone, and I went back to write I my letter. It did not take long, however, and the more time I spent in the grounds the less likely was I to be brought in contact with Elaine. I wandered away by myself, brooding over the miseries of life, till I came to the bank of a wide river that expanded practically into a lake, in about the middle of the Gibney estate. Sitting down and lighting my pipe, I began to wonder, with the cheerful pessimism of disappointed love, where it would all end.

Looking aimlessly around me, I saw Mr. Langdon on the other side, of the lake, occupying himself pretty much as I was entertaining myself, sitting by the waterside enjoying a quiet pipe. I was about to hail him, when something immediately behind him attracted, my attention— something snaky and creepy wriggling out from the brushwood.

Before I could, warn him the figure reared himself up and sprang upon my friend. Though not a young man, Mr. Langdon evidently remembered something of his wrestling days. Twisting himself round, he caught his assailant by the waist, and tried to throw him over his head into the water. The man was too quick for him, however, and, eluding his grip, caught him by one arm, while with his free hand he shook him violently. Something fell I from Langdon's coat pocket, which he struggled desperately to reach.

The other man, loosening his hold for a moment, sprang for it, but Langdon again gripped him. The two men rolled over, and as I started to run round to the narrow part of the river the hand of a third man was reached cautiously out from the surrounding bushes, and with the pounce of an eagle, caught up the package, and disappeared. Swimming the river, I rushed round the other side. Mr. Langdon's antagonist dashed swiftly off down an avenue of trees. In my wet clothes, it was useless to follow him, and I turned, my attention to Mr. Langdon.

"You came just in time," he said, with a note or gratitude in his voice. "I had overpowered the fellow for the moment, but he was too young and supple for me. However, I succeeded; he has not managed to get— good God! What has become of it?"

5

AS WE WALKED back to the house Mr. Langdon explained that he had brought down with him a valuable piece of jewellery that he had intended as a wedding present for a pupil of his.

"I have carried it all over Europe, and now lost it in a struggle with a common footpad in an English country hamlet," he said, with a grim irony.

"But the footpad has not secured the booty," I remarked.

"How do you know that?" he asked, turning sharply round. I told him what I had seen before I ran round to his rescue. He questioned me closely, but I could not give him any indication about the person who secured the prize for which he had made such a plucky struggle himself. I only saw a hand come out― there was, of course, a face behind it, but it was carefully shielded, and one man's arm enclosed in a dark sleeve is very much like thousands of other men's.

He listened attentively and watched me closely, and was apparently satisfied.

"Well, I suppose I can afford to lose it," he remarked philosophically, "but it seems to me, Mr. Harland, We are in an atmosphere of thieves and robbers."

The words, spoken half in jest, bit into my troubled brain. If the man only knew how literally true his words were, and that he lived under the same roof as a midnight thief, he would hardly talk so lightly about it.

As we neared the house he turned again, and said:

"You will have to explain your wet garments somehow. Do you mind telling them some plausible story or the other, more or less accurate, without saying anything about what you saw."

Having made a similar request about my own affairs so recently, I could not do other than acquiesce in his suggestion. I had wrung out my garments by the time we got to the hall door, and I had little difficulty in slipping upstairs before anyone noticed me.

The following day to my intense relief the party began to break up. Wickliffe was the first to go, and I heard Elaine bitterly complaining that Edith Beverley had allowed herself to be dragged off to London by that horrid Bythnian Minister. The rest of them began to announce their intention of going, and when everybody was well off I followed also, leaving them, if they liked, to suppose that I had remained behind for the purpose of speaking to Sir Henry Gibney.

He shook my hand cordially when he saw me off, and with a sinking at the heart I thought of the contrast between this and the parting I had anticipated when I set out for The Heathlands. Elaine with perfect courtesy and composure, expressed the hope that I had enjoyed the country air.

Bending forward I whispered, "Have confidence and tell me all."

She drew herself up proudly, and holding out her hand shook mine limply.

That night London could not have contained among its vast millions a more miserable wretch than Stephen Harland. I do not know why I delayed my departure from England a single minute. There was nothing to keep me, yet I had a hankering, despairing idea that something would happen. I assured myself over and over again that I was fortunate in discovering in time the true character of the girl I had loved. Then I kicked myself for using the past tense; declared oratorically to myself in the mirror, to unoffending chairs and tables, that I loved her still and challenged all denial, and finally I made up my mind about ten times a day to go back to The Heathlands, but somehow I never got there.

I was just in this mood one morning when Henry Wickliffe burst into my chambers. I had not seen him since he left on the morning after Mr. Langdon's adventure, and with a rather poor attempt to be light-hearted, I began chaffing him about Edith Beverley.

"Don't look at me so fiercely," I added."You've surely chaffed plenty of other men in your time."

He laughed lightly, and retorted me with an enquiry after the health of Miss Elaine Gibney.

"Oh, I let the women alone," I retorted testily. "Have you anything new to tell me? Something to distract one's attention from the inanities of this humdrum life you and I and people of our class are condemned to live in a civilised country."

He watched me closely, and stroking his moustache wiped out a smile.

"Humph! I had a notion the course of true love was not— pardon me, old chap, I was almost betrayed into the commonplace. But, however, leaving the ladies out of the question, have you read your newspaper this morning? I needn't ask, because it is folded up there."

"And usually remains folded till the servants. want it to light the fire," I remarked, picking up a cigar-box and holding it towards him.

"Yes, but you might have read it this morning, because there are two things of interest to you in it. The first you will find on the main page. I rather expected you would have known all about it before this, but the Press is even more favoured than the prospective member of the family."

"What the deuce do you mean, Wickliffe?" I said, shaking the cigars up.

"That Sir Henry Gibney has been specially requested by the Government to proceed to Bythnia."

The cigars tumbled over the rug, and in my rage with myself for displaying such emotion before Wickliffe, I crushed some of the choicest weeds the West Indies ever produced, under the heel of my boot.

"Well, if you have one to spare from your hearthrug, I don't mind," said Wickliffe, carefully selecting a cigar from the few that remained in the box. and leisurely lighting it. He was watching me narrowly all the time, and I felt his keen eyes still on me as I read the paragraph to the effect that Sir Henry Gibney would re-enter the diplomatic service, and in view of his intimate knowledge of near eastern question had been asked to proceed to Bythnia, where as was well known, there were delicate relations to be adjusted. As Wickliffe knew well, what interested me most was an additional sentence to the effect that Sir Henry would he accompanied by his only daughter.

"That's a fairly interesting for a beginning," said "Wickliffe, blowing a long cloud of smoke over my head, and scrutinising me under it, "and now what do you think of this?"

He turned to another page—the page with the personal advertisements— and without saying a word pointed the end of his cigar to the following announcement

S.H.—Any offer to make, so questions must be asked. The stone is safe.—Gorselands.

I read this, and re-read it. and came to the same conclusion as Wickliffe had obviously arrived at— somebody was asking me to offer a reward for the return of my diamond.

"It has been in there for several days, I noticed," said Wickliffe. "I make a point of reading this column myself— it is the only thing I do read, barring the court news."

I threw the paper down. My first impulse was to take no further notice of it. What cared I whether I had the diamond or not; I had lost Elaine, and the less I heard about the diamond the better.

"It would be interesting to have it again, and to know it was safe— out of harm's way," remarked Wickliffe

Out of harm's way? Yes, it would be out of harm's way if it were in my possession. So long as I was in doubt as to what had become of it there was always the terrible danger that Elaine, in an unguarded moment, would betray herself. She might exhibit it— for of what use was a precious stone to a woman, unless she could gloat over it with her friends, as well as in private. That phrase, "out of harm's way," had shown too the situation in a new light. The stone must be recovered.

"What course do you suggest ?" I asked.

"Very simple indeed. Put in an advertisement to-morrow, offering £2,000 reward."

He took the advertisement down to the office for me, and a couple of days afterwards an anonymous letter, typewritten on paper with no watermark, reached me, offering to deliver the box containing the diamond with the seal unbroken. I was to come to a certain house in Bloomsbury, at a certain hour of the night, bringing with me money in convertible specie to the sum named.

I showed the letter to Wickliffe.

"Go, my boy," he said. ''Accept their forms. Go alone— only slip a revolver in your pocket, for fear of accidents, though, as you see, they have chosen a sufficiently public neighbourhood to keep you safe from foul play. Anyhow, it is your money they want, not you; and I daresay they have discovered ere this  their capture is no good to them."

" But why have they not broken open the box?"

"If they had any idea what was in the box, and to judge from attendant circumstances they had, they would know perfectly well that the reward would be worth more than they could make of the stone. They dare not attempt to sell it, save to a criminal receiver. This saves a lot of negotiation, the thing can done more quietly. All you have to satisfy yourself about is the seal. As told you at the time, there is not other one at the same character in existence. You take the box, hand them over the money, and to-morrow afternoon I am coming round just to fetch you along to the safe deposit, where we will see that thing put out of harm's way for the time being."

I liked the plan, and, together with Wickliffe, I wandered off to see the outside of the house where I was to recover my property.

"I suppose an acute man would let the Police keep the appointment,"  remarked Wickliffe, as we strolled along.

"Not at all, because you may take it for granted they have made provision for protecting themselves against being trapped like that. Unless I go alone I shall not recover my box, and when they have got my money they will be glad enough to see the back of me, a feeling which, I can assure them, will be mutual."

I was somewhat annoyed at his extreme caution. He insisted on finding out from the people in the neighbourhood what there was to be heard about the house. It had been empty some time, and had just recently been taken, was all that could be got from the neighbours.

"Well, at all events. If I hear nothing of you to-morrow I shall be looking you up, and I may say that I have taken the precaution to tell your man that if you are not back at your chambers by midnight he is to come straight away and fetch me."

"I wish you wouldn't interfere," I began, but Wickliffe gently waved aside my objections with the remark: "Now you will have to hurry up. I mustn't be seen going any further with you. I have no doubt you will be carefully watched."

I found my way to the respectable middle-class house. As soon as knocked at the door it swung open, and a voice called out, "First door to the left and remain there." I turned into a small sitting room. The shutters were up, but the light was on. There was very little furniture in it, and I saw at a glance that it was not in constant use. The house had been taken for this particular purpose, so much was certain. My musings were interrupted by a tapping at one end of the room. Going over, I saw that the sounds proceeded from the other side of the small trap door in the wall. The place had been built for a boarding-house, and this was the convenience for passing up the plates and dishes. It was now going to serve a different purpose.

"What do you want?" I shouted.

A piece of paper was pushed out, on which were typed the words, "Pass through your money in one hand, and take the box with the other."

By an ingenious device they had cut out two miniature trap doors, each just big enough for the insertion or a human hand. Pushing my money through the one, I held out my hand for the other. The box came through with the seal uppermost. I recognised it in an instant. My heart stood still; the damning chain of evidence was complete. There was no further hope that it would prove a dream and a nightmare— the box was handed me by the gloved hand of a woman.

The door swung open of its own accord again, and with the devil-sent stone in my pocket I rushed along the crowded streets. Reaching my chambers more by instinct than anything else, for I knew not whither I was rushing, I threw myself in a chair and had almost thrown the box from me in utter loathing, when my man appeared with a letter which he said had been left with no further message.

"Oh! all right, Smithers," I said, nonchalantly tearing open the envelope, "I  don't want anything more to-night."

I looked at the notepaper, at first blankly— nothing could interest me tonight— but something in the writing struck me as out of the common. It was a disguised hand, but it had a classic character about it.

"The man who keeps that which he should not possess courts danger, and can have no peace. The Queen of Bythnia must some day, soon or late, come into her own."

I twisted and turned the thing into all angles, read it and re-read it. The only thing I possessed that was not my own, I would gladly give up to anyone who could prove a better claim.

The Queen of Bythnia? I went over to a box, where I kept my letters, and found the one from my uncle. This, read with the missive I had just received, seemed to indicate a new course tor me.

Did the stone rightfully belong to the Queen of Bythnia? There was only one way of satisfying myself about this, I would go to Bythnia myself— would start— I rushed over to the telephone, rang up Charing Cross. There was a train at five in the morning that would take me through; I should catch the continental express, or there was a train within a couple of hours, but they supposed it would not suit me.

It was just the very thing that would suit me, I must have action. I could not remain here in London. I would not have this hideous glistening fiend even covered up and sealed In my possession an hour longer than I can help. I would never look upon it again; it should remain there safe under seal till I opened its case and handed it over to its rightful owner.

And so, once again, Henry Wickliffe failed to find a customer for the Safe Deposit.

6

SO THIS was Neva, the capital of Bythnia, city of a thousand tragedies, the home of a series of dynastic revolutions that had kept the heads of great European statesmen aching and plotting, and hoping and desiring generation after generation! The picturesque peasantry, through whose mountain villages I had passed in my flying journey, had interested me not a little. The people in the town were more cosmopolitan, and, therefore, less attractive, which, I suppose, is to be said of people in most countries.

I was driven to the best hotel in the place, and received with all the honours of a distinguished guest. Since the massacre of the last rulers of the State the place had not been particularly popular. It happened to be a few centuries behind the times in its political methods, and the well-bred members of more up-to-date communities, whose ancestors had changed their monarchs by similar means, regarded it as good form in these more enlightened days to boycott a place where revolutionaries held such old-fashioned and humdrum ideas of constitutional reform.

I got the best room, overlooking the main street, and, now I was here, tried to lay out the plans for disposing of the diamond. I was sufficiently loyal to my uncle's good opinion of me to be determined that I would hold the thing, not for the same sinister, ironical reason as my uncle had held it, but for the sake of restoring it to its rightful owner― if such a, person as a rightful owner of a thing that had changed ownership so many times could be discovered. Sealed up ii it was, I had a tantalising desire upon nee to gaze upon it, and had almost broken the string when the shouting and a sound of clanking cavalry in the street without attracted my attention.

Slipping the box into my pocket for the time being, I walked to the window, which opened on to a narrow balcony. With the demonstrative enthusiasm of people in whose veins the turbulent blood of tribal warriors coursed hotly, the citizens of Neva loved military displays, and they were pausing from their daily avocations to cheer a cavalcade of royal soldiers who were acting as a guard of honour to some distinguished person.

The troopers trotted by in their easy, graceful style― swarthy, muscular, well-knit men, who set oft well the gaudy uniform of the Bythnian Household troops. I turned from them to look at the carriage they were escorting, and though I instinctively drew back from the balcony, a great yearning came upon me as I gazed at two figures in the carriage.

Sir Henry Gibney, dignified and handsome, gracefully acknowledged the greetings of the passers-by. At his side, more beautiful than over, sat Elaine. She smiled gratefully at the people who welcomed her, but I noticed with something of a feeling of chastened joy, that there was a certain sadness about her in repose. I saw this for but a moment― the carriage, for some reason, slowed down as it passed the hotel, and she settled back among the cushions while they were waiting.  Then, when the horses were whipped up and they reached another little batch of cheering people, she was once more the Ambassador's daughter, and the procession swept out of my sight.

The announcement in the paper, instead of being, as such things ought to be in modern journalism, an intelligent anticipation of events before they occurred, was an announcement after the event. Sir Gibney must have been appointed some days. It was quite possible that he had known of it himself much longer, and the party at The Heathlands was in the nature of an informal farewell. The Government were evidently anticipating trouble, and had hastened his departure; while the Bythnian Government were evidently immensely delighted to receive the British Minister.

The greatest punishment inflicted on the State for its recent indiscretions had been the loss of recognition by England, their greatest friend among the powerful nations of the earth. So delighted were the Bythnian Government to see among them such a distinguished diplomatist and such an old friend, that they had insisted on giving Sir Henry a reception equal to that of a Royal visitor.

I told myself, angrily, that this new development was a nuisance; that I should not be free to carry out my plan with the embarrassing presence of Sir Henry and Elaine, but a self-accusing conscience whispered to me that I was but deceiving myself. I had come here knowing that Elaine would be here, and my ardent desire to do justice by the rightful owner of the diamond was but a blind for the love I still bore her, and its consequent desire to be wherever she was.

Again I cursed the thing that had parted us, and if there had been a sea handy, the diamond of Diocletian would, according to my uncle's cynical advice, assuredly have gone into it.

I took the box in my hand, and looked upon it with the resentment of a man who has been robbed of his all. Even through its case and through the seal Wickliffe had set upon it, its wicked, tempting glare seemed to be mocking me and goading me into crime, even as it had tempted, beyond endurance; the woman I loved. I threw it from me angrily, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I shouted, thinking it was a servant for orders.

The door opened, and a tall man, with placid features and a military bearing, which well set off the smart uniform that he wore, was shown in by one of the men.

"I trust you will pardon this intrusion, sir," he said, speaking in very good English, "It is our custom― a custom which in your beloved England a sense of security renders unnecessary― to acquaint ourselves with the personality of all our visitors. Hearing that an Englishman had arrived here, and anxious that you should not be in any way embarrassed by the attentions of any of our police who might not realise the special courtesy due to one of your honoured race, I deemed it wise to call early, and do myself the honour of making formal inquiry, personally. I understand from the hotel people that your name is Mr. Stephen Harland, that you have come here directly from London, where your address is―"

I had enough experience of Continental hotel life to give, him both my London address and the address of my country place without feeling that he was in any way unduly inquisitive. The gentleman seemed rather inclined to talk, even after having received the necessary information, and I was in no way loth to take advantage of the visit of a man of obvious culture, who knew something about the country I had come to, and who could talk to me in my own language.

He told me of the principal places of interest, talked of the peculiarities of the people, their contrast with our own, and specially advised me to go to the small hamlet some miles from the capital away up in the hills where I would see Bythnians still living the simple life, with all their primitive habits and customs.

Sitting down at the table, he reached over for a piece of paper to sketch me a plan of the best route to follow. As he did so, his hand came in contact with the box I had petulantly thrown down just before he came in.

"Pardon," he said, lifting it gently out of the way. And then, suddenly, his face went ashen pale, and with a tremor of excitement he scribbled hastily on a sheet of paper, but eagerly watched the box all the time. Tearing up the paper, he took another piece and leaned over the secretaire.

"I am looking for a bigger sheet of paper, as I think I had better draw you a more detailed map," he said in explanation; but I could see that it was all an excuse to get another look at tile seal on my box. It seemed to have an extraordinary fascination for him.

After drawing his map, he laid the sheet of paper out on the table close to it, and bending over it traced his finger along the lines he had drawn, but his eyes wandered still to the sealed box.

We resumed our conversation, and still he watched the red patch that Henry Wickliffe had splashed on the ordinary sheet of paper that covered the diamond in the case from prying eyes.

"Will you pardon my impertinence?" he said as he rose to go, "if I advise you not to leave any articles of value about during your stay here. Our people are no more nor less honest than others, but it would be a matter of the most extreme regret to me, as the chief of the police, and to my royal master, if on the day of the arrival of his Britannic Majesty's envoy a countryman of his should be robbed In our capital."

"It Is very good of you to take such an interest in me," I replied. "I do not think I have much that's valuable about me. My bankers are arranging with their agents here for such drafts as I may deem necessary. A creature of impulse, I came away somewhat hurriedly with what ready money I had about me, and left them instructions by letter, which they have duly acknowledged by wire that awaited me here on my arrival."

I saw his eye wander again towards the sealed box, and feeling sure he intended to know something about it before he went, I picked it up carelessly.

"This," I said, "happens to be a small curio I obtained just before I left England. I do not think anybody but myself would want to keep it, and to show you how little store I set upon it, I intend to give it away, on the first opportunity."

"Which will be?"

"When I find the person who really wants it, and is convinced that she would like it to keep it."

He watched me closely as I said this, and I could see his coal-black eyes under his busy brows incredulously challenging my explanation.

He laughed, however, and holding out his hand, said: "Pardon. An affair of the heart, I see. You Englishmen are not impressionable, but more deeply in earnest, I am told, in these matters. But if you wish the seal to remain unbroken do not leave it about."

"I had just put it down when you came in," I replied, "I usually carry it in my pocket."

As I said this, I picked up the box to put it back in my coat pocket. "I do not think the seal could be easily imitated," I said, boldly showing it to him. Thus invited, he grasped the box eagerly, and walking to the window, carefully scrutinised the seal. His short, wiry black hair stood, up on his forehead like the bristles of a hedgehog, his deep chest dilated, and underneath his big moustache I could see him biting his lips to suppress his excitement.

I wondered if there was anything more than usually suspicious in his nature, or whether the police of Bythnia were more apprehensive than the officials of other countries of the possibilities that lurked within sealed packets. He could have no possible knowledge of what the box contained, because not even was the case to be seen, so completely had Wickliffe wrapped it up.

"Yes, it is a remarkable seal," he said, handing it back. "Is it your own?"

"No, it was put on there by a friend of mine."

"An Eastern traveller, perhaps?"

"Why Eastern?" I said, looking at the seal more closely than I had ever done before. It was, indeed, a peculiar design, a crescent with a cross running through it, and above it a sword with hieroglyphics traced round it that to me had no meaning. It had been cut so deeply, and was so well impressed on the wax, that even with the rough handling it had received not a bit of the design was chipped off.

"Oh! I suppose my friend picked It up at some curio shop or the other," I said carelessly. "He only told me that it was unique, and he lent it me because I happened to want a seal at the moment."

The officer left me, and just as he went I slipped the box into my pocket. After he had gone I threw it into the drawer of a cabinet that happened to be standing in one corner of the room in case any more visitors should come in and want to talk about it.

My best plan would be, I thought, to go out and buy some sort of a strong box in which I could lock it up out of the way. Meantime, I must write a few. letters. So soon as I sat down, however, I was again interrupted.

"Would monsieur be so good as to come down and speak to a visitor who wishes to see him? He is a poor man, and does not wish to invade monsieur's rooms."

"All right," I said, "I will come immediately I have finished this letter, or, rather, I will come at once."

I ran lightly downstairs, and met a man in the hall who looked like a man of the lower middle classes. He spoke to me in broken English, told me that a countryman of mine was his lodger and was very ill. They had heard of my arrival at the hotel, and he would be glad if I could come and speak to his friend. Such a request was, of course, not to be refused by any but a boor, and I said I would come along in the course of the evening.

The man hesitated, and with many apologies said his lodger usually slept towards the evening, could I not come now?

"Oh! very well," I replied, and picking up a travelling hat I had thrown on the rack in the hall, I followed the man.

"By the way," I said, turning to the hotel proprietor as I left, "who was the officer who called on me a little while ago?"

"That, monsieur," he replied, speaking in French, the language in which I had addressed him, "Is Colonel Alexieff, Chief of the Police and Minister of the Interior."

"Alexieff," I muttered to myself as I walked along, "where have I heard the name?"

Then I remembered that he was the man who played such a leading part in my uncle's letter. Had he known what he really held in his hand, he would not have wasted all is official suspicions on the mere design of a curious seal.

As I mused on the littleness of the world, and the fanciful fate that brought men of kindred interest together, my conductor led the way off the main street through one of those old-world side-ways with overhanging top windows and fancy architecture which modern builders are trying to copy to give an artistic tone to their jerry-building. Holding up his hand to warn me not to make a noise, he held open the door, and donning my cap, I passed under the curiously curved archway.

In a moment the door swung to with a bang out of all harmony with the quietude of a house of sickness.

My hand slipped round by an intuition to my hip pocket where I carried my revolver, but my wrist was caught in a vicelike grip.

7

I LIFTED MY free hand to hit the man who held me, but by a clever twist he got my arm up behind me in the fashion I have seen policemen in our own country sometimes adopt with an obstreperous prisoner.

He ran me along a corridor and into a room, the windows of which were so completely darkened that I could not see my captors. Two men got hold of me and blindfolded me, first with a white cloth, and then, for certainty, completely tied up my head. They moved me between them into another room, and some man, who did not speak a word, ran through my pockets. I felt the gold lace on his sleeve rub against my hand, and knew that he was an officer of some sort.

"You shall pay for this," I said; "the British Minister to Neva will be getting to business pretty briskly."

Not a word was said in reply, but the search continued. They took everything off me, including my revolver, and still were not satisfied. They were firm, but I could not say they were rough. They simply held me tight and took liberties with my personal belongings, but carefully avoided using unnecessary force. Then I was led into another room and kept there for a while, with the same gentle firmness. I threatened, abused, insulted my captors, did everything I could think of to make them talk to me, but not a single syllable was said in my presence, though I heard somebody talking in low hurried tones in the next room.

The bandage was taken off my eyes at last, and the light turned on. I looked round, now that my arms were free, determined to have at least the satisfaction of a fight out of it, but my jailers had slipped quietly out of the room before turning up the light. The place contained some rough furniture of a sort, the window was high up, and there was no escape. On the table were cigarettes and matches and a bottle of wine. This was hospitable enough, in its way, and, lighting a cigarette, I awaited developments.

I must have waited some two hours or more, when the light went out again and two men slipped into the room. I lighted a match, but it was promptly snuffed out, and I was led along the passage out through the door, and lifted into a conveyance of some sort, which drove me about for about half an hour blindfolded, then dropped me quietly at the roadside. Tearing off the bandage, I rushed after the carriage, but the driver, whose form was hidden from me by the high covering, whipped up his horses, and away went my late custodians without my having caught a glimpse of one of their faces.

The evening was closing in, and there was not a soul to be seen. Stumbling along in the direction of the town, keeping a tall tower as a landmark, I met a man in uniform, and mentioned the name of my hotel. Saluting me respectfully, he walked smartly off and motioned me to follow him.

At the hotel the first man I encountered as I mounted the steps was Colonel Alexieff.

He advanced to me with consternation written on every look and gesture.

"A word with you privately," he said. I led him to my room, and had hardly got inside when he grasped me by both hands.

"My dear Mr. Harland," he said, "the sight of you has indeed taken a terrible load off my mind. I came back to the hotel a little while since to bear you a special invitation for a reception tonight in honour of the arrival of Sir Henry Gibney, and was told that you had left the hotel with Zakouska. He is known to most people as a harmless peasant, but my police have long had their suspicions of him. He is not a Bythnian, I hasten to state but a man of doubtful parentage, who is supposed to have come here from Russia. Of late we have had cause to suspect that he is in league with a dangerous gang of thieves who make it their practice to bribe hotel servants to give them particulars of new visitors, in order that they may, defraud them. I was thinking of him when I warned you not to display your valuables to the attendants here. I immediately set my men, to look for him. They came to his house, apparently, just a few minutes too late. The rascal is now safe under lock and key, but his confederates appear to have taken you off for a drive. We shall catch them some day; but I cannot express to you how deeply grieved I am that you should have been put to this indignity. I feel a grave personal responsibility myself-indeed, so much so, that I venture to make what I know must be a strange request. It would assist us more than I can explain to you, if you would allow the people here to believe that you really went on an errand of mercy, and that nothing happened to you there beyond the mere confidences of a sick friend."

"But it must all come out in evidence, surely, when you put your prisoner on trial?" I said hesitatingly.

The Minister of the Interior smiled apologetically.

"I am well aware," he said, "that our methods may not commend themselves to your sense of English justice; but you do not know the difficulties of dealing with this class of criminal in this part of the country. With your permission, we shall keep the man till we are assured all danger to you is passed, and then we shall turn him loose as a decoy to the greater villains which we hope to catch. May I depend upon you? I might add; perhaps, that I make this request, firstly, for my own sake and for the sake of my own master, but also for the sake of your own distinguished Minister. As you must be aware, he has come to this country under peculiar circumstances, and it would be his wish, if possible, to avoid even the slightest indirect appearance of trouble with the people. We have unreasoning and narrow-minded people here, more so than in most countries, and if citizens were arrested and imprisoned through an Englishman, though every reputable person would be glad to see them brought to justice, it might not be the best beginning for Sir Henry Gibney. We would like to feel that there was not a single person in the whole of Bythnia, good or, bad, who did not feel delighted at his presence, and in the presence of Englishmen, in our capital. That is the case, Mr. Harland. You are the judge."

He bowed submissively and waited for my answer. What I had read of him in the letter from my uncle was sufficient to tell me that he was a cruel and heartless assassin, and I loathed him already; but the other considerations he had advanced had some weight with me, and I was, moreover, desirous for my own sake not to have too much publicly.

"It shall be as you wish," I said simply.

He overburdened me with his gratitude, and then, opening a small package which he carried, emptied out my belongings on the table.

"My men were fortunate in discovering most of the booty which Zakouska had not had time to remove. We searched every corner of the house, though I fear there must be some things lacking."

"No, with the exception of, possibly, a few coins― I don't remember how many, but certainly not a big amount― this is everything I possess," I said, slipping my revolver into my hip pocket, and the other articles in my other pockets.

"But are you sure? There must be something else. 'Some― pardon my rudeness― some curio in which a lady is interested?"

He said this with an insinuating smile, but watched me intently all this time.

"Oh, the box!" I said, keeping my eyes fixed on him.

"Yes, the little affair you wear next your heart."

"Oh! I left that behind when I went out."

"Had you not better see that it is where you left it?" he asked in an agitated tone.

"No, I don't remember for the moment; I shall come across it," I said, still keeping my eye on him. I don't know why I treated him in such an offhand fashion, except that I felt the fellow knew enough of my personal affairs already, and I had no intention of jabbering to a complete stranger about my uncle's weird heirloom.

He accepted this with a shrug of his shoulders, all then, all courtesy and grace, returned to the original object of his visit.

"So soon as I left you," he said, "I immediately set out to inform the proper authorities of your presence, and I am the happy bearer of a cordial invitation that you will honour the reception with your presence to-night."

I hesitated, and wavered between my longing to look again upon Elaine, who, I knew, would be there, and my desire to avoid what must be an embarrassing situation; but the thought of seeing her conquered, and I replied: "I shall be happy to be with you, Colonel."

"Not, not with me. My duties are elsewhere, and―" he paused a moment, then, with a toss of his head, said, "It is as well to be frank. We are well aware that in your country you took a strong view concerning a cruelly necessary act of state in this country some time ago, in which I must admit l, with deep regret, took my part. It is not desirable that I should in any way embarrass the proceedings to-night by being present with the other Ministers of State to your distinguished representative. I do not profess to excuse myself to you. I will only say this, that I am a soldier. I have freely offered my life to my country on the field of battle, and those who know me there know I am no coward. The life and death of a nation are superior considerations with me than the life or the death of an individual, or than the feelings which prompt either myself or others to recoil from some measures which the fate of a nation demand. If you had passed through with me the ordeals which have faced this country, its terrible suffering, and its nameless dangers through the follies of unwise rulers, you might understand, even if you did not excuse my feelings. But you cannot understand, and therefore I do not expect you to appreciate them. Good night, sir. I will have the honour to convey your acceptance to the Court Chamberlain."

He saluted me, turned on his heel, and left the room with a quick marching step.

I'm bound to admit that his candid speech had an effect upon me, but I thanked my lucky stars that I had not been born a Bythnian patriot. Locking the door to secure myself against further intrusion I went over to where the cabinet was.

It had disappeared, and, on careful examination, I found that other articles of furniture had been moved.

Bursting into the inner room, where I intended to sleep, I found unmistakable evidence that my luggage had been tampered with.

Violently ringing the bell, I demanded to see the landlord, and, asked him who had had the impudence to interfere with my trunks.

He assured me that nobody was permitted to enter the room. I saw that he was lying, and I told him so frankly.

He accepted the insult with protests which were pleading rather than indignant in tone and character. I felt inclined to take him by the coat collar and shake the truth out of him, but I wanted to get all information I could by gentle means, if possible.

"Very well, I must have made a mistake," I said, "but, by the way, why have you removed the furniture from my sitting-room? You let it me just as I found it, and you have no right to remove that cabinet which I expected to make use of for keeping my papers and documents in. Will you kindly bring it back at once?"

With, many apologies he went off pulling with the exertion of carrying the furniture himself, he lifted it into the room.

"I had been using this room myself," he said, "and had forgotten to carry the cabinet back into my office. But since monsieur desires it, I have great pleasure in returning it. There are some few bills and things in it which monsieur, perhaps, will allow me to remove?"

"Oh, very well, take what you want." I was not prepared, however, for what followed. He pulled out the drawers one by one; carefully removed the papers, and when he came to the locked one calmly produced a master key and unlocked it.

Before I could stop him he had pulled it out, and banging it to he turned towards me with a startled look on his face. Then he crossed over, and, carefully looking the door, made some idiotic signs which I did not understand. He watched my ignorance with painful doubt and surprise, and stepping over to me whispered:

"Have no fear, monsieur. We are friends. You bear the seal. I understand now why you require the cabinet. I removed it from your room immediately you left, because I knew the colonel would be back, and I remembered in one of the drawers I had left something I did not want him to see. I only had time to get the cabinet into the next room and snatch out what I wanted before he arrived."

"What the―"

"Hush, not a word. We understand. The seal is on the packet. You come from England. You may depend on me. But not a word now. The colonel's spies are still in the house, and walls have ears―"

A sudden inspiration came upon me. I had sworn to myself not to let the box out of my possession, but I was in a strange country, and not up to the tricks. This innocent old seal that Wickliffe had picked up, the Lord know where, evidently had some superstitious meaning in Bythnia, perhaps it was another of the stolen treasures. I could play upon this landlord's reverence for it.

"You are right," I whispered. "I entrust this packet to you till I shall demand it. Break not the seal on pain of death. Let it not be touched so much as by a pin-prick. Your reward shall be great if you hold it in safe keeping."

''With my life, monsieur, with my life," he murmured, crossing himself and swearing after the manner of hits faith.

I handed this packet to him, and dressed myself for the reception, wondering what strange adventures were yet in store for me in this land of plots and mysteries.

8

I WENT OFF to the reception with mingled feelings of anticipation and trepidation. I assured myself it would be an interesting function; at all events, it would be something new in the way of parties and social gatherings to those I had been in the habit of attending in my own country, where I knew exactly who would be there, what everybody would say, and was perfectly well aware that I might go to place after place year in and year out without seeing or hearing anything new or interesting.

The Court life of Bythnia had its picturesque side. It could hardly be called humdrum, and as I passed along the lines of royal guards and officials of various kinds I wondered how soon it would be before these gaudily attired representatives of law and order would be clashing swords with each other in a sanguinary revolution. The presence of Sir Henry Gibney in the capital was regarded by the sober-minded of the people as a steadying influence. The King was especially glad to have so astute a student of men near him, and was most anxious to emphasise the importance of English recognition. All this I realised from the Royal and lavish generosity which characterised the whole function. Evidently instructed beforehand, a gorgeously uniformed official presented me to the King and Queen. This being pretty much of a formality, I went through with the usual blunders and the customary mistakes, to the usual amusement of Court officials who, I have no doubt, in all countries, find the humour of life in trivial incidents of this kind. Then I was unwillingly, but without choice, led to Sir Henry Gibney and his daughter.

With genuine pleasure the diplomatist shook me by the hand.

"Whatever has brought you to Neva, Mr. Harland?" he asked. "It is, indeed, a pleasure to meet you here. Has the political situation attracted you, or have you got tired of London?"

"I had long contemplated a trip to this part of the world," I replied evasively, "and the interesting stories I heard at The Heathlands, coupled with other experiences since, determined me to take this opportunity of visiting a country which I find to be of abounding interest."

I laid special emphasis on tile words, "other experience," and glanced at Elaine as I spoke, but there was no indication in her cold, calm reception of me that I had made the faintest impression on her by my indirect allusion to what had passed between us. Determined to follow up my point still more keenly, I added: "By a curious accident something has come into my possession which I deem to be of interest to others, and which I felt it my duty to return to its proper owner at all cost."

"A very meritorious sentiment, Mr. Harland, and I trust you will succeed in accomplishing your purpose. Should you remain in Bythnia long I trust I may look forward to seeing more of you."

A group of distinguished persons were at this moment brought up to be presented to the British Minister, and I moved away.

As I passed Elaine I looked longingly at her. If ever guilt, was shielded by a mask of innocence, here was it effectually disguised in that sweet face and those guileless, winsome eyes. Sick at heart with myself and all the world, I mingled in the gay crowd of festive Bythnians. Wandering here and there, I encountered many a look of inquiry, and at times, suspicion.

The Court officials and certain officers of the army, who made a special point of keeping near me, regarded me with exceptional interest.  Word must have been passed round that I was a distinguished guest, and one or two officers who spoke English well made a point of a formal introduction to me. They questioned me with abundant enthusiasm about my knowledge of their country. I assured them I knew nothing more than I had seen in a couple of days' visit, but they were sufficiently flattering to assume that I must have gathered a good deal more information than my modesty permitted me to claim credit for. Indeed, their flattery became almost offensive. They kept assuming that I knew more than I admitted, and now and then I almost felt inclined to resent what appeared to be developing into a cross-examination of an unwilling witness.

Meantime, the reception was going on. The King, a wrinkled man, comparatively middle-aged, with a bristling iron-grey moustache, and the look of a man who had seen life, and seen a good deal of it, was dressed in a well-fitting uniform, and had something of royal dignity about him despite the fact that the greater part of his time had been spent as an ordinary citizen moving from one capital of Europe to another. His Queen, a woman somewhat younger than himself, tall, graceful, and of commanding presence, with Buonapart blood in her veins and with a kinship sufficiently royal to make the match a sound one politically, had only recently become his consort. She was obviously a woman of character and will, and as I watched her receiving her guests in the blaze of light and colour of a function glistening with every attribute of Byzantine splendour, it began to dawn upon me that this ambitious and clever woman might have instigated the search for the Diocletian diamond which culminated in my presence In Neva.

The Turkish emissaries had gone about their work with a subtle craft that stopped not at violence, but those who were working under the direction of the gifted woman had been wiser. They had appealed to an Englishman's vanity; they had tickled my sense of my own blunt honesty, and here was I, who had risked my life for the sake of holding this mysterious gem when I might have refused its custody, mixing myself up with plots of which I did not even know the meaning, because I had a notion that this royal personage ought to have the diamond. The question now with me was, how should I reach her?

It was impossible to do anything here, of course. I did not like to seek the offices of Sir Henry Gibney. How could I explain to him my mission? He would at once connect the diamond with that which I lost in his house, though I had not told his guests its history, and embarrassing questions might be asked. My only plan was to wait and watch for the first opportunity, which I supposed would come― as it usually does to the man who keeps right ahead with his purpose.

In this mood, I wandered from the glided hall where the reception was held, Into a series of beautiful gardens, illuminated with numberless fairy lamps, and stood by the crystal fountain of strange Eastern design, beneath the cooling sight of which I sat and smoked a cigarette.

The base of the fountain was of irregular shape, and the bench on which I found myself was sheltered in an angle that almost effectually cut it off from a similar bend is the base line of the fountain. As I smoked and dreamed away, began to think my solitary occupation of so favourable a spot was a waste of the gifts of Providence. It was possible some happy couple were only waiting for me to clear off. I was about to find my way back to the reception-room, when the sound of voices talking rapidly in French in the next nook suddenly attracted my attention.

"I am certain he is English. I have seen too many of them not to know."

"My dear friend, it is all a matter of training and environment. There is no such person as an Englishman. There is no English race. By habit, customs, and education, you have a set of characteristics which superficial students regard as national and racial. You may transplant a man of any race to that cosmopolitan country, and, granted he be there long enough, you will assume that he is English born. The fact that this man appears to be an Englishman proves nothing, unless it, indeed, strengthens my views."

"Well, I suppose it is useless to argue the point, and under present circumstances it is better to be wrong on the right side than to be too dangerously unsuspicious. However, it is not our affair; at all events, we are not directly responsible. Let us at least enjoy our pleasures while we may."

More mystified than ever, I shortly afterwards made my way through the gardens back to an open space flooded with brilliant light, where the band of the household Guards was playing the martial airs of the Balkan Mountains, and the King and Queen were moving informally among the guests.

As I strolled into the square I encountered Sir Henry Gibney and his daughter.

"Met again, Mr. Harland," said the diplomatist effusively. "May I leave Elaine in your charge for at few minutes? I notice his Majesty is anxious for a word with me."

The King was indeed looking intently in the direction of Sir Henry, and the Ambassador rightly interpreted his desire, and he moved away towards him, leaving me with Elaine― the first time we had been together, save in the presence of others, since that fateful morning― how long it seemed ago― on the day after the robbery at "The Heathlands."

In public we had always maintained the strict attitude of very good friends, of whom onlookers might expect something more than friendship. The keenest observer would not have noticed any embarrassment on either side, but now as we stood together gazing on the dazzling scene at a court extravagantly anxious to emulate the splendour of the greatest European Powers, we both dropped pretence, and there was a coldness that chilled me to the very soul in her voice as she replied to some chance observation of mine.

"Would you like to see the gardens?" I asked, merely for the sake of something to say.

Silently she took my arm, her gloved hand lay on it limply, and every touch served to remind me of that hateful day when my dread fears were justified, and the stolen box was handed to me through the trap-door in the Bloomsbury house by this very hand which now was extended, almost in patronage, to the nobility of one of the proudest races in Europe.

We walked through the gardens in silence, she surveying the beauteous scene with cold scrutiny. I ever and anon gazing into her eyes with the hope of finding some softening look, some indication that she still loved me enough to confide in me as I had so earnestly implored her.

Fellow guests made way for us as we passed, and l noticed the officers who had made themselves known to me in the early part of the evening whispering to each other and eyeing us both with undisguised interest. We wandered along to the fountain. I suggested that we should sit down, and just as she had acquiesced in my proposal to view the gardens, so she permitted me to lead her to the seat in the alcove at the base of the fountain.

With a far away look in her eyes she sat musing while I vainly tried to think of something pleasant to say; something that would lead up to a confession I was dying to make; something that might form preliminary to a declaration that I knew nothing of what had passed, that we might begin our lives again to-day. I took her hand in mine; she did not resist, but there was no responsive pressure. She simply allowed me to hold it, waiting, waiting, I could see, for that frank word that choked me though I tried to speak it. Again I was interrupted by voices in the next nook― voices speaking this time in a low guttural German, a language as I knew would be understood by practically nobody else in the whole assembly. Elaine, as a diplomatist's daughter, spoke almost every language, and I had a sufficient knowledge of German to understand what my neighbours were saying to know they were talking in a language they knew but imperfectly for the mere sake of privacy.

"Something desperate had to be done, I know. I have heard from England. She had been playing bridge and losing heavily. Money had to be got somewhere, and this was surely a little pardonable device."

"No device is pardonable. Girls should learn to keep their heads, specially when they are associated with affairs of State. I tell you this is a most dangerous, and it may be a disastrous trick. It will lead to misunderstanding. I could excuse desperate means, treachery even, of a kind, but for a girl of her attainments to descend to the tricks of a common their―bash―"

The two men got up and walked away, leaving us sitting there together. Every word had struck me like a point of a dagger, and I narrowly watched their effect on Elaine. She listened with a calm indifference that was unnatural.

"I think we had better be getting back," she said slowly.

"Yes― but― Elaine, have you nothing more to say to me. Elaine, I have never known a moment's happiness since that terrible morning when we parted so foolishly. Will you not confide in me? Tell me, for God's sake, tell me all! All, bad though it be. You must see now that I cannot be deceived. It is useless to have any pretence between us."

"Most useless, indeed, unpardonable," she said, moving off and leaving me, perforce, to follow.

"All, Elaine, there you are! It is time we were going home. An elderly diplomatist, Mr. Harland, cannot afford to spend his nights in revelry and his days in sleep. I presume you are staying to the finish, and I cannot offer you a lift. Do not forget to look me up before you leave Bythnia."

They went off to their carriage, the courtly Ambassador and his beautiful daughter, admired by all, and I the loneliest man on earth, turned back once more into the cool gardens with a choking in my throat.

I wandered aimlessly about for nearly an hour, and then in sheer weariness made my way to the street, when the drivers of tumbledown horse carriages were being hustled by the police as they dodged in and out of the more pretentious vehicles plying for hire. One of them drove up to me and was promptly ordered off. I felt inclined to engage him as a protest against overbearing authority, but thinking I might get the fellow into more trouble I stepped into a carriage, the driver of which had drawn his horses forward at a gallop as soon as I appeared. Brooding over the utter failure of my last desperate effort at reconciliation, I lay back amongst the cushions, taking no heed of what was passing. By-and-bye it struck me that we ought to be reaching my hotel, and then as I looked out of the window I saw we had passed the line of houses and were driving through open country. I shouted to the man. He only whipped his horses up.

"Another trap," I shouted angrily to myself. "I am not fit to be trusted out without a nurse, but I'll make a fight for it this time, anyway."

I was in no mood to be gentle under oppression. Kicking open the door I leaned out and bawled to the driver to pull up. We were skirting the edge of a road along the mountain side, with a deep gradient on the one hand and an impossible incline on the other. To jump out was to risk tumbling over the precipice so I held on till we reached wider ground. A second man on the box then sprang down and roughly threw me back into the carriage. He slammed the door, but as he did so the window went down and the next moment I landed him a stinging blow with my left between his eyes that sent him sprawling among the sharp stones by the roadside. Following this up I clambered up on to the box seat before the driver had time to realise what was happening.

"Now, then, you scoundrel, if you don't drive me back to my hotel I'll bash you till your mother wouldn't know you," l said, but as I talked in English I do not suppose the possible maternal ignorance affected him very much. I clutched him then by the arm and jerked my finger back towards the town. For answer, he whipped out a long knife. Fortunately the reins baulked him a bit, or it would have been buried in my throat before I realised what he was up to. As it was, I only swerved aside in the nick of time. It came down on the iron rail of the seat and snapped with its own force against the other metal. hail nothing but my own flesh and bone in my defence. The ordinary dress suit does not provide accommodation for a revolver, and was entitled to think myself safe in a royal reception. The man lifted the jagged knife again, but this time I lifted first. He got a swinging upper-cut to the hinge of the jaw that sent him flying off the box. Gripping the reins, I whipped up the horses. The two sprawling wretches pulled themselves together, and with many curses ran after me, but giving the horses their heads and something else to remind them of  the exigencies of the situation, I went galloping on, I knew not whither.

9

THE situation had its humorous aspects. Here was I, in this far-off country, a respectable English gentleman, a guest of royalty, in a dress suit, sitting on the box of somebody else's carriage, driving for dear life to the back of beyond, without the slightest knowledge as to which was east or where was west, or how far it was to the nearest human habitation.

I soon left the shouting Bythnian peasants behind, and gave the poor beasts a temporary rest. To turn back would be useless. The only thing to do was to go forward, in the hope that I should reach somewhere if I went on longer. But this sort of philosophy becomes monotonous when you've been going for a couple of hours and see yourself still no nearer the end of your journey.

I had eaten nothing solid at the reception. According to the custom of the country, I had dined fairly early, but as the night wore on I began to feel that there was something else in life besides love, absorbing as that topic had appeared to be earlier in the evening. My horse began to get jaded; I had taken so much out of them, and my would-be captors had given them such a task before I noticed the speed they were going at, that they began to lumber along with their heads down. In the bright moonlight, glinting over the mountain side, we must have presented a picturesque spectacle between us. In the struggle with my attentive coachman and footman, my shirt front had not come out uncrumpled, my crush hat had gone, my collar was torn, and I was generally in such a condition that any respectable English bobby would have locked me up at sight.

As we meandered slowly along I noticed a light in the distance, and with a tug at the reins urged my wearied steeds forward. We came close to the cottage, apparently the hut of a swineherd or a shepherd, and jumping off the box I broke through the short, intervening garden and hammered loudly at the door. A wizened-faced man examined me carefully through the window, and then went away. I hammered the door again, and at length he opened it cautiously. I tried him in French and in German, and at length burst out in English: "Give me food and rest, and I will pay you."

He looked greedily at the coins I shook In my hand, and a look of intelligence came into his beady eyes.

"English, English!" he ejaculated, throwing up his hands and beckoning me into the cottage.

It was a rough place, with logs of wood for seats, and a rough table. It looked more like the outpost of a guerrilla army than the habitation of a peaceful shepherd. Quaint shooting pieces of marvellous design hung on the walls, and the only other attempt at ornament were a number of curious-shaped swords and daggers. There was nothing aggressive, however, about the man, I supposed these were trophies handed down to him from his warlike ancestors.

He could not have made me more welcome had I been his invited guest. He pointed to some food on the table, and brought a flagon of wine out of a rough cupboard.  The merciful man is merciful to his beast, and I had galloped the horses sufficiently to justify them claiming the ordinary privilege of the trooper's charger. I led my host to the door, and, pointing to them, indicated that I wanted them fed. He took them out of the carriage and brought them to a rough shed at the back of the house where there was corn for them. Then I sat down and made a hearty meal on the rough food which my host apparently had got ready either in my honour, or for some other guest whom he was expecting. I tried to draw him into some sort of conversation by signs, but all he could say was "rest."

There was a good deal of common sense in this remark, brief as it was, and throwing myself on a rough couch at the far end of the room I slept a deal sounder than I had done for many nights. The keen mountain air and the excitement of the night had given me an appetite for sleep as well as for food.

I must have slept for several hours, when at last, rubbing my eyes and stretching my limbs, I lifted myself up on the couch, and there, a few feet from me, grinning with diabolical glee, sat the driver of the carriage which had borne me here. I knew him in a moment, though I had only had a very quick and short impression of him when I engaged him outside the Palace, and when I disengaged him from the outside of his own carriage. My first impulse was to knock him down again, and he apparently expected this, for he promptly moved himself to the other end of the room, and reaching down a long sword with a jewelled handle gave me to understand by dumb show that this time I should not get within arm's length of him.

I got up to stretch my legs and he planted himself in front of the door. His companion, whom I had not hitherto noticed, roused himself from a far corner of the room, where, judging from the appearance of the flagon, he had been sleeping the sleep of the drunken.

Diving my hand into my pocket, I found, to my astonishment, that my money was all right. I held it out to him and pointed towards the town, but they shook their heads, and apparently made up their minds to keep me waiting there till it suited their pleasure. They produced food again from the cupboard, and gave me my breakfast, during the progress of eating which, I took a bird's-eye view of the situation.

I could hear the horses pawing in the rough stable at the rear, and suddenly an inspiration came upon me. The table was a rude bit of furniture, with its single leg. Slipping my hand under it, I suddenly, without a moment's warning, banged it in the stomach of the man who was nearest me. Meantime I had got my eye on a handy weapon on the wall above the mantelpiece, with which I promptly disarmed the other. Slipping out at the back, I dashed into the stable, jumped astride one of the horses, dug my heels into his ribs, and galloped out into the open.

One of the men sprang at the bridle, but let go just in time to escape a swinging cut from my sword, and away I went once more riding another man's steed for dear life into the unknown. Still, I was free, and that was something.

The night's rest had refreshed me, and it had also refreshed the beast. We cantered away merrily in the bright morning air, covering mile after mile and leaving the hut far behind. At last I came to an opening, apparently leading between two hillocks to a valley, which I thought would be at the base of the big mountain I could see beyond.

My horse shied at first, but I put him through the bushes and over the rough ground towards the ravine. At length I was rewarded by finding myself once more in a fairly level country with a long valley which stretched either way. While I was wondering which side to turn a man sprang out of the underwood, and, with a low bow, asked me in fairly good English whether he should have the honour of conducting me to my destination.

"Yes, to Neva," I replied, cordially.

The man shook his head, and motioned me to turn my horse up the valley. I pulled the animal's head round to turn to the way I had come. I hardly liked the look of this.

At that moment another man sprang up behind me; then a third, then a fourth, till at last I found myself surrounded by about a dozen as picturesque looking ruffians as I had ever read about in the wildest romances of my boyhood's books.

It was useless attempting to fight my way out. Even if I got through I should not know which way to ride, and, making the best of the position, I consented to be led off. With his henchmen tramping after him, the handsome blackguard who had addressed me in English kept by my side, making an attempt to be agreeable, though I could not get any information out of him as to where I was going or what they intended to do with me when I got there.

At first, it seemed to me that my captors were conducting me back to Neva, for we began to follow the road up the valley which had been pointed out to me as the route to the capital. But this wild hope was soon nipped in the bud. For no highway to a metropolis was ever of the nature of the track we followed.

Turning off the road, the brigands led me by a winding path, hidden like a Devonshire lane, in a scramble of underwood, towards the mountains. The sun had risen high in the sky, and its brilliant glare traced the pattern of the foliage above in clear-cut shadows on the hardened pathway.

The brigands, for brigands I assumed they were, were a jovial company. They clearly enjoyed the practice of their profession, and seemed to appreciate the comic figure that I cut, riding in broad daylight in what had once been a respectable dress-suit. They laughed and talked, and cracked jokes which I guessed were at my expense, though their dialect was an idiom which I never recollected having heard before. Their seeming good spirits induced me to question them as to the object which they had in view in capturing such a very humble person as myself.

The handsome scoundrel with the dark eyes set my mind at rest with a frank admission: "

Money! money!" he exclaimed with a joyous grimace, and a shrug of the shoulders.

"If it's money you want," I retorted, thinking I saw a means of escape from my predicament, "let's settle it here like business-men."

The word "business" struck him, recalling; I suppose, some memories of his education in our mother tongue.

"Business is business! That is good," he chuckled; and he explained to his comrades the intense humour of the joke. They were greatly affected, I noticed.

"Well, you're out after money," I exclaimed impatiently, "and though I would willingly see you all hanging from the gallows, under the special circumstances I don't mind paying for my little escapade. How much do you want?"

To my surprise, the other shook his head.

"No good, no good," he muttered. "Your money no use. We just keep you till― even an old wife's story has an end."

"But, hang it all!" I exclaimed; "you don't mean you want to kill me? You said you were out for money."

"In time you will know all. We cannot talk now."

After this last remark a. strange silence fell upon my bloodthirsty-looking companions, which no further questions of mine could break. I began to feel uneasy, which is not to be wondered at, and the further we travelled the more this uneasiness increased.

After about two hours, we suddenly left the covered trackway and came out into the open mountain side. As I looked about me, I saw that we had already ascended a considerable height. Around me, littered with boulders, lay the spreading arms of a mountain gulch. As we proceeded, they contracted, coming together, so it seemed, like the roots of a tree, into one narrow seam in the mountain side. From a long way off, this seam appeared like a black streak limned on the grey of the landscape. But as we neared it I saw it was nothing more than a narrow slit between two great precipices made years before by the freakish tumult of some gigantic upheaval. In places it was not more than three feet wide, and as my poor horse wended its way upwards, picking his way delicately over the stones, my legs frequently brushed both sides of the two vast walls that towered up to the sky.

It was as lonely and awe-inspiring a spot as ever brigand desired for a stronghold. Not only was the path narrow, but it curved about like the lash of a whip, so that it seemed as if one man could hold it against thousands. Artillery would have been useless in such a fastness, and a dozen determined bandits could have defiled the bayonets and bullets of a whole regiment of soldiers.

I guessed that we could not be far off our destination, and I confess I was not sorry when a final curve in the path disclosed a narrow valley which brought this strange slit in the hills to a precipitous end. There were two or three stone houses, roughly built without any mortar, scattered about on the scanty herbage. My companions raised a sort of half-cheer and half-whistle, which echoed and re-echoed among the mountains. At this signal, some fifteen or sixteen artistic-looking ruffians came tumbling out of the houses. One of them, whose moustache was uncommonly fierce, carried in the red sash round his waist a veritable arsenal of weapons, and I judged from the semblance of deference with which he was treated that he was the leader of the gang. He held a rapid conversation with my English-speaking bandit, glancing at me with evident satisfaction from time to time.

We had come to a standstill, and as I began to weary of the whole episode, I dismounted from my horse, and to the consternation of the banditti, who made as if to close upon me, I walked straight up to the chief, without disguising in any way the truculence of my mood.

'"What the devil does all this mean?" I said, hotly, signing to my late companion to translate my words. "I am a British citizen, the citizen of a country which doesn't suffer these indignities lightly. If you want money I'll pay it, because I am in a hurry to get back. But if you refuse my offer you will certainly suffer for it. My absence from Nova will be at once noticed by the English Ambassador, and steps will be immediately taken to raise a hell in this rathole of yours which won't be at all pleasant for any of you."

To the best of his abilities the bandit translated my remarks to his chief, who nodded solemnly the while, at the conclusion of each sentence. His reply was brief and surprising.

"The captain hopes," translated the bandit, "that his Excellency will make himself comfortable. The whole valley is at his disposal;" and he swept his arm to the four points of the compass to show me the two acres of precipice-lined land in which I was to make myself comfortable. It was exasperating.

"I won't stand this much longer," I said in a futile rage. "I have made my offer. You can take it or leave it."

"It will not be for long," retorted the chief, through his interpreter. And as he uttered the words a look of animal ferocity seemed to suffuse his dark eyes. I have no hesitation in admitting that a cold horror chilled the blood in my veins, and this feeling of dread was in no wise diminished when, at a signal from the chief, two men seized my arms and conducted me with very business-like briskness to one of the stone houses at the far end of this strange mountain settlement. With scant courtesy my guards shoved me through a door which they opened, and, closing it behind them, left me alone in pitch darkness. I heard the bolts drawn without, and in a fury of rage and despair I flung myself on the solid framework of the door, beating at it savagely with my fists. In a few seconds I had regained command of myself.

Near me I could hear the sound of someone breathing, and a half-uttered moan reached my ears. But I could see nothing. Fumbling in my pocket I found my match-box, and struck one of the matches. In the little splutter of yellow light I distinctly discerned the squat, fat figure of a little man, dressed with an almost laughable inappropriateness in a frock coat.

His face was ashen pale, and he looked up at the light with the bewildered, dazzled gaze of an imbecile. He was leaning against the wall, with his head on his breast, his arms hanging limply by his sides, with his short, stumpy legs, crowned with the pathetic remnants of a pair of patent leather boots, stretched out in front of him.

I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. Scarcely looking at me, he raised his head for a moment, and uttered, in a sort of ghastly refrain, in German: "Es is noch nicht augekommen" (It has not come yet.)

I spoke to him in the same language, asking him who he was. But he took no notice of my question, but sank back, so it seemed to me, just before my match expired, in a sort of stupor. I was about to strike another match, when I discovered that I only had three left, and I decided to use them sparsely. If I was to stay there long the matches might prove useful. My situation was unpleasant enough, and a feeling of despair settled down upon me. At first I groped my way along the wall, hoping to find some means of escape, and then, worn out and weary, I sank down on the floor, and resting my head against the wall dropped into an uneasy slumber.

I don't know how long I lay there, dreaming fitfully, but it must have been many hours, for I was finally wakened up by the sound of the door opening, and of voices speaking, and as I jumped to my feet I caught, for a moment, the cold glint of a few stars in the sky. I made a rush for the open doorway, but a man caught me by the throat and hurled me back. I half-stumbled, reeling back into the darkness; but as I did so, a sight met my eyes for a moment which set my heart beating in a perfect panic of excitement. For in the brief second between the opening and the closing of the door I saw a woman thrust into that hole of blackness.

And the woman was Elaine.

10

IT IS HARD to find words which exactly expressed my feelings when I realised that some strange, terrible chance had brought the woman I loved into the bandits' den. It was more than amazement. At first a great Joy had possession of me; and then this feeling of gladness was changed for one of dread, for to be there at all was to be in danger, and that danger should even cast its shadow on Elaine filled me with horror. Then the gyroscope of emotions shifted, and I felt a sense of satisfaction, as if Fate had ordained this meeting for a set purpose, to give me an opportunity to clear up and to set at rest the mystery of that eventful night at "The Heathlands."

Here, where a common dread and a common fear must bind us closer, surely, I thought, she would own to the theft of the great diamond, and, after making confession, receive from me absolution, expressed by the kisses and vows of my devotion. Now all these shifting emotions passed through my mind in the space of a few seconds-indeed, almost before I had recovered from my surprise -then, with a wild delirium in my veins, I sprang forward into the blackness to where I had seen her standing. I essayed to touch her with my hand, but she had moved, and I stood listening, striving to discover her whereabouts by the sound of her breathing. I listened, and I heard the sound of her sobbing there close by my side. She was weeping unrestrainedly― brave woman though I knew her to be― absolutely overcome by the terrors of her situation. Excited by the realisation of her grief, I stretched out my hand and touched, her. I felt her shrink from me with a little cry.

"Elaine," I whispered hoarsely, and my voice sounded strange and harsh in the gloomy darkness, "It is I, Stephen!"

I heard her catch her breath. My ears pictured to me her sudden astonishment, choking the sobs in her throat. But she said nothing. Only I noticed her weeping ceased. I stretched out my hand again and laid it on her arm. And this time she did not shrink back.

"Elaine," I said, "what does it all mean? Why are you here?"

For answer, she shook my hand gently off her arm; but she did not speak

"Elaine," I went on, "don't let us remember the past now. For the present we are in a tight place, and the sooner we set about trying to get out of it the better. How did you come here?"

She had evidently mastered her emotion, for when she finally spoke thee tone of her voice was as calm and possessed as usual. She might, indeed, have been back in the Palace Gardens at Neva so distant and frigidly polite was her accent.

"I was out riding this morning through the country near the city. On the outskirts of a wood two men suddenly sprang out and seized the bridle of my horse and compelled me to dismount. When I tried to struggle they bound my hands behind my back and gagged me. And then I was brought here. And you?"

The last words were uttered with almost frigid disdain, as if it was a question she asked out of politeness, having no real interest in the answer. The very baldness of her narrative seemed Insulting. When I remembered that I had seen this girl, who, in spite of all, I loved, deliberately commit a theft In her father's own house, from the man to whom she was practically engaged, her manner irritated me beyond control.

"Oh!" I said bitterly, "I had a very similar experience to yourself. With the addition of a few trivial incidents and a slight alteration in the background, my story is a replica of yours."

"Indeed!" came the reply, in her abominable society voice, from out of the blackness.

"The question is," I retorted, "how are we to get out of here? For I suppose you don't want to stay here?"

She gave no answer to my ironical question, but I could hear her breathing faster, and the sound moved me, for it indicated to me that she was still suffering.

"Elaine," I gasped, in a guest of passion, "why do we keep up this pretence, this foolery? I love you in spite of everything that has taken place. Here we are, in horrible danger; there is no good in disguising the fact. These men are capable of anything. Why I have been taken prisoner, I have not the slightest idea. I have offered to pay ransom, but they have refused it. They have hinted that I must die. I pray God that your fate may be more fortunate. But now, when there is far more than a mere chance that, death may separate us for ever in the space of the next few hours, surely you can speak. Remember I love you. And my love will forgive anything. Oh, Elaine, tell me, tell me the truth." I spoke desperately, hoping to move her to a confession.

"I don't understand," she said slowly, in the same hard voice. And then I heard her break into sobs again. I mentally swept aside her words as if I had never heard them.

"Even had you wanted the money, Elaine, that should not have justified you in committing such an act. Your father would have paid. You know you were soon to have become my wife. I would have paid ten times the amount you wanted. Why, why, did you do it? To think that you could do such a thing is almost beyond relief. To think that you can still present a calm face to the world, that you can even now put me off with silly retorts is incredible."

My tongue began to run away with itself. I had eaten little all day, I was tired, weary, and unstrung, and I counted not my words.

"It is women like you," I whispered hoarsely, "that send us men to hell."

I could hear her sobs coming faster.

"This is terrible! This is terrible!" I heard her mutter under her breath. I tried to touch her arm again. She shook off my hand angrily.

"Go away," she moaned through her sobs, "go away. You are cruel, cruel, cruel!"

I was about to answer her hotly, when I heard the bolts of the door again being drawn, and suddenly the white flash of the starlight clove a clear-cut passage into the darkness of our prison. From behind came a man with a lantern, who pushed his way with a companion through the group of six bandits that held the entrance to the door.

As the yellow light of the lantern lit up the recesses of our cell-like room, a strange scene presented itself to my eyes. Elaine, with her face buried in her hands, was leaning, clad in her blue riding habit, against the wall. She did not look up as the man entered, but just stood there sobbing quietly. At the other end of the cell sat the little fat German, breathing stertorously. The man with the lantern advanced towards him and shook him. He looked up quickly at him, with terror in his eyes: "Es is noch nicht augekommen!" (It has not yet come!) he moaned.

The men laughed, and said something in their diabolical patois, and then, by pulling and kicking, they got him into a standing posture. Like a sack of flour or a hopelessly drunken man he hung in their grasp, all strength having gone out of his fat, stumpy body, Only the one sentence escaped his lips in a sort of dreary refrain. They dragged him across the floor out into the starlit night, and then the door was closed again, and darkness settled down on Elaine and myself like a black curtain.

My brain was in a turmoil. I was madly angry, and madly in love with Elaine at the same moment. I wanted to speak to her, to force her to tell me everything. But somehow the words would not come. I leaned against the wall, desperately angry with myself, angry with Elaine, and angry with my captors.

For ten minutes or a quarter of an hour we must have stood, the two of us, in that weird mountain cell, without speaking a word, until the dreary silence was again broken by the opening of the door. This time the glimpse I caught of the stars was but for a second, just time for the brigands to almost throw in our German follow-prisoner, and then close the door. I could see him fall to the ground before the last glimmer of the light went, and I could hear by his groans that he was in pain.

So horribly engrossed was I with my own troubles that I at first took no notice of the man. But as his groans increased I felt that he must be suffering, and that I ought to help him. I took out my matchbox again, and struck a second match. In the little glimmer, which to my eyes, at least, half-blinded as they were with the darkness, seemed like the glare of an electric are, I looked stealthily over at Elaine. She had taken her hands from her face and she was looking down at the German, who lay limp on his back, his face ghastly white and bedewed with beads of perspiration.

I stepped towards his side, and was bending down to look at him, when I was suddenly startled by a cry from Elaine.

"Look, look!" she gasped, with horror in her voice. She pointed with a trembling finger to the German's arm, which lay upon the ground. My eyes followed her directions, and with a horrible start I let the match in my fingers fall to the ground. The man's hand had been cut off at the wrist. The ransom had not come, I supposed. That, I took it, his oft-repeated phrase implied, and the bandits had brutally severed the hand to send it to his relations or friends in order to hasten the business of payment.

Without any further thought as to the value of my matches, I took the last but one out of my case, struck it, and then, fumbling for a letter in the tail of my coat, I lit the paper. Mechanically I turned to Elaine, giving her my handkerchief. She came forward and took it from my outstretched arm, and without a word kneeled down by the side of our unfortunate follow prisoner and tenderly bound up the mutilated stump of his wrist. When this was done I handed the lighted paper to Elaine, and as gently as I could raised the little German and placed him in a sitting position against the wall. He never uttered a word. Only long, pitiful moans escaped his lips. The lighted paper in Elaine's hand went out, and she threw the burning embers on the  ground, where they glowed for a few minutes, like demoniac eyes in the darkness.

I returned to my position at the corner of the cell and to my gloomy thoughts. An hour or more went by. I was really oblivious to the passage of time, and I was just dropping off into a half doze, when a sudden uproar arose Is the valley. Shots were fired. The yells and execrations in the terrible patois of the brigands rent the air. They came nearer.

I heard the sound of feet outside, and an order given in a martial voice. Then suddenly the door swung open again, and my eyes lit upon a company of soldiers, headed by an officer.

With a feeling of thankfulness and relief I was moving towards them when Elaine came out from her corner and stood in the doorway. The officer drew himself up to attention and saluted.

"We have come to take you back, madam," he said, bowing slightly.

Without a word, Elaine drew the folds of her riding skirt around her and moved out. I started to follow her, thanking heaven that such a happy ending had been ordained for my adventure. Then I remembered our unfortunate fellow prisoner.

I stooped down, and lifted the unfortunate man up. As I brought his pale face into the glare of the lanterns that two of the soldiers carried I saw the officer start.

"It's the Burgomaster," he said to the sergeant who was standing near him, "he must be brought, too."

He issued a sharp order, and two of the men took the limp form of the man In the frockcoat out of my arms and bore him out. Elaine by this time had disappeared in the company of the officer. I was stepping out of the door to follow; when I found my passage barred by the sergeant.

"We know nothing about you," he said in a gruff voice. "Go back."

"What do you mean?" I gasped in astonishment. "I am an Englishman. I have been captured by brigands. My name is Stephen Harland. I am a friend of the English Ambassador, Sir George Gibney."

"I know nothing about that," he retorted. "Our orders were only to take back the young lady. I was strictly instructed to concern myself with no other prisoners we might find here."

I could not understand his meaning. My mind was absolutely dazed with bewilderment. Mechanically, with an Englishman's instinct for paying his way, my hand slipped into my pocket. I took out five sovereigns and handed them to the sergeant.

"These will pay for my passage," I said.

"My orders are imperative," he retorted, none the less taking the coins. "You must go back."

Then he bent forward to me and whispered: "I won't lock the door."

Two soldiers with the butts of their rifles somewhat roughly thrust me back into the cell. I heard the door close, and then, to my horror, I heard the bolts being shot back into their places. After all, the man had deceived me. I could have cried in my despair. I stood there In the darkness and cursed roundly, but even as the oaths left my lips I caught the sound of the bolts being redrawn and the footsteps of a man cautiously moving away.

11

I HAVE HAD TO face all the ordinary difficulties of life in my time. I have been in some nasty predicaments on the Alps; I have unwillingly assisted as an actor in a railway accident; I have even run some danger with poachers on my father's estate; but the situation I was now called upon to face was quite outside the scope of my experiences. To begin with, my position was strangely incongruous.

To be captured by bandits was, perhaps, not altogether an unprecedented matter, especially in the Balkans. Many cases of a similar experience I had read of in the newspapers. Brigandage is an exceptional, but recognised form of crime. But that I should have been captured by these outlaws and taken to their den, and that den should have been successfully raided― how, I could not guess― by representatives of law and order, who calmly refused to include me among the number of the rescued, was the matter that puzzled me.

Why on earth they should have rescued Elaine and the unfortunate fat German in the frock coat, and have deliberately left me behind, I could not guess. It was clear to me, from the few words I had had with the sergeant, that some special reason existed for my detention. As the soldiers were party to that detention, and the soldiers received their instructions from the Government, I argued myself with the firm conviction that the Government looked upon me with disfavour and were anxious to be rid of me in the quickest way they knew of. But the why or the wherefore of such a course was beyond me.

I was a simple Englishman, stationed In a country alleged to be on friendly terms with my own, and I had come to that country to do a service to its sovereign by returning the great diamond of Diocletian, on which the dynasty set so much store. The reward of my pains and good intentions was outrage, and might be, if I could not escape, death.

I had seen, from their treatment of the fat German, that the bandits were not men to allow any consideration of humanity to stand in their way of making money, and I presumed, since they had refused all offers of ransom for myself, that they were being paid by someone or somebody for my detention.

It takes a great deal of ink and paper to explain how I arrived at this conclusion. As a matter of fact, I had taken a bird's-eye view of my alarming situation in the space of time that it took the man outside to redraw the bolts from my prison door.

As to what I was to do I had no difficulty in deciding. I meant to get out of that sombre cell as quickly as I possibly could, and no sooner had I heard the footsteps of the man retreating in the distance than I cautiously opened the door, stepped out into the darkness and, redrawing the bolts, with the object of deceiving the brigands should they return, crept stealthily across to the next stone hut. The night sky was full of stars, but in that strange chasm in the mountains for all the world like a rut made by the wheels of some stupendous being's car, the darkness was intense. As I crouched by the wall I could hear no sound near me, though now and again a clatter of feet and the voices of soldiers, tramping down the weirdly winding pathway, reached my ears. The brigands had evidently decamped, probably having had good warning, I thought, from the authorities beforehand, that their lair was to he raided.

Having reasoned myself into this conviction, I began to feel my way towards the head of the pathway. It was not a difficult matter, for by following one side of the precipice I soon found myself at the top of the narrow gorge. Once there, I began to run, in spite of the stones that strewed my course and several times brought me to the ground. The party ahead I did not catch sight of until I had turned the last loop in the path.

Then, in the starshine, I saw where the gorge spread out and the precipice came down to meet the mountain side, a glimmer of torches. They were half a mile, I reckoned, ahead of me. But I was in no hurry to catch them up, for I was uncertain as to whether they would consent to escort me back to Neva, or simply hand me over again to the untender mercies of the brigands. I decided to keep the same distance between us, and slowing down my steps I began to go more warily. It was not until the sides of the precipice spread away, and I knew that I had passed out of the brigands' lair, that I felt secure.

When once there, I told myself that I was a free man, and I began to hurry again, thinking to make a detour and reach Neva ahead of the soldiery. But even as these thoughts were in my mind, front behind a massive rock ahead of me a man suddenly rose and barred my passage. His appearance startled me not a little, but with the coolness of desperation I continued my progress towards him unchecked.

He shouted out something in the strange patois of the bandits but, not understanding what he said, I did not reply, but still advanced towards him. It was too dark for either of us to see distinctly who the other was, but the outline of the man's head-dress satisfied me as to his identity. As I approached him, I made up my mind as to how to act, and while he still hesitated, peering into tile darkness, with his rifle in his hand, I made a dash at him.

Fortune favoured me, for the man, in stepping backwards, stumbled, and before he could recover himself and use his gun I was on him. We rolled to tile ground together, I uppermost. The fall, I think, must have partly stunned him, for it was with no difficulty that I wrested the gun from his hand, and, holding the muzzle to his head, motioned him to get up. As I bent over him I saw to my satisfaction that tile man was no other than the English-speaking brigand who had shared in my capture. I gave him a kick to hasten the recovery of his senses, and he slowly picked himself up from the ground and stood in front of me.

"Here," I said, with the rifle in close proximity to his ear, "I don't know how many of your comrades are about here, but if you so much as open your mouth to yawn, or make a noise of any sort, I will blow your brains out. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," retorted the bandit, his voice, so it seemed to me, shaking somewhat.

"Where are the other cut-throats," was my next question.

"All gone," he replied.

"Well," I ,said, "I don't want to be hard on you, but if you conduct me to a place from which I can get, with ease, to Neva, I will spare our life, and," I went on, making doubly sure by appealing to the man's cupidity as well as to his fears, "I will give you twenty-five gold pieces. But if you lead me into any ambush or near any other member of your scoundrelly gang, I will kill you on the spot. You can choose between death now, or twenty-five pieces of gold in an hour or so. Choose."

"If his Excellency only makes it £50," he said in a wheedling voice. I think there must have been some Semitic strain in that gang of desperadoes.

"Twenty-five pounds," I said, "or death," and I raised my rifle suggestively.

"I will lead his Excellency," the man retorted quickly.

"Well, go on," I said.  "We must be well out of this cursed spot before dawn comes."

The man turned and I began to follow, the muzzle of my rifle pressed into his back as a suggestive hint that I meant to kill him if he betrayed me, and as a guide, also, to my hesitating footsteps.

For two hours at least I think, in that strange position, we must have sped our way down the mountain side. The glimmer of the dawn, white and golden, had crept into the sky when I once more found myself on the road where I had been held up. From there onwards I relaxed my precautions somewhat and allowed my guide to walk by my side.

The soldiers accompanying Elaine had taken quite another route, and only once during my long march had I caught the gleam of their torches flaring weirdly among the stunted trees on the mountain side. My companion, on further acquaintance, turned out a most amusing person. Strange as it may seem, he had once upon a time been a waiter in London. There, by dint of saving his pennies, he had acquired a small capital, with which he had returned to his native land, intending to fulfil the dream of his youth. He was to marry the girl of his heart, and by the aid of the money he had saved set her up behind a zinc-topped bar in some cafe which he purposed to take. But alas for his plan When he returned to Neva, the girl of his heart, weary of waiting for him, was already wed. He started his cafe, but embittered by his experience, had failed to follow his previous guiding rule in life, not to meddle in affairs that did not concern him, but to go on saving the pfennigs and the marks, letting the rest of the world rush by doing what it would. He had become a politician, allowed his establishment to be used by the supporters of the late dynasty, and eventually found, one bright morning, his cafe in the hands of the police, and himself a fugitive. The step from there to brigandage was almost inevitable.

I can remember now how strange it seemed to be walking along the white road in my bedraggled evening clothes, talking to this ex-waiter and brigand about his experiences In London, and to hear the familiar names of the streets, and even the familiar names of friends, for he had waited at one of the most fashionable restaurants, upon his lips. So friendly had he become, that he conducted me almost to the outskirts of the capital, and, arrived there, fetched me a carriage, having first seen to the hiding of his rifle, which I had returned to him.

Fortunately for my promise, I had taken the precaution, on dressing, to slip into my coat-tail pocket a small leather case containing five five-pound notes. These I handed to my smiling guide when he returned with the carriage. As I jumped in he waved me quite a hearty farewell.

Though his company had amused me, I confess that I leant back on the cushions with a feeling of relief and satisfaction at having seen the last of him,. Through the suburbs of the capital the driver galloped his horse, acting on my instructions to get to the hotel as quickly as he could. But as we began to near the heart of the city he slowed down. The early morning traffic had already begun. Soldiers were marching through the streets, and the block of carriages and carts rendered our progress slow.

I could not have been more than a few hundred yards from my destination when I was aroused from my reverie by the sight of a man's face peering in through the window and looking close at me. It was gone in a moment, but his curiosity excited me, and leaning forward  I looked out.  I could see him scurrying across the road, and moving to the other window, noticed, to my surprise, that he addressed himself to two gendarmes, pointing excitedly towards my carriage.

I was too weary to worry about the incident, and merely telling the driver to drive on as quickly as he could, I leant back again in my seat.

I was never destined, however, to reach my hotel. Before we had gone many yards the carriage stopped, the door was flung open, a gendarme got in, and without a word took his seat in front of me, shutting the door behind him. I was so flabbergasted that for a moment I was physically unable to utter a word, but when I recovered my powers of speech I asked him to explain what the devil ho meant. His only reply was to shake his head and to stroke his moustache.

But I was not long kept waiting for the explanation I required. The carriage suddenly turned under an archway and drew up in a courtyard. At both doors gendarmes appeared The man in the carriage pointed to the door, making signs for me to alight. There was nothing to do but to obey. I stepped out, and as I did so two men seized me by the arms and conducted me unresistingly through an open door through a room in which several gendarmes were sitting waiting, smoking cigarettes.

I found myself in a passage, lined on one side with doors. One of these was open, and into a cell, for cell it was, I was gently persuaded to enter.

When the door shut with a click behind me, I was too weary even to feel surprised. At that moment I don't think anything would have seemed strange or extraordinary to me. I felt, for all the world, as if I was a pawn on a chessboard, to be moved about and used at the will of the player. I just sank back on the stone bench, the only seating accommodation the cell contained, and fell asleep.

I was awakened, how long after I can't say, by a hand on my shoulder, and a gruff voice, bidding me in German to get up. I rubbed my eyes sleepily, hardly knowing where I was. When I had quite woken up, I saw there were two men in the room, one a gendarme, and the other, to my surprise, Colonel Alexieff.

The latter stood looking at me with somewhat like an amused twinkle in his eyes. We stared at each other for several moments, I growing angry as I watched the amusement in his eyes gradually spreading to his lips.

"This seems to amuse you, Colonel Alexieff," I said abruptly, "but perhaps you will be good enough to explain what this outrage an a peaceful British citizen means."

"Well, Sir Stephen Harland," he said, and he lingered over my name, "you must excuse my amusement, but really your appearance is somewhat singular."

"I shall be obliged," I retorted, "If you will kindly refrain from concerning yourself with my costume, and explain what this extraordinary outrage means."

The smile died out of his eyes, and his mouth set sternly.

"I'm not the man," he retorted, "to waste words in explanation when no explanation is needed. You know very well the reason I have for doing what I have done. Your pretended ignorance is useless. In Bythnia, I can assure you, we have no use for conspirators, and especially for conspirators of your type."

"From all I have heard," I retorted hotly, "you should be a good judge of conspirators, Colonel Alexieff, but I should still he glad if you would kindly explain. I was not allowed to finish my sleep."

An angry flush suffused his face, and a scowl, very unpleasant to look at, furrowed his forehead.

"Enough of this," he exclaimed, "I have come to tell you that the authorities have consented, foolishly I think, to take a lenient view of your case, and instead of handing you over to he dealt with summarily, have ordered that you he simply escorted across the border. Should you ever set foot in Bythnia again you will be shot. I have so far considered your comfort as to send to your hotel for clothes so that you may change into more suitable garments. In a quarter of an hour from now you will be conducted to the station and escorted to Austrian territory. I have instructions to warn you officially, and to impress upon you the fact that you will he shot without trial if you ever presume to come across the border again."

Before I could get a word out to ask him to explain this extraordinary course, he had turned on his heel and disappeared. The gendarme whom he had left behind refused to answer any of the questions which I hurled at him. He simply pointed to one of my portmanteaux, which had been brought from my hotel, and ordered me to change my clothes.

Within the quarter of an hour specified by Colonel Alexieff I was once more seated in the carriage, with a gendarme for a companion inside and another on the box, being driven to the station, wondering where on earth the extraordinary tangle I had got myself into would end. But no explanation was forthcoming, even when I was safely in the train and Neva was already left behind.

12

THE TRAIN RUSHED me across the border, through the beautiful mountains of Bythnia, into Austria, and only then was I relieved from the society of the two gendarmes sent to guard me. I was now outside their jurisdiction, and, I suppose, simply because it had been intended that I should go to the Austrian capital, I determined to get out at the first station the train stopped at. With this object in view, as soon as we came to a standstill, I slipped out, made my way quietly through the station, and dropped into a cafe to think matters over. My best plan would be to get back by another route, if there was one, and make myself known to somebody who would take me to the Ambassador and to my bankers.

The thought of these estimable and extremely necessary people suddenly recalled my attention to the fact that it was time I began to think about my resources. When I was captured and taken away up among the hills by my bandit friends, I had comparatively little money on me; now I had less, and, in fact, I arrived at the unhappy conclusion that I had not enough on me to take me by train to Vienna, the nearest point at which I could hope to secure the good offices of the English Consul. Vice-consuls in these out-of-the-way parts are so often dunned, and, after all, I had not a particularly plausible story to tell. If I told them I had credit in Neva, they would naturally ask me why I left Neva without money. If I said I was deported by order of the authorities, that would hardly be a good recommendation for a loan.

Calling for a map, I studied it hard, with a view to finding the best and cheapest way round, and finally I discovered that I was sufficiently far north to strike the Bythnian border just at that point where it and the Russian frontier meet on the Austro-Hungarian. I should probably have to walk some of the way, but the bank in Neva, I knew, had a small branch at the next most important town, which was not far from the Russian frontier. This, then, must be my destination for the present; after that, Heaven know what would become of me.

I paid the landlord, slipped out at a side door, just as an official with a hideous moustache, sticking out like the quills on a porcupine, rushed across from the railway station. I gathered that he was looking for somebody, and nowadays I had come to the conclusion that whenever a fierce-looking person was after anybody, that man, in the natural order of events, would be myself.

I kept straight on at a rapid pace down a kind of main street, turned the corner sharply, and saw the official hurrying after me. Then I did a double back, and slipped into a train going in the direction whence I had come. The train steamed out of the station just as my friend of the big moustache passed through the booking-office. Lying well back in the corner I could see about half a dozen of them holding an excited conversation, with many wavings of arms and tapping of forefingers, and as the train went round a bend I saw them disperse in different directions. I never had so much honour done me in all my life. Everybody seemed anxious to meet me― only their friendship was not quite so warm as it might be when they were happy enough to come across me.

I had remembered the name of one of the stations I had passed through, and had booked there on the off-chance. Jumping out, I was relieved to find myself in comparative safety. They evidently had not yet discovered that I was in the train, or they would have wired on to stop me. And now I cut across the country on foot as hard as I could pelt. The one thing necessary, obviously, was to get off the main track, and I began to thank my not too alert brain that it had kept me from pushing on towards Vienna.

I travelled on and on, enjoying in this first flush of victory the sensations of a hunted man. It was something to know that I had outwitted them, although it looked very much as though I should go on tramping these outlandish parts for some days before I dare show my face at a railway station. Word must have been sent all along the line, and somebody missed me when the train ran in the next station.

The Bythnian people had left me alone when I crossed the border, and the Austrian acted as though they had received no instructions. Neva, meantime, must have communicated with Vienna, and possibly trumped-up some sort of story about me being a fugitive from justice― another abominable device of Alexeiff. I would make him pay for this if there was anything left in "Civis Britannicus" to boast about at all.

Putting up at wayside inns in the far-off regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not like staving at a West End hotel; but they were, I found, comparatively clean and not uncomfortable.

By the aid of my map, I trudged on day after day, and came to the conclusion, by careful measurements, that in about a week's time I should be on the frontier at the far end. I could get into Bythnia undiscovered― possibly even if the whole country had been warned; my beard was beginning to grow, and my clothes had little about them of the shape and fit they had when I set out. There was no seam down the front of my trouser legs now, and as I carried everything I possessed upon me, the pockets of my coat bulged out amazingly. Whenever now I looked at myself, I wished I could have been photographed― I had never appeared so poetic and picturesque before.

By-and-by I had to cut off the luxury of the inn as much as possible, for I had to keep just a sufficient amount to make my train journey from the border town to Neva― a very short distance, happily, but still one that would require money of some kind.  I was getting hungry and weary, when at last I found myself within sight of the frontier, and dragged my weary limbs towards the little inn kept by a man of Hebraic descent, who eyed me closely, and, apparently satisfied with lets scrutiny, agreed to put me up for a night or two.

There was an air of mystery about the man, and about his family. They watched every stranger who passed with an apprehensive scrutiny, and I could hear them whispering to each other about me the second day as I passed in and out.

It was a lovely spot; on the hillside you could look away into three countries, and along the line of each there were mounds of earthworks with sentries patrolling, and guns mounted with masked batteries, which you could not see but by intuition knew to be there at all points.

The country around was a wild, picturesque, beautifully irregular tract of land, the kind of place to philosophise in if philosophy had been my object. I hung about there a day or two before making my final descent on Neva, taking the opportunity of pumping the landlord of such information as he could give me. The people spoke a curious jargon of Magyar and Old Latin combined, but the innkeeper himself talked German fairly well, and I gathered that I should get a branch line that would ultimately land me at the town on the outskirt, from which I could get a main line train swiftly into Neva.

The landlord watched me with an uneasy curiosity as he gave me these details. He appeared to be a person always on the alert, and it struck me that he was probably in the pay of all the three Governments concerned with his district. I overheard him telling his daughter I must be one of those mad Englishmen who walk about everywhere because they have nothing better to do.

Strolling to the top of the hill after this conversation, which we had one afternoon, immediately after the midday meal, I lay on my back with a pipe in my mouth and watched in the distance the mountain country surrounding the town where I hoped to find money and possibly other assistance. Then shaking myself into activity as the evening advanced, I was about to make my way lack to the inn when my attention was attracted to a group of quaint figures on horseback in the distance. They were galloping in my direction, capering about, chasing each other, racing and indulging in antics by which I recognised that they were Cossacks at play. In the valley beneath me they galloped hither and thither. There was only a small squadron of them, great bearded quaintly dressed muscular men with a skill in horsemanship that I was bound to admire, and I came down the hillside to get a better look at them, I noticed that when they rode slowly they rode unevenly, and closer inspection brought me to the conclusion that they had been drinking, though they were not actually drunk. I left them at their gambol; and got back to the inn, having made up my mind to set out at nightfall.

"My lord is late," remarked the little inn-keeper as I came through the outer room, and then I remembered that I had told him I would be back at four o'clock.

"Yes," I replied casually. "I have been watching an interesting sight. Some of the Cossacks from the Russian frontier are playing about it the valley on the other side of the hill. By-the-bye, where are we exactly: Apparently we are in no-mans-land, neither in Russian nor in Austria?"

My last question was entirely lost upon him. His knees were trembling, his face was blanched, and there was a look of terror in hiss eyes at the mention of the word "Cossack"  Hastily shouting some directions to his servant, he proceeded to bar the door, and going to an upper window kept a terrified watch on the length of the valley that led up the road to his hotel. The family were huddled together in one room talking in terrified whispers; the barman volunteered the Information to me that they were watching for the Cossacks.

"And excellent customers they would be for you, I should think, judging from their drinking capacity," I remarked with a laugh.

The barman shook his head. Like the landlord he could understand me, and with many gesticulations he gave me to understand that when the Cossacks were playing they were dangerous people.

"They will sometimes raid a village or a house; they kill for fun and gallop away, and no man can recognise them again. They are so much alike, and none will own. When they have been drinking vodka they are mad for more. If the saints are good they will remain on the other side of the hill, if not―"

The man threw up his hands in a gesture of despair, and just then a scream of dismay from the women folk in the room above announced the fact that the dreaded invaders had been spied galloping round the hillside.

They gambolled about the level space in front of the house for some time, picking up each other's hats from the ground, galloping at imaginary foes, drawing themselves off their horses, hanging on by the stirrup and the saddle, and at last drew up together for a temporary rest. One of them pointed towards the inn, and with a wild whoop they galloped up to the door.

"Keep back, keep back," whispered the landlord, "and they may think the house deserted."

We held our breath, and crouched In the far corners of the room as a heavy brute drew his horse up to the door and began hammering with the handle of his sabre. Not satisfied with this he turned his horse with its hind legs towards the door and lashed it into kicking. The heavy hoofs of the splendid great beast rattled on the door till it flew into splinters, and its owner dismounting made his way through to the main drinking room. With a yell of triumph he seized a bottle of vodka and helped himself to it.

Through the thin floor and the open door we could hear it gurgling down his great hairy throat, and I knew that in a very short time from now he and his companions would be shrieking drunk.

The others came bounding into the house expecting that he had found something good, and began fighting and swearing over the liquor. Up to now they had not thought of exploring the place, and as they went outside to settle some dispute the landlord concluded they had gone. He crept softly downstairs to reconnoitre and tried to close his damaged door. A big Cossack, not quite so drunk as the rest, noticed him, and rushing back with a whoop dragged him out into the open.

Screaming for mercy he was tossed from one to another; he made some show of resistance until one of the ruffians lunged at him with his sabre and then all was over. The brutes came back for more drink, and began searching the house. By this time we had collected everybody into the single upstairs room, and posting myself at the door I saw to the working of the revolver I had made a point of purchasing out of my scanty means. It was not like the one I had at the hotel in Neva, but it was a useful instrument in a fit like this. I had not long to wait. One big ruffian with a sash round his waist came stumbling upstairs till his head got on a level with the floor and he came within the range of fire.

The next minute the Russian frontier had one less irregular trooper to guard it. The sound of firearms evidently impressed the dead man's companions. As he tumbled back down the stair he carried a man who had been immediately behind him with him. They started to come up with a rush, but I emptied chamber after chamber into them, till there was a mass of swearing, shrieking, wounded drunkards of a heap, wedging one another in the middle of the staircase. This gave me time to reload, and while I was doing so one or two more sober than the rest dragged their companions back. They lumbered into the drinking saloon and returned more mad than ever. Then I heard two of them coming up the stairs side by side, their heavy boots dragging slowly and painfully, step by step.

A round surface of wood with iron rings round it presented itself, and then I realised their cunning device. They had covered themselves with a heavy barrel into which I fired, but, striking the hoops, got no shot home on the men underneath it. Then with a lurch they pitched the barrel forward. It narrowly missed my head as it crashed into the room. The barman pulled me aside and, slamming the door, piled up the furniture against it. The Cossacks beat against it with their sabres and then went off.

"They will beat it down," screamed tile terrified woman. "They have gone to fetch the logs of wood." By this time I was almost as mad as the men below, All the wrongs and injuries that had been done me during the last few weeks were finding a safety valve in the attacks of these bloodthirsty scoundrels. I only wish they would hammer the door through― at all events leaving us sufficient space for me to fluke another shot at them. I communicated my thoughts to the barman, but he shook his head mournfully. He was looking at the window the window all the time, and turning towards me said:

"They will murder us all. They always do."

I turned again to the window and I was about to deliver a philosophic  injunction to buck up when, with a frenzied shout, he opened the window and frantically waved to somebody in the distance.

The women rushed to the window and waved also. They picked up anything and everything that would make a flag of distress, and, leaping over each other  in their excitement, signalled to the unknown people without.

13

THERE WAS clattering and a rattling of sabres in the small courtyard of the inn, and when I could get an inch of space at the window I saw that the place was surrounded by troopers of a different type to our visitors below. The Cossacks made for their horses, and some of them, kicking the beasts into a gallop as they ran, and leaping into the saddle while the horses were bounding, dashed past the troopers and away out of sight. The more drunken of them were promptly arrested and propped up handcuffed in one corner of the room― a woebegone-looking set of dirty, drunken, bloodstained men.

The inmates of the inn, letting themselves out of their temporary hiding place, ran downstairs, gesticulating, and shouting, and weeping and explaining everything all in a bunch to the officer in charge of the troopers, who vainly implored them to keep silence. Singling me out as I slowly followed the natives, the captain, a dark, handsome man, addressed me in German.

"You appear to be the only sane person here. Can you tell me what this is all about?"

I turned my head towards the prisoners, and the officer added:

"Yes, I know, the Cossacks are out for mischief. We had word of it this afternoon, and rode up here as a likely point. If much damage has not been done it is, perhaps, as well that this has taken place. The villagers along the frontier have for a long time complained of them, and now that we have caught them red-handed we shall have a good case for demanding that the Russian Government will take them off and put regular soldiers in their place. But tell me exactly what has happened."

I explained to him pretty much what had occurred, leaving my own part of it rather out of the story, as I was not particularly anxious to figure in anything that savoured of any official inquiry. The barman, however, who put my reticence down to excessive modesty, would not have it this way.

"We should all have been killed but for the English milord," he shouted, with tears of gratitude in his eyes. And then with voluble language, he described and exaggerated my fight with the invading Cossacks. They called me "milord" because they assumed that the way an Englishman ought to be addressed, but there was nothing very lordly about my appearance just now. Still, the officer looked at me with a measure of respect when he heard the barman's story. His troopers began setting the place in order, and locking everything up. Addressing us all comprehensively, he told us that for our own safety we were to be removed to the nearest military station oh the Austria-Hungarian side of the border, and steps would he taken to see that the other Cossacks did not commit any further raids meantime. Anything more unfavourable to my plans than this kindly zeal of the Austrian officer could hardly be imagined. He was taking me in precisely the opposite direction as that in which I wanted to travel. I protested vehemently, said I was only a guest at the Inn, and wanted to proceed on my journey. I tried to come the outraged British subject over him, but shaking his head and stroking his moustache, he pointed gravely to the bodies of the dead and wounded Cossacks.

"Mein Herr must see that this becomes an international question. We have detained subjects of his Imperial Majesty the Czar of Russia for the preservation of peace and order. They must be delivered up to justice, and we must have testimony― the independent testimony of a guest is of vast importance― and I must trouble you, I fear."

There was no getting out of it― the gentleman was the pink of courtesy, but he was also the perfection of firmness. So, soon as the Cossacks had been sobered up sufficiently to proceed, we set out in procession. A rough sort of cart was found to carry the womenfolk. I, mounted on the horse of one of the Cossacks, rode beside the officer, who chatted pleasantly as we wound our way along. At the military station he introduced me to his brother officers, with a glowing tale of my performances with the Cossacks, and I was feted like a hero. Things were, indeed, going along quite as pleasantly as any rational man could desire.

There were communications hither and thither next day concerning, the incident. I knew full well that diplomatists would be shaking their heads and talking much wisdom, and that there was going to be a full enquiry. However, I could do no worse than I had already done in Bythnia, and though I was practically a prisoner, I could not say I was not well done by. I messed that night with the officers, who toasted me, and toasted the King of England in honour of me. The following morning a gorgeously-uniformed officer arrived with a civil official of demure and serious aspect, to whom I was invited to tell my story. As they took my name I saw the civil official start and watch me narrowly. The soldier congratulated me on my bravery, the policemen thanked me for assisting the cause of law and order, and then I asked was I free to go on my way?

"To Neva?" said the police official. "I am afraid not."

"Who told you I was going to Neva?" I asked somewhat brusquely. He smiled courteously.

"Your tone of voice now confirms my thought that this would be your ultimate goal, but it is my duty to warn you that you must not go there. Indeed, I fear your travels must be pursued in quite the opposite direction."

"But by what right do you interfere with my movements? It's about time our Foreign Office at home woke up if this is the way freeborn Englishmen are going to be treated by the very people whom they do their best to help. I tell you, sir, It's a piece of infernal impudence to chivvy me about in this way, and I'll not put up with it."

In spite of this bombastic speech, the placid policeman declined to be angry with me.

"You have been of assistance to us," he said. "You have rendered aid to our people, and we wish to be polite to you; but I have to inform you that we have strict orders to convey you safely across the frontier."

"Into Bythnia?"

"No, into Germany,"

"But I don't understand: this must be explained."

"I can offer no explanation," he said; "Reasons of State compel me; it is my duty to act, not to argue."

With every kindness and every courtesy I was conducted towards the German frontier. When they found I was in need of money they provided me with it. Not a word of complaint could I say about their treatment of me. Everything was in the best of taste, but I had to go. It was a case of "There's no compulsion, but you must."

This time I made no more frontier raids. Safe in the train for Berlin after being conveyed across Austria without being allowed to communicate with a single person except my most polite guides, I curled myself up in the corner of the corridor compartment, and consoled myself with the thought that when I got to the capital of the German Empire, I should at last have some satisfaction. I knew the British Ambassador there, and between us we would pile up a hot little fire for Master Alexieff, not forgetting a word of warning even to the Emperor of Austria.

The German officials were even more scrupulously careful of me than the Austrian. They had been warned in advance, probably, of my affectionate desire to break my journey, and they were extremely solicitous about my comfort on the way to Berlin.

On my arrival in that city, yet another proof of their regard for me displayed itself. An officer in the uniform of the Imperial Guard was waiting for the train, and addressing me in tolerable English, he invited me to go with him to an hotel opposite. The hotel was just about where I was making for, but I objected to being personally conducted any more by uniformed officials. I was about to reply very abruptly, and, I fear, very rudely, when the officer whispered, "It would be undignified to make a scene. Believe me, I act for your  good, and, as you must be aware, there is sufficient force within call at a nod of my head."

The grim truth of the latter part of his observation was all too clear. There were enough policemen, and soldiers, and uniformed people of various descriptions hanging about the station to have arrested fifty Englishmen in full fighting form.

"Oh, very well!" I said, somewhat ungraciously, and together I and my insistent new-found friend made our way, across to the hotel opposite. Evidently apartments had been booked for me beforehand. We went up in a lift about three floors, my strange companion still silent except for monosyllables.

"And now," I said, when we were in a comfortable furnished room with the door closed, "perhaps you will have the goodness to tell me what in the name of thunder this means. You are aware, I have no doubt, that I am an Englishman, a British subject, that I have committed no offence against your laws, and you have absolutely no right to hold me a prisoner. I am well know at the British Embassy. Perhaps you would like to enquire about me there before you take any further steps."

The man was quite as polite in his smart military way as the Austrian officials. He assured me that he was acting under orders.

"We have fear for your safety, and we have also other political reasons for keeping you under observation so long as you are in this country. My royal master has taken the matter out of the hands of the political police. I can assure you, if this were ordinary police duly I should not be engaged on it."

"Then chuck it at once," I said tartly. I was sorry for it afterwards, but I was so sour-tempered by this time that I forgot to quarrel in a gentlemanly way with this severely proper person. Remembering that I was nominally his host, I apologised to him, and asked if he would honour me by dining with me that evening. He assured me he would be delighted, and that lie would take the liberty of bringing with him a third party.

"Two of you― one to watch the other," I thought to myself, but I did not say it aloud; instead, I remarked: "I should like to invite a guest or two myself to meet you. You possibly may know my friend, Sir Reginald Moore, of the British Embassy― he is an old chum of mine, and, like myself, is distantly related to the Ambassador. We should make an admirable quartette; he is a man you ought to meet."

Obviously my guide and protector thought otherwise. He took the view that Sir Reginald was just the man he ought not to meet just at that time. He shook his head with that maddening smile they all had when they talked to me.

"There must be only three― myself, yourself, and Col. Kiesling. We will be back at eight prompt."

He left the room, and getting rid of my dust and grime from the railway journey, I moved out into the corridor to look round the hotel. What was to hinder me, I wondered, going down and out into the street and making my way at once to the British Embassy. I soon discovered that this was not practicable. A head waiter, bowing very low before me as I rang the bell for the lift, assured me that my suite of rooms was complete, and that I should find everything there I desired.

"Do you mean that I daren't go where I like in this blessed hotel of yours?" I said.

The man bowed still more obsequiously.

"Our orders are that you will dine in your own room."

I remembered that I had myself issued the invitation to dinner, and to that extent, I suppose, I was on parole. I therefore decided to wait, at all events, till I had entertained my guests, and slipping back into my room I made no further fuss. I had hardly got inside when I regretted having given up the effort so quietly. A violent altercation outside the door attracted my attention, and I heard a voice demanding admission. I rushed to the door, but found it had been quietly locked on the outside, and the key I knew to be safe in the pocket of the head waiter, who, of course, was no waiter at all, but an agent of the police.

"I tell you I know the man well; he is a friend of mine, and he will be glad to see me. I am going into those rooms, I tell you. Fetch the manager. I will get in, if have to break open the door."

"Yes, come in," I shouted; but at that moment I could hear the swish of the lift; they had forcibly pushed him inside, and then carted him off down the building. In that last shout I recognised the voice― it was my old acquaintance, Mr. Herbert Langdon, and how I longed for the advice and assistance of a clear-headed man like this in my many difficulties.

Prompt to the second, my captor, the Major, and Colonel Kiesling arrived. The colonel was heavily cloaked when he came in, although the weather was not cold.

They arrived in a closed carriage, and came up in the lift to my room. Everybody was cleared out of the corridor, I could see as the door opened, and my visitor, when he got inside, unfolded his robe and doffed his helmet. He was dressed in comparatively plain uniform, a man slightly below middle height, with upturned moustache and keen, observant eyes. At dinner he talked to me pleasantly about my own country, in good English, and also about Bythnia, the State I had left. The Major plied me with questions, and the Colonel listened. When he took up the conversation himself again my cross-examination ceased, and we chatted on equal terms.

After dinner I asked the Major, casually, whether I was to consider my confinement at an end. The Major looked at Colonel Kiesling, and the Colonel, then taking up the conversation, said:

"Sir Stephen, from what you have told me, I gather that there is trouble in Bythnia, and it is quite evident that you have taken a deeper interest in the subject than an Englishman should, in view of the difficult relations between your country and others with regard to this much troubled State. I would advise you to keep out of revolutions; they are not profitable to anybody, and participation in them is ruin."

"Revolution, Colonel! You mistake me. I have no concern with revolutionaries― though if I ever get my finger on that hangdog scoundrel, Colonel Alexeiff, for five minutes―"

The Colonel held up his hand warningly.

"I do not want to hear any more, Sir Stephen. You have said enough. For the sake of the peace of Europe, for the sake of those great international interests which are of greater importance to humanity than the passing whim and fancy of an adventurous young man, we must stand between you and your folly. You must leave Berlin to-morrow morning."

"Leave Berlin! That is exactly what I want."

"Yes. Your wishes will be gratified to that extent, but you must cross the frontier in the direction of your own country."

"But what on earth have my movements to do with you, or with anybody in this country?" I asked in amazement.

"We are aware, as you have said to night, that there are troublous times in Bythnia. We also know that there are conflicting claims there, but it is the policy of this country, as it is of Europe generally, to support the reigning dynasty. This is for the good of all, and however much some people may the inclined to sympathise with your feelings, believe me, you will do best to quietly submit to our instructions, which are that you should at once leave Germany and return to your own country."

As he said this he gathered up his cloak. The Major had sat between us during dinner, and had kept beside him until this moment. By chance, however, we stood in triangular formation, instead of in line, and then I noticed that one arm of the Colonel's was shorter than the other. As they opened the door to go out he whispered a curt command to my captor, who brought his heels together and saluted.

The corridor was again cleared of everybody, and the Colonel, noticing that the door was still open and I was looking out of it, turned towards me.

"Sir Stephen, we have had a pleasant evening together, and you have given me  some useful information. Let me again advise you to keep out of revolutions. Is the way clear, Major?"

"Yes, Sire."'

"Sire"― what a fool I was. Till this moment I had not realised that the man who had been freely talking politics with me― though, now I thought of it, he had got a good deal more out of me than I had out of him― was Wilhelm, Emperor of Germany.

14

I WALKED to the window to get another look at him. I noticed that, as in the case of the corridor, prying eyes were kept off my visitor. He walked out to a closed carriage while there was not is soul on the hotel steps. I do not suppose anybody but myself and the Major's agents knew anything about his visit to me.

I turned from the window, naturally flattered that so important a personage should imagine he could obtain any profit from my conversation. As a matter of fact I know nothing about politics except what I read in the newspapers, and very little of that, but somebody had evidently given him the idea that I was well up in these things― probably somebody at the Embassy had been playing a joke at my expense. But why was he so anxious about Bythnia?

That question was answered in a way that startled me. The door gently opened and Mr. Herbert Langdon softly slipped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Glad to meet you, Sir Stephen. Afraid I am getting a bit clumsy. Last time I came up making a big noise; this time I have watched my opportunity and when everybody seems to be busy downstairs shielding your illustrious guest from observation I just quietly crawled up the back way and here I am. What is more, here, with your permission, I Intend to stop. Do not speak in too high a voice. Tumble that chair against the door accidentally so that when anybody opens it there will be a noise and I will quietly retire to the other room while you receive callers."

He waited in my bedroom while the waiters came up and cleared away the dinner things. They did their work in the same stolid manner as the head waiter. Evidently they were picked men, and it, was no use trying to get a word out of them. They left me a bottle of wine and cigars, then closed the door, and I heard the welcome sound of the key turning gently in the lock, an indication that they intended to leave me alone for the rest of the night.

Mr. Herbert Langdon laughed heartily at most of my adventures; looked serious at others, and when I asked him in amazement what it all meant, he replied: "I can tell you what this means. There is a revolution brewing in Bythnia, as I have suspected for some time. The authorities have got wind of it, and they have sounded the Powers of Europe as to whether the reigning dynasty is to be respected, and whether so far as passive assistance can go the revolutionaries will be opposed by the heads of other nations. For some reason or the other, you are supposed to be mixed up in the plot, and your latest visitor has come down here to quietly pump you."

"Do you know who he is?" I asked with conscious pride.

"Oh, yes, my dear boy, it took more than a quick run down the shaft to silence Herbert Langdon. I have been about the world enough to find the man I want and to tot up his price in most places, and a little manoeuvring round in a quiet way after simple apologies for my rudeness brought me the opportunity I desired."

"Then you saw my visitor?"

"Just enough of him to recognise that the Kaiser has been masquerading as one of his own colonels. He likes to do everything for himself, and he knows as well as most men that just the turn of a hair in international politics in Bythnia might set the whole of Europe ablaze; and, moreover, he wants to know all he can about that country so that at the proper time he may keep his own country's proper end up.

"Diplomatists and officials are extremely useful people, but the society of a hot-headed young Englishman with his heart on his sleeve would probably tell an acute man more than all the Ambassadors and secret agents."

"But what if I go back and say he has been talking to me on these questions? Surely that would be considered bad form. I do not know much about the etiquette of monarchs, but I think so."

"My dear boy, do you suppose anybody would believe you if you said that you had dined with the Kaiser, if the Kaiser said he had never seen you? You met him as Colonel Keisling, and you may depend there are plenty of Colonel Keislings in the German army; you could not parade them all and say individually, 'That's not the man.'"

There was logic in this, and I had to come to the conclusion that I should never be able to boast that I had entertained an Emperor in my hotel rooms. At the club it would rank with fish stories, only people would tell me that my lie was less artistic even than the fisherman's yarn.

"But why should everybody regard me as being mixed up with this revolution, or whatever they call the thing? I have not been in the country five minutes, though I seem to have learnt a lot about it while I was there. At least I have a pretty distinct recollection of talking a good deal to his Imperial Highness, but the puzzle of it is that everybody has come to the same conclusion at first sight. Do I look like an anarchist? Is there some special cut of the hair or curl of the lips that I have got?"

Mr. Langdon was deep in thought. He lit a cigar, filled himself a glass of wine, carefully saw that the chair was tilted against the door, and then spreading himself out in the easy chair, he asked:

"What was the first time― tell me, the incident, however trivial, that anybody took any more than a passing interest in you?"

I carefully thought over my first interview with Colonel Alexeiff, and remembered how interested he had been in the seal on the box. It was the same with the landlord of the hotel at Nova.

"I have it!" I said. "Wickliffe must have picked up that old seal of his at some curiosity shop, and it bears some resemblance to something in the nature of a token; that is the only explanation I can find."'

"And the box contains― what?" said Mr. Langdon.

"Oh, a piece of jewellery of considerable importance in some respects, but, of course, that has no bearing on the subject because the paper is wrapped round the box and nobody can see the case.  You will remember the diamond I lost at The Heathlands; that I obtained possession of again in a way that I would rather not relate, and I carried it about with me for security."

"'You will have it now?" he asked excitedly.

"No, it is in the keeping of a hotel keeper, who has sworn by everything that his soul values not to break the seal till he hands it back to me. That is why I have been fighting so hard to get back to Neva. I cannot leave that thing there, at least I do not intend to, and, besides, there is at Neva―" I pulled myself up abruptly.

Mr. Langdon turned his shrewd eyes on me and laughed softly.

"Yes, there is in Neva someone whom you are very anxious to meet and who is of more value than the diamond, if the truth were told," he said; "but I  am afraid you will have to put off that pleasure."

"There seems no help for it with these cursed soldiers, and kings, and policemen hanging about me."

"No, that is not the reason. I have been a good deal nearer to you lately perhaps even than you think, and if I thought it the best plan to get you back to Neva, I will undertake to see you there, despite old Alexeiff, but I have come to the conclusion that the key of this situation is in England."

"In England, why, what can be done in England?"

"In England, we must find out Henry Wickliffe."

"And what can he do for us? Can he remove the bail of outlawing that all Europe seems to have set upon me? Can he get me back to Neva? Can be restore Elaine to me?"

The last remark had slipped out involuntarily, and Mr. Langdon affected not to notice it.

"He can do a lot more perhaps than we think. At all events before we move a stop farther we must get in touch with him, and find out what he knows about this seal. I suppose I'll have to camp it here with you for the night on the sofa or somewhere, and as soon as I can slip out in the morning I shall wire to him that we are to be found in London, and that we are likely to call upon him."

THE FOLLOWING morning we parted to meet again upon the other side of the North Sea. My friend the Major arranged everything so nicely for me that I could not find it in my heart to be angry with him. I was piloted along right to the boat-side, landed on board, and a gentleman who made himself extremely pleasant to me, who was supposed to be a fellow passenger, and was in reality, I knew, a member of the German secret service, kept by my side till I was in the train at Port Victoria for London.

I went straight to my rooms, where Mr. Langdon had agreed to meet me, he turned up as fresh and as jovial as ever.

"No more adventures," he said with a laugh. "I have taken the trouble to go round to Mr. Wickliffe's rooms. He was not in, but we must look him up as soon as we can."

"Has he been in London lately?"

"I believe so."

"I am afraid I left him rather hurriedly the other day; in fact, I had an appointment with him which I did not keep. We were to meet and go together with my recovered box and diamond to the Chancery Safe Deposit; where I was to leave it in safe custody for six months. He suggested it to  me, and at the moment I thought it was a good idea."

"Oh! he did, did he." Mr. Langdon looked puzzled, and took a few turns up and down the room. Stoping in front of me at last, "Wickliffe is a great personal friend of yours― a confidential friend? He knows everything of your affairs."

"He knows more even than you know, Mr. Langdon. He knows all about this diamond, and how I gained possession of it. Perhaps it may be as well, since I have gone so far, if you can be bored with the story, if I told you."

Just then the telephone bell rang violently: and swearing at it with the impatience of a man who feels that he is always interrupted at the wrong time, I picked up the receiver.

"Halloa!" I shouted angrily.

"Halloa! that you, Harland?" shouted a voice excitedly.

"Yes, yes, Stephen Harland," I replied testily. "What is it? Hurry up. What do you say. I can't hear you. Who are you? Stop that infernal thumping, if you want me to hear."

"Harland! Har―" There was more thumping, then a temporary pause, and I distinctly heard a woman's voice say: "Now then, quick, before they begin again!"

"Hulloa! Are you there, Harland?"

"Yes, I'm here. Why the deuce don't you speak up, and stop that noise and tell me who you are?"

A bang and a crash were the only reply, then above it all there was a woman's scream.

"Harland― Wickliffe, for God's sake―"

The voice was cut off short. There were sounds of a struggle at the other end. The receiver had evidently been dashed out of the woman's hand, and I could hear scuffling, and struggling, and protesting, all in a confused murmur, and then all at once a voice came over the telephone:

"Come!"

It was a woman's voice, but it stopped abruptly. I could see, in my mind's eye exactly what had happened― the thing had not been rung off, and she had stealthily picked it up, but it had been dashed out of her hand.

15

I STARED BLANKLY at Langdon, and he answered my look with the first sign of trepidation I had ever seen on the man's face. He had taken the other receiver from its hook, and was holding it close to his ear when the imploring voice of Wickliffe suddenly died away.  For a couple of minutes we stood thus, listening intently to the conclusion of the tragedy― if tragedy it was. Over the burr of the wires we could hear faintly; like the muttering of a distant sea, the intermittent noise of a struggle; we could hear a chair fall, and the voices of men cursing with their laboured breath, and now and again the staccato screams of a woman suffering. These sounds came and went, denoting, so I thought, that the affray was ever shifting its ground, now nearing, now receding from the telephone at the other end.

Suddenly this nightmare was broken in upon by the business-like voice of the girl at the exchange; "Have you finished?" she asked.

"No, no," Langdon and I yelled in unison. "Keep us on― 3561 Mayfair,"

"All right, you needn't shout," retorted the aggrieved lady clerk, reconnecting us with a malicious jerk.

"We must do something," I said to Langdon at last, "something terrible is going on there."

"We had better ring up the nearest Police station, and as quickly as possible," retorted Langdon.

I picked up the telephone book, and turning the pages over with my disengaged hand, looked up the Vine-street number. I was just about to place the receiver on its rest, to disconnect us and get on to the new number, when both Langdon and I were startled by hearing Wickliffe's imploring  voice once more speaking.

"Is that you, Harland?"

"Yes, yes," I answered back. "In God's name, what's the matter?"

"Three men have broken into my flat, and will kill me if you don't come in time. I managed to lock myself into this room, but they are trying to burst the door. I cannot hold out much longer. One of them got through the window just now when I stopped speaking before. He nearly knifed me. I have got all the furniture against the door, but already they have nearly broken the lock. For heaven's sake, Harland; come as quickly, as you can."

"Vine-street is  just near you," I answered back. "Get on to them, or I will get on to them, and we will have the police round within a few minutes. Who are the men, and what does it all mean?"

"The police are no use," in an agonised voice, answered Wickliffe. "Come yourself."

His voice suddenly stopped again. We could hear the splintering of wood; and the sound of something falling with a crash on to the ground. I wasted no more time: I rang off violently, finding relief in the fact that my telephone was an old-fashioned instrument, with a handle that you could turn as a vent to one's exasperation

"Put me on to the Vine-street Police-station,"  I said.

"What number?" retorted the, girl in her aggravatingly calm voice. I looked down at the open telephone book with a muttered curse, and then gave her the directions she wanted. For several seconds, I waited in a fury of impatience. Hours seemed to elapse, and the nervous strain was becoming almost unbearable, when with sort of diabolical, triumphant jeer; the girl at the exchange called back:

"Engaged. Call again," and cut me off with a vicious click.

I think that girl must have woken up with a bad headache that morning, or have been blighted in love, or possibly, and I hope, severely reprimanded by the manager of the exchange. She was clearly in that feminine mood which is known as "snappy."

I admit it was a rainy day, and that the girl was only human, and that her temper was as sensitive to the meteorological changes as anybody else's. I have often observed that when London is plunged in gloom, and the streets are swimming in mud, and nobody who can avoid it wants to go out to conduct any business, that it takes a longer time to get on to a number than when the day is fine, and when there is not much aversion to going across the road or up the street to make a business call. I have never met a lady telephone clerk, or known anybody who knew one. They have always seemed to me rather abstract beings― merely voices crying out as from a far-off wilderness. When in my mind's eye I have attempted to clothe those voices in flesh, I have pictured to myself elderly maiden women with sullen brows and pugnacious chins, whose one object in life is to baulk and irritate the subscribers. Of course, this is a libel. Probably they are very charming girls, who put a wonderful restraint upon their tempers, and possess a nervous strength almost superhuman, considering their occupation. I expect I cannot speak properly on the telephone. My voice is possibly too loud. It is certain that I cannot stand being kept waiting; that I am too peremptory, and too ready with that customary statement, "Am I never going to get on to oo Hop? I have been kept waiting half an hour."

At any rate, at that moment I thought very badly of all telephone operators, especially the one who was at the moment attending to my line. I banged the receiver on its rest, and ground at the bell handle furiously. The girl had begun again to explain that the number I wanted was engaged, when I broke in upon her petulant protests with a perfect storm of words.

"Confound the engagement," I cried (though "confound" was not the word I used). "Cut everybody else off. This is a matter of life and death. I must get on at once." I was shouting, and my voice did not carry well.

"Matter of what?" exclaimed the girl puzzled.

"Matter of life and death," I replied, striving to modulate my tones, "Please get me on."

She heard me this time, and regardless of the etiquette of the exchange she evidently acted on my instructions, for in another moment I was having words with a very angry inspector, who had been cut off in the middle of the conversation.

"Are you 8949 Central? No? Well, ring off, then. Ring off, do you hear? I don't care what you've got to say. I was talking to 9849. What's that you say ? You're what? I can't waste my time here. I want to speak to 9849. Ring off, confound it.'

In a sort of chaotic chorus, I could also hear 9849 Central swearing loudly at the exchange. It took some seconds before the inspector would listen to me. But by dint of perseverance, I at last made my voice prevail. "Some men are trying to murder Mr. Henry Wickliffe at 162 Charles-street. Send round some constables at once. It's a matter of great urgency," I ended weakly, the thought suddenly coming into my mind that the Inspector might think he was dealing with a lunatic. I could hear him speaking in a puzzled way to somebody else in the office.

"Who are you?"

"Stephen Harland," I retorted. "Mr. Wickliffe has rung me up several time. I could hear there was trouble over the wire. Something terrible was going on there: I would have gone round myself, but I thought it would be quicker to ring you up. For heaven's sake, man, send somebody at once, or there will be murder done."

But he was an official with the principles of routine engrained deep in his soul. He would not budge from the telephone until I had given him my address-a piece of information which it took a long time to impress upon him. Indeed, I had to repeat and spell the names so often that had not a couple of miles of streets and buildings separated us I am certain I should have been guilty of assaulting the police. But at last I satisfied him, and he promised to send a party of constables with as much dispatch as possible to Wickliffe's flat.

"And now what shall we do?" I said, turning to Langdon.

"Get round as quickly as possible to Charles-street."

Without another word we left the telephone, seized our hats, and made for the door. But even as we stood on the threshold there came again the metallic tinkling of the bell. I rushed to the instrument. It was Wickliffe again speaking, and I motioned to Langdon to wait a minute.

"Are you still there, Harland? Why don't you come? For the sake of our friendship, come and help me, The door is almost down. The brutes are nearly in. I shall be killed. For heaven's sake, come."

Again I heard the sound of a woman's voice, and the steady, persistent creaking, as of men pushing with all their force against some obstacle.

"It's all right, the police are coming. They will be there in a few seconds now. Cheer up, old chap. They will come to your assistance much sooner than I could. We will come at once, now."

Again I heard a woman's voice, speaking in an undertone to Wickliffe. Then Wickliffe began to speak loudly in some foreign language, which was beyond me. I looked over at Langdon, who had begun to listen even more intently. lie nodded back at me, thus implying that he understood and would translate to me later.

"Are you still there, Harland?" Wickliffe suddenly went on in English, and there was a sort of relieved tone in his voice. "When did you say you rang up the police?"

"About a minute ago," I retorted. "They ought to be there from Vine-street now."

He repeated my remarks to the other person― the owner of the mysterious woman's voice. I began to wonder who she could be, and for the first time I was puzzled as to how it came about In London of the prosaic twentieth century, in the heart of the West End, that Wickliffe's life had become jeopardised. I hung on to the receiver, thinking that Wickliffe would speak again, but though the indistinct murmur of his conversation still reached me, he did not talk over the wire.

"Is there anything more you want to say, Wickliffe, before we start?" I shouted.

The only answer I got was a strange jarring sound as of the receiver being dropped from Wickliffe's hand. Then there followed a fearful uproar, I could hear the furniture being thrown in all directions, and a crashing and banging of chairs, and tables overturning. But no human voices broke in upon this pandemonium. Langdon read the unuttered fear in my mind.

"The police are too late," he said. "Let us go at once. Something terrible has happened."

He dashed down the staircase, and without wasting a second's more time we were in a hansom, driving as furiously as we could towards Charles-street.

16

I HAD TIME to ask Langdon to explain what Wickliffe had been saying in a foreign language as we rattled through the streets.

"He was speaking in Turkish," replied Langdon in his quiet, unemotional way. "He was merely saying to his companion that the police were coming, and explaining that they had been warned by you on the telephone. And from what I could gather from the way he repeated the fact, and talked in a very loud voice, I think he must have been trying to scare his assailants."

"Well, it's the first time I knew Wickliffe was a linguist," I said in surprise. "That he should know French or German would not be out of the ordinary, but that he should be able to speak Turkish― are you quite sure, Mr. Langdon?"

"Absolutely certain,' he replied. "I spent a large number of years in the Near East, you must remember, and I can speak the language almost as well as a native."

"But where on earth could Wickliffe have picked it up?" I went on, pursuing my own train of thought; "and if your surmise is right, what the dickens were these Turks attacking him like this for?"

Langdon did not answer my question directly.

"I have always found life strangely complex. It is not the simple thing people think it is. You meet a man every day of your life for years. You call him your friend, and say you know him intimately. One day chance reveals to you quite another side of this intimate's character. You discover that there are chapters In his book of life in which you have played no part at all, chapters that you have never, even guessed at. 'Man know thyself,' is one of the Apostle's dictums, and that in itself is an almost superhuman task. How much more difficult, therefore, to really know any of your fellow creatures."

"You mean?" I queried.

"I mean that the fact that Wickliffe knows Turkish, and has been attacked by a band of Turkish cut-throats, may have quite a simple explanation in spite of your surprise. But, please heaven, no tragedy has taken place."

Just then the hansom drew up at the house in Charles-street. Wickliffe was fond of calling his place a flat, but, actually, it was a private residence. He had bought the whole house, so he had once told me, although he only occupied one floor himself. The remainder of the rather gloomy establishment he left empty, save for the quarters of his man and his cook.

That something out of the ordinary had taken place was evident by the presence of an excited crowd of loungers who gathered round the open doorway of 162. As we forced out way towards the entrance, we were hailed with audible whispers: "Them's 'tecs." One little urchin, his mind thrilled with the prospect of a possible outrage, cried out with elfish delight: "Crikey, ain't something 'arf 'appened."

There was a policeman in the passage, who stopped us as we made our way upstairs.

"They have got clean away, sir," he said confidentially after we explained who we were. "I can't make it out nohow. The inspector's up there along with the constables. The place looks as if there had been an earthquake." He would have gone on talking, but we were too anxious to wait, and, followed by Langdon, I tore up the familiar staircase to the first floor.

The constable had not exaggerated. The place looked Just as if an earthquake had been let loose in Charles-street. The door of the sitting-room hung drunkenly on its hinges; one of the panels had been broken right through; the woodwork round the lock was battered and splintered, and inside the room itself the furniture lay piled up, a mass of broken debris. The mahogany table lay on top, its four legs broken and twisted, pointing almost pathetically to the ceiling, and beneath lay what had been chairs, sofas, and a china cabinet. The china itself, on which I knew Wickliffe had set great store, was reduced to splinters which covered the Turkish carpet as if it had been snowing chips of Sevres and Worcester. In the middle of this chaos stood a burly inspector, his chin In his hand, brooding like Marius over the ruins of Carthage. Three constables stood watching him with official interest, evidently expecting every minute some remarkable pronouncement on the situation. Our arrival disturbed the inspector's meditations. It turned out that he was the very inspector whose conversation with 9849 Central I had so rudely interrupted.

"Where is Mr. Wickliffe?" was the first question I put to him, looking anxiously round the room, expecting to see the mangled corpse of my friend lying among the ruins.

"That's what I want to know, sir," retorted the inspector.

"Was nobody here when you came here?"

"Not a soul. The door was open. We walked straight upstairs and found the room just as it is now. What's the meaning of it all? That's what I want to know. Something has happened here," he added brightly, "but what?"

"What time did you get here?" I asked, ignoring his fatuous query.

"A couple of minutes after you rung up, sir. I came at once, and when we got here there was nothing but this. Perhaps you can explain what you know, sir."

"All I can tell you, inspector, is practically what I told you over the 'phone. My friend, Mr. Langdon, and myself were in my chambers when we were rung up from here by Mr. Wickliffe, who begged our immediate assistance against some men who were trying to kill him. He had barricaded himself in this room, and we could hear over the wire the efforts of his assailants to force the door. That is all."

"Was nobody else with him, sir?" queried the inspector, making rapid shorthand notes.

"I can't say for certain, of course," I replied, "but we heard now and again the voice of a lady, who seemed to have been speaking to Mr. Wickliffe."

"Have you any idea as to who she can have been?"

"Not the slightest," I retorted. "It puzzled me."

The inspector seemed dissatisfied. "Can you suggest any reason for this outrage, if outrage it was, taking place?" he asked.

"Frankly, I can't. I am as much in the dark as you are."

"But where are the lady and gentleman?" said the inspector.

I shook my head hopelessly. "I must have been speaking to Mr. Wickliffe within a few seconds of your arrival," I said, "and yet you say when you came here you found nobody."

"Not a person," retorted the inspector. "And what makes it all the more curious is that we didn't meet anybody coming along. We were on the lookout for that. I sent men up both ends of the street, and they saw no suspicious persons. Now, if these men had done Mr. Wickliffe and his lady friend in, we should either have found them lying here, or they would have carried them off. But they weren't lying here, and if you was speaking to Mr. Wickliffe just before we came they couldn't have carried them off without our seeing them. So where are they? That's what I want to know."

I could not answer the question, and so I remained silent.

It was Langdon who opened a possible way out of the maze in which the situation was involved.

"Over the telephone Mr. Wickliffe told us that one of the miscreants had got into the room by the window. If you look here, you will notice at once a strange circumstance. If these men had broken the door down and effected an entry through the obstacles, they would have piled and pushed all this debris to the side on which the door opens, but you will notice that the furniture is at the far end of the room, away from the door, that is to say, it has been removed from blocking the door by somebody from inside the room, If they had forced their way in through the door they would never, on leaving, have bothered to painfully remove all this debris from one end of the room to the other. It is clear, therefore, I think, that they must have again effected an entrance through the window."

The inspector cheered up visibly at the suggestion, but his brow was suddenly clouded again. "Oh, that's not possible, sir," he said. "They didn't get out by this window, at least, not to leave the house. You can look for yourself."

We both moved across to the open window and gazed out. A yard lay below, formed by the four walls of houses. It was more like the shaft of a chimney than a yard. There was no means of exit from it, except by the door which led into the lower regions of Wickliffe's house. The other three walls just towered up without presenting a single opening on their brick-faced fronts. The ladder, which evidently the men had used, was still in position against the window out of which we looked. But even had Wickliffe and his unknown companion been carried down that ladder, they could not have got from the yard into the open street without passing through the passage leading to the door of 162, Charles-street, and a policeman had been on guard at that door from within a few seconds of my speaking to Wickliffe. It was humanely impossible for anybody to have forcibly borne away anybody else down that ladder into the yard between the times of my speaking to Wickliffe and the arrival of the police.

I pointed this out to Langdon, but he rather obstinately stuck to his point. He insisted that the barriers which had been placed in front of the door by Wickliffe had been removed from within the room. Seeing that they had been placed there by Wickliffe to impede the passage of the scoundrels who wanted to do him to death, Wickliffe himself would not have removed them. So, argued Langdon, one of Wickliffe's mysterious assailants must have climbed in at the window and cleared away the barrier of furniture.

When again the Inspector and I explained to him that it was impossible for Wickliffe and his companion to have been forcibly carried off, either by the window or the door, without being seen, he fell back stubbornly on his original statement, that the furniture had been removed from inside the room and not from without. As this pronouncement failed to shed any light on the mystery I refrained from further argument with him, and contented myself with repeating the inspector's words:

"Where are Wickliffe and his companion?"

But asking questions when there was nobody to answer them is a poor pastime, and we soon wearied of it. The only thing we could think of doing was to follow the inspector's suggestion and try and discover the whereabouts of Wickliffe.

With this object I went over to Vine-street to provide the authorities with a detailed description of my friend, and having received an assurance from them that they would see it circulated throughout the metropolis, I accompanied Langdon back to his hotel.

We spent the rest of that day talking aimlessly about this fresh mystery that had come into our lives, and before we turned in that night I think both of us were heartily sick of the subject. Indeed, in the course of our argument we once almost came to quarrelling. For Langdon had an incisive, cynical way of saying things, especially about other people, which, though they carried no direct meaning at which one could take umbrage, nevertheless, were extremely irritating. His remarks about Wickliffe struck me more than once as bordering on the suspicions, and it was only with difficulty that I refrained from violently defending a man for whom I felt a sort of enhanced friendship now that I knew that he was in danger, and his fate uncertain.

I had hoped that the following morning would bring some elucidation of the mystery, but the news that reached us as we were sitting at breakfast only served to involve the matter still further. While we were both pretending to read The Times over our coffee― at least, it was a pretence on my part― the waiter announced that Inspector Jervis wished to speak to us. We had him up at once.

"Well," we queried in chorus, as soon as the door had closed behind his portly form, "any news?"

"Yes, gentlemen, I have news, and very curious news, too. Mr. Wickliffe left Victoria last night for the Continent, travelling via Dover and Calais."

"He is quite safe and well."

I exclaimed in my surprise, and then, recognising the foolishness of my question, added, "How do you know this?"

"One of the Scotland Yard men recognised him on the platform from the description you had given us. He is one of our smartest men, and he had the whole facts of the case at his fingers' ends. He goes up to him and says: 'Mr. Wickliffe, I believe.' The other replies, 'Yes, that's my name. What do you want?' At that Charlie― Charlie Mann's his name, sir― was sort of taken back, and then recovering himself, and remembering your connection with the case, he says, 'Mr. Stephen Harland has been anxious about your safety, sir, since that trouble in Charles-street.' 'Well, what about it?' says Mr. Wickliffe, as cool as anything. 'I understand as your furniture was broken up and your door smashed, and that somebody tried to kill you,' went on Charlie, feeling very foolish because the gentleman took it so coolly. 'It's my furniture and it's my door, and when I want the police to interfere I'll ask them too.' With that he gets into his carriage, in which the lady who accompanied him was already seated.

"But Charlie wanted to know exactly how things stood if he could find out, and he goes up to the window and says, 'What are we to tell Mr. Stephen Harland, Mr Wickliffe?' 'Tell Mr. Stephen Harland to go to the devil,' replied Mir. Wickliffe, pulling up the window.

"Then the train went off," concluded the Inspector with a somewhat unexpected anti-climax.

17

AS LONG as the inspector remained in the room I had controlled my feelings as well as I could, but when he had finally taken his departure I gave vent to my amazement in words.

"This beats everything, Langdon. What the deuce does Wickliffe mean? A friend rings me up on the telephone telling me that he is in grave danger of being killed. Send the police to his assistance, and follow them as soon as I can myself, to find that he has disappeared. The next day I hear that he has gone off, apparently in the best of health, to the Continent, and the only message I get in reply is a request to go to the devil."

Langdon leans back in his chair and burst into roars of laughter. "It's a most ridiculous situation," he said, when at last he had recovered himself. "If it wasn't for the fact that the sound of the man's voice at the telephone showed clearly that he was alarmed, I should have thought that he was playing a joke upon you, but as it is I give it up. The mystery is far too deep for me to fathom; though that somewhat abrupt message to you may be explained by his annoyance at your having summoned the police. You remember that he said he did not want you to call in the police."

I nodded my head. But it did not seem like Wickliffe to be so discourteous. The whole affair was Involved in mystery. I knew, of course, that Wickliffe had some grounds for annoyance with me over my abrupt departure for Bythnia, and my failure to keep my appointment with him. But Wickliffe was not a practical joker. He would never have got up such an elaborate scheme, have smashed his furniture and destroyed his beautiful china, merely for the sake of having a laugh at me when we met again.

"I don't believe the man that detective spoke to was Wickliffe," I declared, giving expression to the conclusion of my chain of thought. "The inspector said the detective was one of the smartest men at Scotland Yard," Langdon put in quietly, "but, as you say, he may have been mistaken."

He went on with his breakfast, and became absorbed in his perusal of The Times.

Left to myself, my thoughts wandered gradually away from the mystery of Wickliffe's disappearance, to my own affairs, the diamond, my quest, and Elaine. My thoughts drifted no farther than that. I let my knife and fork lie idle on the plate in front of me, and leant back in my chair brooding deeply on my ill-starred love. Before my mind there floated up again the whole past.

I figured again the days when to see Elaine was to get a glimpse of heaven. It was only in her company that I knew perfect peace and happiness. Then came the strange bequest of my dead ne'er-do-well uncle, that glorious gem that had once crowned the diadem of one of the greatest of the Roman Emperors― that great jewel whose brilliance was to illuminate for me the character of the girl I loved. All the episodes of that awful night in the billiard-room of The Heathlands flashed back into my brain. I tried to keep my mind away from it, to shake off the very remembrance of the episode. But it was useless. From the storehouse of my memory some malignant power seemed to collect all the details, however trifling, of that night, and to drag them in succession before by eyes. I was aroused from this miserable retrospection by the voice of Langdon.

"What's the matter, Harland?" he said. "You look the picture of gloom and misery. Still worrying about your friend Wickliffe?"

I shook my head dolefully, and assured him that it was something quite different.

He put The Times down on the floor, and leant back In his chair as if to get a better view of me.

"Can I help you in any way? Often by talking a thing over, Harland, one finds a way out of most troubles. Confession is good for the soul, you know. If you care to confide in me you will find me as secret and as trustworthy as any priest." I was utterly miserable, and half my misery was due to the fact that for Elaine's sake I had never uttered a word to any man of my troubles. And here was a man that I could trust. Should I trust him? I hesitated for a moment and then made up my mind.

"Mr. Langdon," I said suddenly, "you have travelled much in the Near East, did you ever meet a man called John Harland?"

I was looking at him closely, and It seemed to me that he started at the sound of the name.

"Harland," he repeated musingly, "John Harland! Yes, now you come to mention it, I think I do recollect meeting a man of that name in Constantinople many years ago. He was somewhat of an odd fish, if I remember rightly― cut himself adrift from European society. When I come to think of it, we had rather a good deal in common. Yes I remember him now quite well. Why do you ask?"

"He was my uncle, my father's scapegrace brother," I continued. "He got himself into trouble at home, quarrelled violently with my father and grandfather― I never knew the exact details of the quarrel― and went abroad, determined never to see any of his family again. I merely mention him because he is connected with the story which I am going to tell you in the strictest confidence."

"You can rely on my honour not to divulge anything you may tell me," Langdon said gravely.

"I have never seen or heard from this uncle in my life. On his deathbed, I suppose, some remnants of natural affection repossessed his mind. But perhaps it may merely have been some diabolical idea of his to revenge himself on his brother's son. God knows," I went on bitterly, "could he but realise it, he has had his vengeance in full."

"Yes?" put in Mr. Langdon interrogatively, stooping down to pick up his serviette.

I plunged into my story, the story I have set down here, of how the diamond of Diocletian came into my uncle's possession, and how on his death bed he passed it on to me. I told him the whole sequence of events, omitting nothing until I came to that part of the narrative which concerned  Elaine. There I paused, hardly knowing how to go on.

"Pray continue," Mr. Langdon said, noticing my hesitation.

"You have given me your word of honour that nothing that I am going to tell you shall ever pass your lips, Mr. Langdon," I went on, making the plunge, "I shall mention no names, but I fear, even then, you will identify the person whom I mean. I took this diamond, the day after I received it, down to the country residence of some very old friends of mine. The daughter of the house is the girl I love. I believe she loves me. Though we were not formally engaged, it was well known that our marriage was to take place. I believed this girl to be the incarnation of purity and virtue. I went down to this house with the known object of formally engaging myself. That same night I was standing outside the billiard-room windows, having switched off the electric light, so that I might admire the better the splendour of the sky.

"As I was standing there I heard the door open, and turning round I saw the figure of the girl I loved enter, with a candle in her hand. With some silly idea of playing a joke upon her, I moved back quietly behind the curtains, from where I could watch her without beings seen. She looked about the room carefully, and then walked quietly up to the mantelpiece. On the mantelpiece I had left the diamond, sealed up in a box, ready to be taken to Chancery-lane Safe Deposit the following morning. I saw her pick up the box, when, suddenly, somebody seized me from behind and flung me on the ground. But before I lost my senses I knew the girl I loved was a thief.

"Strange as it may appear, Mr. Langdon, I still loved her. I determined to shield her. The fortunate incident of my assailant, who was subsequently found dead in the neighbourhood of the house, gave me the opportunity .I desired for explaining away the loss of the jewel. To the girl herself I frankly avowed my love, saying that I would still marry her, provided she would make a full confession to me of the theft. She met my overtures with scorn, haughtily pretended that I was mad, and ended by plainly showing that she wanted nothing more to do with me. I subsequently learnt by chance that she had been involved heavily in several bridge debts of which she dared not tell her father. Fearful, however, of retaining possession of the diamond, but still anxious to obtain the money she required, she resorted to a subterfuge which it wall almost impossible for I, who had known her hitherto, to believe she could have conceived.

"She advertised in the agony columns of the newspapers. I won't bore you with all the details of the sordid story. It is sufficient for me to say that I  ultimately went to some empty house, and after handing over the money through a hole in the wall, received from her own hands the package containing the diamond.

"That is my story, Mr. Langdon. My one object after that last episode was to rid myself of the cursed jewel. A hint, conveyed to me by an anonymous correspondent, solved the problem for me of its disposal. I went to Bythnia to return it to the Queen, but a series of incidents, absolutely beyond my comprehension, prevented me from ever prosecuting it."

I then proceeded to relate to Mr. Langdon the facts with which he was already partially acquainted, regarding my adventures in Bythnia. He heard me out to the end. When I had ceased, he leant forward on the table, resting his face in his hands.

"You have told me your story," he said, "and you have given me your confidence. I will try to repay the trust you have honoured me with. You want to do two things, I take it― to rid yourself of this incubus, this jewel, which is still in the keeping of the hotel keeper at Neva, and to come to an understanding with the girl you love. My advice in both cases is to go to Bythnia. That is the key to the situation. The jewel is at Neva; the girl is at Neva. I think what you propose to do about the jewel is Quixotic. If you don't want it, let the hotel keeper keep it. But I quite approve of your attitude towards the young lady."

He paused a moment and eyed me steadily. "I believe I have the honour of her acquaintance, and though I admit the proofs against her are overwhelming, I daresay she has some explanation. That explanation, for your own happiness and hers, you are entitled to hear from her lips. There may he an explanation. It may be― I don't say it is at all probable, but I should be glad if it could be― that you have been grievously mistaken. At any rate, every accused is entitled to a defence, and according to our stupid English ideas everybody is innocent until they are proved guilty. Remember, she has never yet pleaded guilty. Even a lover is entitled to give the girl he loses the benefit of the doubt."

I shook my head despondingly. There was no doubt in my mind, unfortunately.

"Well, well," continued Mr. Langdon, stopping my outburst, "let us wait and see. As I said before, the key of the situation is Bythnia, and to Bythnia you must go."

I pointed out to him the dangers which I ran. How Colonel Alexieff had told me plainly that, for some reason which I could not guess at, I should be treated as a conspirator against the Government, and shot at sight.

"My dear fellow," retorted Langdon, "there will be no difficulty about that. Remember that once you have secured your diamond you have a passport of the protection of the throne. But perhaps you fear the risk?"

His words made me angry. "I never considered the risk, Mr. Langdon," I returned haughtily. "My only reason for my mentioning Colonel Alexieff's threat to you was to place before you all the difficulties which I would have to surmount when I got to Bythnia, so that you might give me the benefit of your advice. I should be a poor creature if I feared to run such a risk when I have so much at stake."

A strange smile came over his face. He came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

"That was well spoken," he said. "Forgive my words. You shall start for the scene of campaign as soon as possible, and it seems likely we shall have some more adventures together."

"We?" I repeated, in surprise.

"Yes, we," retorted Langdon, with his cryptic smile; "we will go together. I am going to see this thing through."

18

I WAS in good company. Mr. Langdon knew every foot of the capital of Bythnia, and with a grim smile remarked that he considered himself quite able to match wits with Colonel Alexieff. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that if Alexieff once more got hold of me within the borders of the troubled State whose domestic peace it was his duty to preserve, it would not be deportation over the border, but a speedy transit from this world to another for me. However, if I was not to give up my mission altogether, leave the jewel entrusted to me to take its chance with the hotel-keeper at Nova and abandon all hope of gazing, even from a distance, upon Elaine― to Bythnia I must go, and face the music.

That same evening, when, by arrangement, I called round at Mr. Langdon's Hotel, I was met with the surprising announcement that he had left. I don't know whether I was more angry than surprised. For the man to leave me in the lurch, after all he had promised, was exasperating. Was all the world in league against me? I turned from the office of the hotel in disgust, and, standing on the doormat, wondered whether, after all, I had not better cut my losses― moral, intellectual, and politic― and settle down to my old life in London, without either the jewel, my uncle's goodwill, and without―

Yet, this was the point at which I hesitated. The other things might go― the diamond― infernal nuisance that it was― would be better out of the way for the sake of everybody concerned; the hotel keeper could lose it, sell it, pawn it, or keep it sealed unto the end of his days; the Queen of Bythnia might wear her tiara like every other woman and rest content without the jewel of Diocletian to add lustre to a kingdom acquired by force and fraud.

But that last scene with Elaine in the bandits' den on the hillside was ever  before my eyes. If the daughter of so honoured a guest as a British Ambassador could be spirited away by bloodthirsty ruffians a couple of days after her arrival in the country what might not happen to her in my absence? It was true the soldiers had been sent to fetch her, a fact which clearly demonstrated that the bandits were encouraged by the authorities, who could rescue their prisoners if they desired. There was not the slightest doubt that she had seen kidnapped with the connivance of Alexieff, and that these villainous brigands on the mountains were a useful agency for quietly disposing of people whom the head of the secret police wished to see out of the way without the fuss and political danger of a public trial. Whatever happened I must get back somewhere near Elaine.

That cursed diamond, with its wicked, malignant, mocking brilliancy, had come between us, but was such love as ours to be withered up by the glitter of a mere bauble? I swung myself round and paced the hall of the hotel in excited mental protest, and in so doing cannoned against a gentleman to whom I mechanically apologised.

"Don't mention it, young man; bit worried this morning; somebody late, I suppose. Well, it's a slow country you're in."

I looked up at this garrulous person who had hit upon the very cause of the trouble. It was a keen-faced, strong-looking man, with a pointed beard, the ideal of the successful American business man. He smiled on me in a friendly way.

"Do you know, young person, I have kinder taken to you. Strikes me we have a lot in common. Just come upstairs to my private sitting-room and let's talk things over. Now do."

Some tourist anxious to get hold of a native to show him round! I had not time for this sort of thing, and I was about to move off with a muttered apology when the gentleman, linking his arm in mine, led me upstairs. At first I felt inclined to hit him, but that was out of the question. He was so much older than myself that although I might be within my right, nobody would believe it. I tried to disengage my arm without being too rough with him, but he clung to me with such good-natured persistence that at lest, thinking it could be only a case of a few minutes, and determined to make my escape at the first opportunity, I suffered him to conduct me to his room.

He shut the door and drawing a chain before it sat down to contemplate me with an amused smile that got on my nerves and did not improve my already ruffled temper.

"As soon as it is convenient to yourself, sir," I said, assuming a tone of icy courtesy, "perhaps you will tell me what on earth you mean by thus thrusting your society upon one who has given you no earthly encouragement."

He crossed his legs, lit a cigar, and only laughed more heartily.

"Your conduct, sir, makes me almost forget the respect due to a stranger  and a gentleman so much my senior. Will you move away from that door, or shall I have to make my way out by force?"

"Well, I guess there will have to be force on both aides if there is any  going," he remarked coolly, as he slowly and artistically reached his hand back to a hip pocket and drew out what in his own vernacular he would describe as "a gun".

He certainly had what I believe is appropriately described as "the drop on me." However useful I might have found firearms in Bythnia, I never had any occasion to carry any in London. I was once more trapped. The experience was becoming quite natural. I began to calmly consider within my own mind whether this was one of Colonel Alexieff's men, an emissary of the Sultan, or a new and original claimant for the Diocletian diamond.

"You had better put that thing in your pocket again," I said as coolly as I could. "You understand, I suppose, that if you start pointing pistols at a law-abiding citizen in this country you will find yourself at the end of a long rope, or within stone walls for a pretty considerable time."

He continued to regard me with impudent and critical coolness till at last losing all sense of caution, I picked up a chair, and shielding myself with it, I ran bang at him. He slipped aside, and I jammed the chair against the door almost choking myself with the back of it, which caught me well under the chin.

"Now that's real good," remarked my imperturbable tormentor, patting me gently on the back, "and I think with a spirit of that sort we will go through with it all right."

I dropped the chair and turned round in amazement. The voice of the genial American had gone, and Herbert Langdon stood before me. The disguise was perfect. He laughed softly.

"I do not know whether I can trust you to play the part so well, but you will just have to let me fake you up, and I shall want you as my private secretary. The salary won't be big at first, but remember that you are travelling as the companion and secretary of Tobias Hudson of Illinois."

WE SET out for Bythnia together, I in my role as an English secretary to an American millionaire, and so beautifully got up that my friends passed me in the Strand when I went out to test the disguise. As the continental mail rushed through town, mountain, and plain, Mr. Langdon pointed out to us various places that hitherto had been mere incidents in an occasional journey to one country or another. He was undoubtedly the most interesting man I had ever met as a travelling companion. We slept on board the train. For some reason he was convinced that time was an object, and I had put myself entirely under his guidance.

At breakfast in the dining-car a lady, absurdly veiled, stood for a moment at the door. I just saw her reflection in a looking-glass as she turned away. We went on with our meal and took no further notice of the timid young person, although it seemed to me she wanted the whole compartment to herself.

"I wonder why on earth girls go about with bundles of drapery over their noses," Langdon remarked bluntly, when at last we got up to get a smoke. The object of this satirical remark was sitting in the corner of a compartment as we passed along. I felt that she was watching us, and I saw her start when Mr. Langdon spoke to me, though her face was at the time hidden by a magazine.

Later on, when I went back to the dining-car to fetch a book, she was sitting at the table we had occupied. Evidently we had secured her favourite seat, hence her determination to wait. I got up to the table before she heard me, and murmuring a "pardon me," I reached over for the book.

She looked up. Our eyes met but for an instant. I turned away in confusion; she bent her head over her plate. In my disguise she did not recognise me, but I knew her. The lady was Edith Beverley.

I wanted to talk to her, to ask her about Wickliffe, but Langdon sternly forbade me.

"You will only give yourself away, and besides, the less we have to say to that lady just now the better," he added, with one of his mysterious smiles.

When the train steamed into Neva I anxiously watched the platform, expecting to see Elaine there to meet her friend. There was, however, nobody from the Embassy in sight, and Edith Beverley herself had mysteriously disappeared. I watched every passenger, not only at the train itself, but at the turnstile. Daring everything, we went straight to the hotel where I had stopped previously, Mr. Langdon doing the free and easy tourist with all the honours, brazening it out so delightfully that I, as the modest, retiring secretary, had little to do but murmur assent to everything he said.

My friend the landlord watched us with the keen interest of a proprietor who had netted a couple of desirable guests. There was the inevitable visit from the police, whom Mr. Langdon bluffed as he did everybody else, and at nightfall we set out for a quiet walk round the town.

Mr Langdon led the way to a restaurant frequented by men of the aristocracy, and by visitors from various countries. It was one of those places where men sit about in groups playing games, and each group taking little notice of the other. A knot of officers occupied a table at one end and played cards. At another table, far away, a group of well-to-do merchants discussed public affairs. Cosmopolitans entered and left promiscuously, and Mr. Langdon, leading the way to a small table in an alcove, called for a bottle of wine.

"I think, my young friend," he said, "we have arrived in this delightful place in just about the right time to see things hum."

"Well, if they hum any faster than they did when I was here last, so far as I am personally concerned, it looks like being tolerably lively. I do not see much change in the state of affairs."

"That's because you do not know where to look and what to see. You will, perhaps, be surprised to hear, my dear boy, that we are at this moment sitting on top of one of the most joyful political volcanoes that Europe has seen for some little time. At any moment this little crowd here may become a set of struggling, fighting atoms, banding themselves under separate leaders, and when it starts here it will spread itself elsewhere without very much ceremony. If Alexieff is half as clever as he used to be, he has got a cordon round the place, through which nobody will slip to-night unless he is willing,"

"Talk of the devil―"

"Hush! Remember this is your first visit to this country."

"I will try and remember," I whispered hoarsely, "but I would give a good deal to stand out here in the middle of the room and shake the life out of that infernal old rascal."

The gentleman for whom I entertained these friendly desires had calmly taken as seat at one of the tables, and calling for some wine, lighted a cigarette, as though he had just dropped in for half an hour's relaxation. The officers at the table greeted him, and he returned their salute, but did not join them. The other people in the restaurant watched him narrowly, and  whispered to each other; but he apparently took no notice of anybody, reading the newspaper for a while, and then strolling off to the table to chat with the soldiers.

There was an unmistakable air of relief about the gathering when at last he got up and strolled out as leisurely as he had arrived.

"Well, that's not very dramatic, anyway," I remarked to Mr. Langdon.

"So you think, but I guess the old fox has seen as much over the top of that newspaper in those few minutes as you would observe in half a day. I think, too, I have seen enough to take you back to the hotel, in case your hot young blood should lead you into trouble."

He took me through a door opposite that by which we had entered. We passed along a corridor decked with plants and palms, a little distance behind a group of young men in civilian dress who had been sitting at a table a little way off. One of them looked at us narrowly, and then fiercely whispered something to his companions.

"The worst thing about these tarnation European countries is that they have such outlandish languages that you can never make out what they are saying. English, as we call it in America, is good enough for me."

As Mr. Langdon said this he nudged me, and I as innocently replied: "Yes, one might spend a couple of lifetimes learning half the tongues of the Continent, and forget them all before they got used! The best plan is to learn none but your own."

The young men near us were chatting in subdued murmurs as they waited. The one who had specially noticed us turned smartly round as my companion addressed me in broad American, and said something in the Bythnian patois to his neighbours. They paused at the door, and so did we, Mr. Langdon very slowly lighting a cigar and looking about him as though uncertain which turning to take. The young men fell into a somewhat excited argument, one party evidently hotly contesting the suggestion of another party.

While they were thus debating, there was a sudden hush as Colonel Alexieff, heavily cloaked, strode silently along. He raised his ha as thought to return the salute of a patrol on the other side of the road, and immediately a file of uniformed men stepped out from a covering close by. They advanced towards the hotel entrance, and as they did so a line of men at the other end of the street also closed in. Quick as thought, one of the young men at the doorway, who had realised the situation and anticipated its effect, caught Colonel Alexieff by the back of his cloak and dragged him into the hotel.

Alexieff reached for his sword, there was a rush and a scramble, and, carried off my feet before I knew it, I also was back in the hotel corridor. The door slammed, there was a hammering and a beating on it, and then all was darkness. I could hear the people in the restaurant shouting and protesting; there was a sound as of falling table and broken china, and above it all I heard a voice I could swear I knew calling out authoritatively in the language of the Bythnians.

19

I WAS groping my way along the passage to where I thought the other door might be, when a hand was laid on me. At first the man passed his fingers rapidly over my garments, and then clutching me more firmly began dragging me along the passage. As I came in contact with him I felt that he was in uniformed person, and at once understood why he had satisfied himself as to the nature of my apparel. All civilians are being arrested, and I should assuredly be once more in the grip of Colonel Alexieff. We stumbled against other figures in the corridor, but my assailant obviously believed in the principle of one man one job. He clung tenaciously to me, ignoring all other obstacles.

Slipping my leg round his, and getting my knee under his fifth rib, I managed to throw him, and together we rolled on the carpeted floor, smashing a tremendous palm as we fell. He was a smaller man than myself in girth, and getting my arms around him I hugged him like a grizzly bear till I thought I had squeezed the breath out of him. Just then I heard the voice I had already recognised close to me, issuing some instructions to the people around him. At the sound I started, and the momentary pause gave my antagonist his opportunity.

I had relaxed my hold of him, and in an instant he had wriggled me over. With business-like precision he got his knee on my chest and his hand on my throat. It now ceased to be a mere struggle between officer and prisoner. It was a fight for life. He dug his fingers into my windpipe and pumped the breath out of my body with his knee. I could feel my eyes starting out o their sockets; and gurgling out a protest in English I struggled desperately to loosen his grip. He held on, however, with fiendish tenacity, and I could hear him gasping in spitefully triumphant frenzy.

Then all at once there was another movement. I felt him being lifted up, still holding on to me like a bull terrier. Then there was at dull thud and his fingers loosened their grip. Breathless and for the moment useless, I allowed myself to be lifted up by a third man, who whispered in German: "Follow the wall and open the first door on the right." With this he put me against the side of the corridor, and I struggled slowly on.

Following his instructions, I pushed open it door on the right. It led into another narrow passage, along which I groped my way to another door at the far end― this, in turn, I pushed open, and found myself in a room dimly lighted with a carefully sheltered candle. I could hear voices speaking in whispers at the far end of the room behind a curtain, and I was about to make for it when a door behind was cautiously closed. I drew aside the curtain, and, as I expected, there was nobody there. With this I kicked the door violently, and having recovered my breath, and my combativeness, by this time, I called out loudly:

"Come out of that you skulking scum whoever you are, or I'll smash every door and window in your infernal café. Do not think you're going to keep me shut up in this dirty little inn just because some of you have had a row among yourselves?"

Again I kicked the door. It was very cautiously opened an inch or two, and I promptly got my foot inside it.

"Now then throw it open altogether," I said. "If this is the way out, l'm going. If it isn't you'll find me an unpleasant kind of guest, I can assure you."

There was further whispering, and I heard the word "English" mentioned once of twice in conjunction with another word which I had picked up enough of the language of the country to understand implied "lunatic." The door was opened wider, and with a bound I went in knocking over a man, and cannoning heavily against another.

I just caught sight of the face of a third― the landlord of my hotel― when here again the lights went out. Somebody took my arm gently, and as there was no violence I allowed myself to be thus conducted. Then I felt the cold evening air on my face; I was ,thrust out into the open. My friends, whoever they were, left me there, and in the gloom of night, I gradually saw I was in some courtyard of a sort, apparently at the back of the café. It was a narrow place, filled with refuse, leading into a ruinous and mildewed passage, along between the back walls of other houses. Taking this course which, at all events, led away from the lively operations through which I had passed, I found myself out in the dimly-lit street. A man in uniform marched up and said something in a short, sharp voice, apparently demanding my business. A hasty reply was on my lips, when in the meagre light a shadow fell across the officer and a hearty voice interposed.

"Well, my young friend, I have been looking for you pretty considerably, and here you are like a lost soul directed by the police."

It was Mr. Langdon once again, at the point of the crisis. Turning to the policeman he until a few words in the language the man understood. The officer looked at us doubtfully for a moment or two, and then turning on his heel marched away.

"And now for the second time of asking, just you come home. It strikes me you have had another narrow escape. It was a bit slow of me to let you get back into that hotbed of sedition. I tried to reach you in time, but was shut out like the rest."

"With the result that got me half murdered," I said feeling my throat, which still ached from the grip of the fellow's fingers. "But tell me what has happened. All I know is that I suddenly found myself in a dark passage with some uniformed person doing his best to haul me somewhere, and then making a moderately successful attempt to choke the life out of me."

"What happened," repeated Mr. Langdon as he hurried me along in the middle of the street, "was another bad move for Alexieff, who ought to have had more brains. Those young men who came out with us are the faithful adherents of the old dynasty. There is just now a plot maturing, and Alexieff has some notion what it is. He had his men round the restaurant, as I expected, with instructions to stop and detain on some pretence or the other certain men whom he would indicate. He got them all of a bundle there at the door, but was a bit clumsy in calling his men up. One of them very cleverly jerked him inside, slammed the door and divided the attention of the police, who seeing their chief in the restaurant, tried hard to get there too, leaving several of the conspirators a clear road to get away. They have been hammering on the door ever since, trying to get to the help of their colleagues who were Inside, who, in turn, have no doubt been trying to get every civilian under arrest meanwhile."

"Exactly, one of them started on me, but somebody released me, and after long manoeuvring here I am."

"Yes, I rather thought you would come out at this end if you got out anywhere. In my young days about this place this was a convenient exit when we didn't want to be particularly noticed by anybody, and apparently they have kept it fairly private ever since."

"But how did they get the lights out so easily? They must be in league with the proprietor."

"I should be surprised at that. I tell you, my boy, this is about the biggest effort that has yet been made to restore the old line. There was at pretty batch of them in that restaurant to-night, but by the time the lights get on again and Alexieff finds himself ridiculously safe huddled up a side room there will be nothing to show that anything has happened more than a harmless student's lark."

"Then you think Alexieff is not damaged?"

"No, that is a privilege still left for somebody else. It is no part of their game to have any bloodshed at this moment. Things are not ripe just yet, but they very soon will be. And then, my dear boy, there will be the most sanguinary struggle that Europe has seen for many a day. There will be more spilling of blood to the square yard of territory than there has been in any of the wars that have devastated countries and empires. God knows where it will end. It will be a fight to a finish. One side or the other will be wiped out, if I mistake not, and nobody can say who will go with them."

"Who will go with them?" I repeated slowly to myself. "Do you mean to say." I added aloud, "that peaceful people not concerned with the revolution may be drawn into it?"

"If foreign Governments are on the alert in time they may bring in their own soldiers to look after their own people, and it is quite possible that whichever party gets uppermost it will protect foreigners so far as it can for the sake of its future peace and welfare, but in these upheavals the most mischief is done at the beginning."

Then Elaine might be in danger!

I walked along in silence for a while, and then suddenly turning to my companion, and said: "We must stop this revolution."

"That's rather a big ambition for two wayfarers," he replied with a laugh. "See, I am right, they have managed to get the restaurant back to its former condition, and everything looks as placid as it did two hours ago."

We had worked our way round to the front of the café by this time, and from a respectful distance we could see that the place was lighted up. The main room was not so crowded, but people were sitting at the tables, and the waiters were moving about among them. The little party of officers whom we had noticed earlier in the evening looked somewhat unhappy. It was evident that they had been outwitted by the students, who had cut off the communication between the long corridor and this particular part of the restaurant. We still saw patrols watching the main entrances, and could well imagine that other comrades of theirs were ready at a sign to close all, but the attempt to raid the cafe had failed badly.

I loitered till Mr. Langdon with a friendly but firm grip pulled me off.

"We've got into enough mischief tonight, my boy," he said. "It's time you were in bed.

"But can we do nothing?" I asked petulantly, "It seems incredible that this thing is to go on under our very noses, and we cannot lift our hand to stop it."

"Yes, I felt something of that sort of feeling myself the first time I got mixed up in an affair of this sort, but the world would grow weary if it never had excitement."

"But is the spilling of more blood going to do anybody any good?" I asked.

Mr. Langdon shrugged his shoulders and led me away to the hotel.

When he had got me safe in our own room he consented to renew the conversation.

"The trouble here," he explained, "is that there are two conflicting families each equally entitled to the throne. The late King, the man who was murdered, was the only one of his house in the kingdom at the time. There was another, a stepbrother of his, Prince John, who had been sent out of the country when but a child. He was brought up under another name, but doubtless educated up to the literature, the traditions, and the politics of his own country, in view of possible developments. When the country became so dissatisfied with the late King and Queen there was some talk of bringing him back from England, but the feeling in the army was so strong that they determined to clear out the old gang entirely and revert to the other family.

"Outside the army, among the students, and with a certain section of the army itself, there is still a longing to bring in this young man― who must by this time be about in the prime of life― and restore the ancient dynasty. I have good reason to believe that they have discovered the young man; that, indeed, he has been in touch with them for some little time, and is in Bythnia at this moment. By the bye, you passed a young lady in the train who was one of your fellow-guests at The Heathlands."

"Edith Beverley? I had forgotten her. She did not get out of the train with us."

"No, I noticed that. Do you happen to know anything about her? Anything as to what her real name is; for, of course, there was never a Bythnian girl named Beverley yet?"

"No; I intended to ask Elaine― that is, Miss Gibney― but events went so rapidly at The Heathlands that I forgot all about it. What do you know of her?"

"Only this, that there is somewhere, educated under an ordinary English name, a lady who is of the same common stock as the present dynasty, though of another branch thereof, and not on the best of terms with it. If the present King were sleeping with his fathers, or back to his old haunts in Berlin and Paris, and there were a match between the missing member of the other family and this young lady, it would be about the neatest marital coup of modern times."

"A fitting solution, perhaps, to the whole difficulty."

"Possibly so, but in the working of it both the lady and the young man may get swept away, and in any case they may bring about the ruin and the destruction of―"

I did not hear the end of the sentence; I was thinking furiously. Edith Beverley was a protégé of Sir George Gibney. Elaine Gibney was her close friend; any political movement in which she was implicated must indirectly implicate Elaine also. In the first fury of conflict anything might happen.

"Is there nothing that can bring about peace without all this bloodshed?" I again asked desperately.

"It seems a childish thing to say in these matter-of-fact times, but the diamond is the solution," replied Mr. Langdon slowly. "The present Queen, as you are aware, covets and desires that historic gem― firstly, because she is a woman; but, secondly, and in a greater degree, because she is Queen of Bythnia and wants to remain so. She has enough of the Bonaparte blood in her to know the value of popular favour, and she is astute enough to realise that she is in a land where superstition lives with all its mediaeval influence. The possession of the Diocletian diamond means more to her than the mere desire to maintain a poetic tradition of the Bythnian crown. It is a talisman that would rally the people of Bythnia to the present dynasty. Nothing could shake them if it became known that she held the diamond. The possession of it is the key to the whole situation; it would quell the coming insurrection without a blow being struck."

Then the return of the diamond meant more than I thought. It was not merely a case of restoring it to a claimant in order to ease my own conscience, but of saving the life's blood of a nation. There was no time to be lost. The King and Queen themselves must be aware that plots were brewing around them, and the production of the diamond would be sufficient excuse for any measures I might take to force my way to the palace.

I unfolded my plan to Mr. Langdon.

"You must. Your main difficulty," he said, "will be with Alexieff's men. They will want to keep you out, and you must not tell your tale to them. Nobody must see this precious gem, or even know you have it in your possession, until you open the box in the presence of the Queen herself. It will be a dangerous game to play, but I think I know a means of doing it, and I want you to understand that though I am helping you in this errand my sympathies are on the other side. If I were sure the thing could be accomplished I would rather lend my aid to Prince John than to this man who has waded through blood to the throne. It is only because I fear these unhappy people are only marching on to destruction that I am anxious to prevent them making targets of themselves; though, on the whole, I don't think the young man is quite such a good lot as he might be. However, go off and get your diamond from the landlord if he has got back from the cafe."

"Then you saw him there, too?"

"Yes, but I saw him a good deal before you saw him, simply because I expected to see him, and you did not.'

I went to the landlord's private apartment and gently knocked at the door. Smiling as though he had never moved out of the place, my host was sitting in his office. He expressed the hope that I was comfortable, and that I had no complaints to make.

"I have come for my box," I said simply.

He shook his head. "I do not understand to what monsieur refers," he said.

I glanced at my reflection in the looking-glass over the fireplace, and remembered how I had changed my appearance. With a laugh, explaining that I would shortly return, I went back to Mr. Langdon.

"Well, as you may have to make a bold dash for it, you may as well go back to your own self," he said, and together we proceeded to transform the secretary of Tobias Hudson into Stephen Harland. When again I presented myself at the office and demanded my box, the landlord leaped up and taking both my hands in his greeted me with an embarrassing exhibition of joy.

"You have returned in time," he said: "at the very time I expected you. I knew you would return. I will give the seal into your keeping. It makes me your servant, but have a care! Do not give Alexieff an opportunity. Hush! he is here. Quick, into this closet, and move not for your life!"

20

HE BUNDLED me into a cupboard so small that I could barely stand upright in it, and drew a curtain across it just as the door of his office opened. I could hear the hard voice of Alexieff giving a surly response to his greeting.

"So you are here," said the Colonel gruffly.

With a profusion of thanks to the gallant Colonel for his kind attention, and for the honour he had done the hotel by calling, my host protested his business was too troublesome to permit him to leave it for a moment. It was obvious that the Colonel was not satisfied.

"You have two English visitors in the hotel," he said. "Where are they now?"

"Not two English― one American and one English," corrected the landlord. They are in their rooms at this moment, possibly. The American, I ought to say, is not pleased when he is disturbed late at night."

"I have no desire to disturb him," replied Alexieff sourly. "You appear to be the favourite host of these Anglo-Saxons."

"My hotel is known, I trust, for its proper attention to the desires of my guests."

I could imagine my host rubbing his hands and smiling on the suspicious Colonel, who, much to my discomfort, appeared in no hurry to depart. I heard him strike a match. I know that he was deliberately lighting a cigar, and then I heard him remark, as though quite casually:

"You had an Englishman here not long ago― an gentleman whom I had the pleasure of meeting, and who was at the royal reception in honour of the English Ambassador. What became of him after the reception, by the way?"

"He left for the palace, and did not return."

"Not even to pay his bill?"

"His bill was settled by the agents of his bankers here. I had nothing to complain about the Englishman's conduct."

"Except, perhaps, that the left certain of his possessions here to be a burden to you?"

"No, they were no burden. The gentleman travelled with very little luggage, no more than could be despatched to the address from which he engaged the rooms in England."

"What right had you to send away anything without first consulting the police?"

"I had no idea the gentleman was under the surveillance of the police."

"Who said he was?" I could hear that Alexeiff was annoyed at having almost given himself away. His game was to pretend he knew nothing about my speedy departure from Bythnia, but still he evidently wanted to continue the conversation.

Cramped up in the cupboard, with no room to stretch my limbs, and hardly room to breathe, I listened acutely for the development of this highly personal conversation. It was continued in a short, sharp question:

"Do you expect him back again?"

"No rooms have been ordered by him as yet."

The next question was even more interesting. The Colonel had apparently walked to the door with the intention of going off, and their coming back again; he sat down so close to the cupboard in which I was confined that I held my breath for fear his alert ears should hear my movements through the keyhole.

"Do you know," he asked the landlord in a confidential tone, "who that young man really was?"

"I will look up his name and particulars in the book."

"No, no, I don't mean that," the Colonel said impatiently. "Of course, I  know the name he gave you, but we have reason to suppose that he is somebody else― somebody, my good man, whom it would be dangerous for you to harbour. Let me advise you, not only as an officer of the State, but as a friend, that the needs of the State demand drastic measures. For the sake of Bythnia and its people, we are determined to stop at nothing that will stamp out any foolish, attempts to disturb the conditions which, by the aid of His Majesty, we have established in Bythnia. We have reason to believe the young man whom you harboured was―" Here the Colonel dropped his voice so low that I could not catch the remainder of the sentence. I could hear my landlord, however, protesting his astonishment and expressing his Incredulity. The Colonel, drawn thus far, talked longer, and as he left I heard him extract a promise that he should be informed of any details that could be discovered as to my whereabouts.

"Remember," he said― and I could feel that he was laying his heavy hand on the shoulder of my host― "there can only be one king in Bythnia. If your friend and guest returns, he will be shot, and if you harbour him for a single day you have a good chance of sharing his fate."

This was cheerful. Within a couple of feet, separated from me only by a thin piece of wood and a curtain was an armed man who had made up his mind to kill me at sight, and talked about it with a business-like air of a person who did this sort of thing periodically as a matter of ordinary routine.

The atmosphere in my narrow cupboard was becoming almost suffocating, yet the blood-guilty old ruffian seemed in no particular hurry to go. He continued chatting to the landlord, and the strain on nerve and limb became so impossible that I found myself meditating the chances of bursting open the door and throttling my persecutor before he could call for assistance.

The idea so worked upon me that I was just setting my knee to the lock when at last, with a gruff good-night, he went out and I heard the door slam behind him. My host waited till spurs and sword clanked along the passage to the street door, and then carefully locking the door of his office, he let me out of my temporary prison.

"You are in great danger," he whispered excitedly. "The Colonel―"

"Yes, yes, I know all about it. I heard your conversation," I said, cutting in as the impulsive Bythnian began to exhibit an embarrassing measure of consternation concerning me. "But what was the meaning of that tommy-rot he was talking about me?"

"Alexieff uses a thousand eyes. His spies are in all lands. It is well that the time is ripe for you. You must have a care, however, that you do not play into his hands by exposing yourself too soon."

"I intend to expose myself pretty quickly and make a dash for it," I said.

"No, no, I pray you be cautious. A false move would spoil all."

"And delay is impossible," I retorted, and then it dawned upon me that I was thinking of one thing, and my landlord thinking of another. "Anyway, give me the box," I added.

Carefully making sure that the curtains were drawn, he opened the heavy  iron safe, and from a secret drawer inside he produced the box with the seal intact, just as I had given it to him a little while ago. Hurrying away to escape his almost fawning reverence, I went upstairs to Mr. Langdon.

"I must apologise for being so long," I began.

He stopped me with a wave of his hand.

"I know all about it. The fox nearly ran the rabbit to his lair. I was waiting for developments not so very far from the old thief's elbow."

"Then you heard―"

"Yes, I heard, and now I begin to understand what I have suspected all along. Allow me to congratulate you on your promotion."

"Promotion to what?"

"To the honour and dignity of it royal pretender."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"That you have been the central figure in one of the best political jokes of modern times. You are the stepbrother of the late King. You arrived here to foment a revolution in your favour; you were deported over the border; tried to get back through Austria; you were passed on by the polite Austrians to the Fatherland, where, as a person of royal blood, you had the honour of entertaining the Kaiser, who gave you fatherly advice, and passed you on to the land of your adoption. That is your story in a nutshell, as Europe sees it today."

"But the absurdity of it all!"

"The absurdities of real life, my dear young friend, are more thoroughly humorous than the creations of the nimblest wits. You will have a difficulty in convincing these good people that you are a plain, homely, English squire."

"But why?"

Mr. Langdon gently tapped the seal on the box.

"That is why," he said. "You are the holder of this sign manual, the passport to the hearts of Bythnian Jacobites. Alexieff saw it in your possession, and that is sufficient evidence for him, added to the fact that you came from England, for no apparent reason, to this town, where no ordinary tourist ever comes. Moreover, there is pretty good reason to believe that in London you spent a good deal of time in the society of people who are concerned in this quickly maturing plot."

"Oh, nonsense! I know nothing of any conspirators in London. My companions are too fond of an easy life to bother their heads with even the politics of their own people, let alone the complications of this God-forgotten country."

Again he tapped the seal. "Been much in the company of the owner of that?" he asked.

"Wickliffe! why, yes, of course. Since that day when he saved my life outside the club, we have gone about together a good deal. We were two of a sort, with nothing much to do in life but entertain each other. Why do you ask?"

Langdon fell into one of his cryptic silences. I put the question again and he avoided It.

"Anyway," he said, "up to now you are the King in embryo so long as you remain in this country. There is a price upon your head, and it is any man's business to shoot you at sight. Pardon these candid details. It isn't an ideal sort of position for a young man with his life in front of him."

"Well, what's to be done next?" I asked philosophically, leaning back in my chair.

"The wise thing would be to got into disguise, slip out in the dead of night, get clear across the border, and then make tracks for England and stop there."

"Then what about my mission: what about Bythnia, what will happen here?"

"Something very simple, and something very decisive. There will be a rising of the old party in a day or two. The streets will be flooded with blood; a nice little army of healthily adults on both sides will be cut up; the winners in the revolution will put all the losers that happen to be left against a convenient wall and picturesquely drill holes in them with regulation bullets, but you will be out of it all, so it need not worry you a very great deal."

"Then you surely don't mean to suggest that I should sneak off when I have in my possession that which may save thousands of lives."

"And sacrifice yours?"

"No, I'll see you hanged first, and myself shot. Whatever happens, I'm going to see this thing through," I said, jumping up and pacing the room in front of my cautious adviser.

For almost the first time since I had known him, the man seemed to come out of himself. He always talked and acted as though he were an amused observer, cynically looking on at the follies of a stupid world. Now he rose quickly from his chair, and clutching me by the hand, said: "You talk like a man, and I'II see you through like a man. Get to bed now and sleep: by to-morrow morning I shall have a plan ready of some sort. It may not be a safe plan, but we have to take the best we can get."

21

MR. LANGDON brought my breakfast up to me himself.

"Alexieff is sure to have a man, or more in the hotel," he said, "and when you start you will have to go with a dash. The Queen will be in her favourite blue-room at the palace this afternoon, where she receives visitors informally. Among the ladies Who will call upon her will be the daughter of tile Ambassador."

"Elaine?"

"The very same. Since she was captured by the brigands the young lady is not permitted to take violent exercise by herself, and she will be driven to the palace, where her father will probably call for her. She will set out from the Embassy, and her carriage will be safe from molestation, until she is in the presence of the Queen, who will be her surety then, till her father arrives to take her home."

"But how does all this affect me?"

"It is simply an opportunity' made for you by Providence. When Miss Gibney drives from the British Embassy to the palace she must have a companion with her in the carriage, and that companion must be Stephen Harland."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed. "I have told you the circumstances; you wouldn't expect me―"

"Yes, yes," Langdon broke in. "I understand. But for the moment you must be content to put up with a little lowering of pride if you are going to see this thing through. Put yourself in my hands, and do as you are told."

He had such a masterful way with him, and he knew the place so well, that in a closed carriage driven from the hotel, we reached the Embassy, and were In the reception-roe before anybody had recognised m and before I had courage to protest.

"Now then, I have brought you thus far, you must manage the rest for yourself," he said, and with that he left me just as a door at the other side of the room opened, and two ridiculously confused persons stood staring at each other.

"You have come to see my father, I presume," said Elaine, in a frigidly polite tone.

"No, Elaine, I haven't. I have come to see you." I spoke, looking her straight in the eyes, trying to make her understand, without the use of words, that the time had come for an explanation to take place between us. But she seemed to wilfully refuse to take my meaning.

"But I was told a gentleman was waiting on important business," she replied icily. "My carriage is waiting at the door, and I had better keep my appointment with the Queen."

She made as if to move away. I had forgotten entirely the main object of my presence there. I was bent only on forcing that long-delayed confession. It flashed into my mind that it would be a fitting climax to produce the diamond, and to hand it to its rightful owner in Elaine's presence. Then, indeed, the hideous thing would have passed out of our lives and we could begin again.

"I have a special request to make to you," I said lamely.  "I wish to go with you to the palace."

"I was not aware," she said, "that her Majesty was holding anything in the nature of a public reception to-day, but since you are invited there is no reason why you should not ride in my father's carriage."

There was accent on the mention of the words "my father's carriage" which was unmistakable. Brushing this aside I candidly confessed that I was not invited.

"Then how can you possibly ask me to go with you?" she said indignantly, turning towards the door.

"My request is justified by circumstances. Elaine, believe me, you will be the first to approve of what I am doing. The Queen will be the first to thank you for acceding to my request. You will earn her undying gratitude. You will confer an incalculable blessing on thousands of people."

I saw a look of pain pass over her face as she watched me. I knew  I thought what was passing in her mind. "Don't think me a raving madman," I said. "I assure you I am talking sober facts. You trusted me once; trust me just this time. You know me well enough at least to believe that your introduction will not in anyway be abused."

She held the door in her hand and watched me with a perplexed look in her lovely eyes. She hesitated as though doubtful what to say to me. I sprang forward as she made a movement to pass out of the door, and catching her hand I whispered passionately: "Elaine, if you leave me now we shall never meet again. I must tell you this before we part for ever; that the love I bear you has  not wavered; that it is still to me the sweetest thing in life, the only thing worth living for. It may possibly comfort you to think of that when I am nothing but the memory of a man who was. The request I am now making to you is the last desperate stroke in a game where my life is the stake, for which desperate men are playing. You met me in the bandits' den on the hillside; you know how the soldiers refused to rescue me; you do not know that I escaped death only by a series of happy accidents. Go your way now to the palace, and I will go mine. There is only one more word to be said between us this side the grave and that word― Farewell."

I had drawn her away from the door; I now opened it myself and held it for her.

"Your carriage will be waiting," I said, bowing, and opening the door still wider. "But where are you going?" she faltered.

"Going a long journey, the longest, the most fascinating, and yet the least inviting."

"What do you mean? Why do you talk to me in riddles?"

"This riddle, at all events, will be speedily solved. The moment I leave this house I shall be set upon by the men who sent me to the hills; and they have been good enough to give me fair warning that this time no risks will be taken. Within one hour from now Stephen Harland will have ceased to trouble the good people of this earth. I am suspected of something dangerous to the State, and you possibly know enough of the ways of this part of the world to understand that they take the safe course with people of that sort. Only one person In this kingdom can save me if I can convince her, as I am sure I can, that my miserable life is worth preserving. I either go to the Queen with you or I go to solve the mystery of the Great Unknown. Your carriage is waiting."

I held the door open and bowed. She whispered the one word, "Come!" and I followed her down the steps of the Embassy.

A man who was loitering at the entrance to the Ambassador's house brushed past the window of the carriage just as the footman closed the door. A man on horseback galloped by as we drove towards the palace, and I was not surprised to see a crowd of Alexieff's men waiting at the entrance to the palace Where the carriages of distinguished visitors were arriving. Our coachman drove close up to the door, and Elaine stepped lightly on to the marble step. As I made to follow her a man stepped forward and interposed between us, but with the air of a queen she brushed him aside. "This is a British subject. My father will be answerable for him," she said.

The officer paused. He did not want to let me go, and he dared not offend the British Minister. His hesitation served my purpose. Before he had time to frame, an answer, Elaine had taken my arm, and together we passed between lines of gaudily-uniformed flunkeys, through a suite of reception rooms, upholstered and decorated with all the brilliant colouring so characteristic of Bythnia. At the door of a lofty and gorgeous room, with blue walls, blue furniture, and a wealth of antique rich and rare blue tapestry, the Chamberlain of the Queen's household announced Elaine, and then, with an awkward pause, looked at me.

The Queen stepped forward and welcomed Elaine effusively. I stood meekly by, waiting my opportunity, and when in stately dignity she turned towards-me, I began: "Your Majesty―"

"Who is this?" she asked, first to the Chamberlain and then to Elaine. "I am not aware," she said to the trembling functionary, "that invitations are ever Issued to gentlemen for my private receptions."

The Chamberlain touched me lightly on the shoulder, and beckoned me to retire, but I was not going to give up the opportunity now that it had arrived. At a nod of his head, two men stepped forward and caught me roughly. I threw one of them his full length on the carpeted floor, and immediately half a dozen swords of men who ran up hastily were pointed at me. Another second, and I would have been carved up like a sliced lemon, but Elaine threw herself upon me. The sword points were lowered, and the men looked at the Queen for instructions.

"Your Majesty," replied Elaine, still clinging to me so long as the men with naked swords were by, "this gentleman is a personal friend of my father's. He has something very important to say to you."

At a sign from the Queen the soldiers withdrew, and the astonished Consort led the way into the room where several ladles were whispering excitedly to each other at this unheard-of incident in the private apartments of the Queen. I stood silent till the royal lady gave me permission to speak, and then I said, speaking slowly and with deliberation:

"Your Majesty is possibly aware that there is in existence a talisman which will gather to your side all true Bythnians; which will protect you from your enemies; may render more loyal your friends, and secure you the reverence of every true son of this ancient kingdom."

I waited to watch the effect of my words, and I could see by the gleam in her eyes that one person in the compony at least, understood that I was talking about something which had a real existence.

"That talisman," I went on slowly, "was known in ancient Bythnia as the Diocletian diamond."

"You have news of it, you know ,where it is? Tell me who has it; tell me at once, I say!"

The Queen was lost in the eager passion of the woman. She clutched me by the arm, heedless of her ladies-in-waiting, and spoke in a tone of mingled appeal and command.

"Before I tell your Majesty that, I wish to say there stands before you now  a man suspected by your secret police, persecuted by them, treated with every indignity, threatened with the penalty of death itself― condemned without trial; a man who has risked all these things and come back to Bythnia to hand you this token of the falsehood of his accusers and his own loyalty towards your royal house."

Her bejewelled fingers tightened their grip on my arm. Her face nearly touched mine. I could hear her heart beating under her throbbing bosom.

"You have the diamond!' she gasped. "Give it to me, and ask what reward you wish― it shall be freely granted:"

"l ask no reward," I answered, with the grandest air I could assume. "The dangers I have faced cannot be compensated in money. All I demand is freedom from persecution, and the trust due to an honest man."

"Yes, yes! But the diamond! Where is it?"

"Here!" I replied, taking the box out of my pocket.

The Queen leaned over my shoulder. I felt her warm breath on my neck as I stripped off the paper covering. The other ladies gathered round the table, and with a thrill of anticipated triumph I saw Elaine, flushed and eager, watching me as I laid the case on the table, just as I had done in the billiard-room at The Heathlands. I touched the spring; the lid flew open; I carefully removed the wadding, and displayed― a piece of coal!

A murmur of disgust from the ladies on the other side of the table; a scream of rage from the Queen; and a sob from Elaine― these confused sounds fell upon my ears like things in the distance. I refused to believe my eyes. I tumbled the contents of the box on the blue table cover. The murky dust as all too real. My brain was in a whirl, and I gazed at the black lump in the fond hope that I was in a hideous dream.

The awakening came, in the icy voice of the Queen:

"And now, sir, you may go!"

22

I SLUNK AWAY. There is no other word to express the manner of my exit from the presence of the Queen. To have attempted so much, to have gone through so many adventures and dangers to arrive at this moment, and then to find that all my labours had been in vain― it was too much! I felt crushed, humbled, and crestfallen, and I stumbled blindly out of the audience-chamber, through the long corridors, and out into the street, hardly knowing what I was doing. Through the mist that had gathered before my eyes I could see the scorn and contempt written on the faces of courtiers, who, had I been successful and produced the diamond of Diocletian, instead of this ridiculous piece of coal, would have fawned upon me in unctuous flattery, and done their best to curry favour with one who had placed the Court under such great obligations. Even the very flunkies seemed to regard me as a mean and contemptible thing. It was galling, maddening, and I longed at that moment to vent my exasperation in some physical outburst. For choice, I should have preferred five minutes with the person― if he was a man― who had played me such an abominable trick.

As I stumbled blindly down the grand staircase that led from the Queen's apartments I came face to face with Colonel Alexieff. He stared at me with an angry scowl, but I was in a hurry to fly away from my disappointment, and I rushed past him without a word or a look. I saw him turn round as we passed, and even as I reached the bottom of the stairway I heard him shout some order to the guards at the entrance. Though I failed to understand him, I was not left long in doubt as to the meaning of his words. A soldier cried out after me, and I saw over my shoulder men closing in upon me at the double.

I ran.

It was an undignified exit from the royal palace― hardly the exit I had anticipated that morning, when, filled with what Langdon, perhaps rightly called my quixotic mission, I carried the sealed package to the Queen. Not only was I angry and sore with myself, but other considerations spurred me to fly.

The meeting with Alexieff recalled to me the very unpleasant realisation that my life was in danger. The event I had counted upon to absolve me from the sentence of outlawry with which Alexieff had threatened me, had not taken place. I had built all my hopes of security on being able to obtain the protection of the Queen, and I knew that I had only succeeded In exciting her disdain and anger. That impetuous Bonaparte blood of hers would, I was satisfied, resent such an affront as the disappointment of her hopes. If I was caught, I knew very well I should be shot― perhaps even refused the compliment of a company of soldiers, and be simply turned off with a common hangman's rope.

As I gained the main thoroughfare, a gendarme, hearing the shouts behind me, made a rush at me. I put up my arm as we converged, and catching his throat for a moment in the stretching of my fingers, handed him off with such violence that he fell sprawling on the ground.

I did not wait to see how he fared, but turned headlong into the first narrow street which presented itself, and then, like a pickpocket escaping from the clutches of the law, I doubled and redoubled through a mass of slums, hoping thereby to cover my tracks. I had no thought of where I was going― my one ambition was to get away, and it was not until, chancing to run down more than a usually narrow alley, I found myself facing the side of my hotel, that I formed any definite plan of action.

The authorities, I calculated, could not have got to the hotel yet in pursuit of their quarry― perhaps, indeed, they would never think of going there,  believing that it would be the last place that I should visit. Nearly all the money I had brought with me I had left in my room, and money, I knew from my past bitter experience, I must have. I decided to chance it. Having made up my mind to run this risk, I was proceeding down the narrow strip of pavement which lined the side of the hotel, in order to get into the entrance by the main thoroughfare, when just turning the corner I ran into Langdon. His ordinarily placid face wore a look of grave concern, which changed into an expression of relief as we met.

"Thank God, I have found you!" he said, taking my arm, and forcing me to turn round. "You mustn't go back there. Tell me what has happened. Something has happened, I know, for the place is swarming with gendarmes; your room has been ransacked, and the whole place looks as if it is in military occupation. No one is allowed to leave the hotel. Fortunately I know one of the men placed on guard― a faithful old servant of the late King's, and he let me out. I was going to the palace to warn you. But, thank goodness! I have met you just in time."

He began to walk me at a rapid pace down the side streets through which I had run, and as we walked. I explained to him, as clearly as I could, the extraordinary discovery I had made with regard to the sealed package, which half an hour before I believed contained the Imperial diamond. To my surprise, he expressed little amazement.

"I feared as much," was his only comment.

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed.

"This is no time for explanations," he retorted. "We must get into hiding. There is a mystery about the whole affair. Perhaps tonight we shall solve it. Meanwhile I am going to take you to a place where, for a time, at least, we shall be safe."

He seemed extraordinarily familiar with every twist and turn of that labyrinth of alleys. Never once did he pause to look for a name, but passed to the right or left without hesitation.

Finally he brought me to as dirty and dismal looking a house as ever I had seen. Shutters were up in the windows, and against the wood I saw empty spaces in the framework of the windows where panes of glass were missing.

Langdon went straight up to the door and knocked, and in a few seconds it was opened by a slatternly looking woman of the peasant class. She evinced no surprise at seeing my companion, but she smiled at him as one who had long. expected him and was glad of his return.

Langdon spoke to her fluently in some barbaric patois, and she answered him with nods, looking now and again at myself. At the end of it all Langdon beckoned to me to come in.

I followed down a dirty passage which smelt abominably, and up some stairs to the top landing. Here the woman, who had led the way, opened a door, and we found ourselves in a bedroom furnished with a table, a couple of beds, and two rickety chairs. After exchanging a few more remarks with Langdon, which I could not understand, the woman left the room, closing the door behind her.

Langdon flung himself full length on one of the beds without a word, while I, feeling restless and distraught, walked to the window and looked out. The room we occupied was situated at the back of the house, and below me lay a dismal backyard, surrounded by a high wall, and covered with piles of disused bottles and rusty empty tins.

"It is a pleasant prospect, isn't it, Mr. Harland?" said Langdon, breaking in upon my meditations. "You may not believe it, but I occupied this room for ten years of my life. I was poor then, and an outcast from my country. I have used the place since on many occasions. The landlady is good enough to hold me in great affection. I was able to be of some small service to her, and I believe her husband― a drunken old soldier, who has made her life about as unhappy as it could be― would die for me. Gratitude, I am firmly convinced, is the outstanding virtue of the lower classes."

I had turned to him, hardly listening to what he was saying.

"What does it all mean, Langdon?" I broke in, following my own train of thought. "What are those suspicions that you have? For heaven's sake, tell me, man."

"You must possess yourself in patience, my boy," replied my companion. "To-night I shall know whether my surmise is correct, or not. Meanwhile, I can tell you this much. Hardly had you gone this morning than the hotelkeeper came to me, asking me to give you a message, in case he should be out when you returned. His exact words were. 'Will you tell his Excellency that I have received an important communication. He will understand to what it refers. It will not be No. 9, but No. 40, Maximin-strasse, to-night, at nine.' "

"What on earth does that mean?" I exclaimed.

"It means that we shall go to 40 Maximin-strasse at nine to-night, and that afterwards I shall be able to tell you whether my suspicious have been confirmed or not."

Nothing further could I got out of him, though I pressed him closely, imploring him to tell me what he feared. But he was adamant in his refusal, and I gave up the attempt in disgust.

All that day we sat in the bedroom until the shadows of night began to fall, the woman bringing us our meals. At eight o'clock we started off on our mysterious errand, enveloping ourselves in two great military cloaks with which the landlady provided us. I suggested that it would be better to take a carriage, but Langdon opposed the idea on the grounds that the use of any conveyance might lead to our detection, and, accordingly, we walked, keeping, for the most part, to the back streets.

Though we passed several gendarmes and soldiers, nothing happened to excite our anxiety until we were within a short distance of our destination. I was congratulating myself that all was well, when, turning a corner, we ran into two men, one an officer, the other a private of the Guards; I heard Langdon tell me, under his breath, in English, to cover my face, and, obediently, I pulled the hood of the cloak close over my ears. There was no method of avoiding the men― indeed, we had to stand aside to let them pass. As we did so, the officer looked keenly at us, and as under the hood of my cloak I gazed at him, I saw, with no little concern, that it was no other than Colonel Alexieff himself.

He was just about to pass on, and I was thinking with bated breath that we had escaped, when he suddenly stopped, gave one surprised stare at me, and then, stepping backwards, shouted out an order to the soldier. "Arrest that man!" he said, pointing a finger at me.

The soldier, a great, lumbering fellow, drew his sword and came towards me. I was about to take to my heels, to seek safety in flight― a poor chance, at that, as the alley was so narrow that I could hardly have escaped his sword-when a shot rang out. I saw the poor fellow throw up his arms with a groan, spin drunkenly on his feet, and then fall limp and lifeless on the cobbled pavement.

I turned quickly found, just in time to see Alexieff make a spring at my companion, whose right hand held a smoking revolver.

"Stand back, Colonel Alexieff," shouted Langdon, "or I will shoot you now like the dog are."

The Colonel recoiled against the opposite wall.

"This is murder, and you will hang for it," he said, in a harsh, grating voice.

Langdon's voice answered, cold and stern: "You are a proper man to talk of murder, Colonel Alexieff, you woman butcher!"

In the dim light I could see the Colonel's face working with diabolical fury. "You shall answer for this insult," he cried, "and now!"

"I have a strange antipathy, that probably you will not appreciate, to killing in cold blood, Colonel Alexieff; but I could have no greater pleasure than in giving you the satisfaction you desire."

Langdon's voice seemed to have altered, to have taken quite a different tone from that to which I was used. Something of this Alexieff seemed to have noticed, for I saw him suddenly peer forward into my friend's face.

"Who are you?" he exclaimed, his voice tense with emotion.

"One with whom you have been well acquainted, Colonel Alexieff. My name is John Harland."

23

OF ALEXEIFF and myself, I think I was the most surprised. This man, who had come into my life again and again, who had stood by and helped me, and run no little risk on my behalf, was no other than my uncle― that very John Harland, who had left me, I believed, on his deathbed, the Imperial diamond which was the cause of all my misfortunes. There was no time then to ask for explanations.

Upon the storm of emotions that obsessed me, my uncle's voice again broke in:

"You remember me now, I perceive, Colonel Alexieff. For reasons of my own I have preferred, ever since that night of butchery in 1893, to pass by another name. John Harland became a shadow, and John Langdon took his place. You will recollect that I wrote to you immediately after that heroic episode in which you were concerned, when you threw a helpless woman on the ground, and as she lay there begging for mercy, blew out her brains. Apart from the oath, which, as a soldier, you took to protect her, you were bound, by all the simple laws of human chivalry, to have saved her. I saw you commit that brutal deed, and I swore then to you that I would make you answer for it one day.

"I had once thought of trying to avenge that crime on the whole of the Bythnian people, but now I shall be content to avenge it upon you. There is a place not far from here where we can safely settle our score. Let us go."

Purple with passion, Alexieff could hardly find voice enough to answer. He looked around as though to call for help, but none was at hand. His orderly was dead, and there were two to one.

"I am ready," he said.

John Harland dropped his revolver, and was about to lead the way, when he suddenly stopped.

"The choice of weapons rests with you. Colonel Alexieff. Is it to be―"

"Steel," broke in the other hoarsely.

"If that is the case, I will relieve this poor fellow of his sword."

My uncle bent down over the dead soldier, and, unbuckling the sheath, picked up the sword which had fallen from the man's hand, and then, secreting the weapon under his coat, turned once more to the way we had come.

Without a word we tramped back, John Harland leading the way, Alexieff  walking next, whilst I brought up the rear.

Even now, when I look back upon the incident, I can remember nothing clearly. I walked as one in a dream. The whole situation seemed unreal, and to have no part in life as I knew it. The episodes followed one after another in rapid succession.

We arrived back at the dingy house. The woman once more admitted us. She listened without surprise or expression of dissent, when John Harland explained to her what he required, he simply led the way to the back yard which I had seen from our room. Then, as if the whole affair was an everyday incident in her life, she calmly brought candles, a bundle of them, loose in her hand. I helped her to place them in the dirty bottles in parallel lines, six on either side. The night was hot and sultry, and not a breath of air made the yellow flames flicker.

My uncle threw off his cloak, and, drawing his sword, took up his position. Alexieff followed suit, and without ever a word being uttered from the time we passed through the house into the yard, their swords crossed, and the duel began.

I know nothing about swordsmanship. I could not tell you which of the two had the better trick in fence― indeed, there would have been little time or opportunity for even an expert to judge. I stood on one side of the row of candles, and the landlady, calm and impassive, on the other. The three red brick walls, with the dirty, dingy houses at the end shut us in. The light of the candles showed up every portion of the yard, the broken bottles, the empty tins, the refuse, the bits of straw and paper which were scattered in confusion on the ground. There was nothing romantic about the setting of the duel. It was more like an execution than an affair of honour.

Strange as it may seem, I was not at all concerned about the safety of my uncle. Somehow I was convinced that no ill would befall him. And I was right. In less than thirty seconds it was all over. With a cautious fury, since their swords had crossed, John Harland pressed hard upon his opponent. Their blades seemed to writhe and twist round each other. Colonel Alexieff gave ground for a moment, and then, before I could hardly realise what had happened, my uncle's blade suddenly crept in through his guard and pierced him in his heart. He gave a little cry, stumbled and fell, but tried to rise, leaning on one hand . My uncle stood staring at him without a movement, the point of his sword stained red, his face deathly pale. And the landlady and I watched, immovable, like statues.

I saw Alexieff's fingers open and close with a little grating sound as his nails clutched the dirt on the ground. His legs worked spasmodically, like a man trying to throw off a coverlet. With an effort he lifted his head; his lips moved, a deep, heart-rending groan escaped him; his head fell back; a spasm seemed to shake his body. Then suddenly the silence was broken by the clash of steel, as my uncle's sword, dropping from his hand, struck a stone. He ran over to his opponent, kneeling down by his side. For a few moments he held Colonel Alexieff's hand in his, feeling his pulse. Then he rose to his feet.

"The man is dead," he said simply, in his ordinary voice. "Let us go, Stephen."

I awoke from the ghastly nightmare into which I had been plunged with a start. It was the first time my uncle had called me by Christian name, and, even at that time I noticed it.

"What are we going to do with that?" I said, with a shudder, pointing to the body.

Without answering, John Harland said something to the landlady, at the same time taking some money from his pocket, and putting it into her hand. She nodded, still without speaking a word. My uncle picked up his cloak.

"Come," he said, "we have no time to waste."

Obediently I followed him out of the house, back into the streets. Once more we retraced our steps, and I had time, as we walked, to marvel at the man's coolness. For myself, I was too overwrought to speak a word, but John Harland wore the same placid, philosophic air which was so characteristic of him in everyday life. When we finally reached Maximin-strasse, he turned to me.

"And now, Stephen, my boy, the time has come to solve our mystery."

NO. 40 APPEARED an ordinary enough house of the better-class kind. It stood in a moderately well-to-do neighbourhood, in a fairly well-frequented thoroughfare. We might, indeed, have been paying an ordinary call.

We stopped in front of the door and rang the bell. I remember that we even turned our backs on the door, like people awaiting the coming of a servant. At the sound of the latch being lifted we both faced about, to find ourselves accosted by no other than my friend the hotelkeeper. He bowed low as he saw me, and bade "his Excellency" enter with such an assumption of humility, that I might have been a king instead of a plain British commoner. He closed the door behind us, and then proceeded to conduct us up a few stairs and down a passage. Arriving there, he pointed out a door, explaining that his duties necessitated him staying below, and that therefore it was impossible for him to announce their Excellencies.

Without the slightest hesitation, John Harland advanced to the door, turned the handle, and swung it open. We found ourselves in a long, high-ceilinged room, which was crowded with men of some position, judging from their dress, the majority of them being officers.

Our entry seemed to excite no interest, for all eyed were centred on a sort  of platform which stood at the far end of the room. Here,  on a dais, stood a man in simple evening dress. He had Just risen from the sumptuous chair behind him. As I closed the door quietly behind us he began speaking. I gave a start of amazement, and gripped my uncle by the arm, for the man was no other than Henry Wickliffe!

John Harland gave me a sign to remain quiet, and in a turmoil of perplexity I listened to the first public speech that I had ever heard my friend utter. He spoke in German, and his words only tended to increase my amazement.

"Gentlemen," he said, and his voice was quite different from the bored tones that I knew so well, having in it a note of authority, "You have all sworn to defend my cause: in that cause the future glory and prosperity of Bythnia is bound up. Except under the lawful dynasty of our King, the people of Bythnia will never knew that freedom and security which they won with their blood against the arms of the Turks. You have very properly pointed out, however, that they will demand some token from me of my just claim to the crown of Bythnia. To see that token you are here assembled."

He fumbled for a moment in his waistcoat pocket, and took out a little green case. He extracted from it something, and raised it in his hand something that glittered and sparkled in the electric light.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed In a triumphant voice, "here is my token― the Imperial diamond of Diocletian."

John Harland turned round to restrain me, but before he could stop me, I cried out in a fury of indignation: "You damned thief, Wickliffe!"

In a moment there was a confused uproar. The men turned round-upon us. Above the din I could hear the authoritative voice of Wickliffe:

"Arrest those men. They are spies."

I don't know what happened. I tried to defend myself. John Harland made a dash to get his revolver, but they were too many for him. In another moment we were bundled out of the room, flung into the passage and there, struggling gamely to the end, we were pinioned with ropes. In another moment we were slung, like sacks of corn, into an empty room. It all happened so quickly, that the realisation of our situation only came to us when we heard the door being barred behind us, and the sound of our jailers' footsteps receding down the passage.

24

"THANK GOODNESS, they have left the electric light burning!" That was my first thought as my uncle and I lay there, side by side, trussed up like chickens.

"You couldn't get one of your hands free, I suppose, Stephen?" said John Harland, "the brutes have tied my arms back so tightly that I can hardly breathe."

"I'm afraid I'm in the same predicament myself," I replied, "but if you can turn over on your face I might be able to do something with my teeth."

For all the world like a competitor in a sack race, my uncle rolled himself into the desired position, and, jerking myself up to him, I began to attack his bonds with my teeth. It was a long business, and I had every reason to feel envious of a rat's abilities before I even succeeded in gnawing through one strand of the rope. Fortunately, our bonds were not very new, and the hemp below the surface was fairly soft and rotten, and at last I had gnawed through enough to enable my uncle to break the remainder. Once he had disentangled himself, he unbound me, and at last we were able to stretch our stiffened limbs and stand upright. But though we were rid of our bonds we were not free. An examination of the room showed that the window, which was simply a narrow slit, was heavily barred, and the door successfully resisted all our efforts to force it.

"Well, we have solved the mystery, at any rate," remarked John Harland philosophically.

"You mean," I said, sitting down on the floor beside him, "that Wickliffe stole the diamond?"

"It has come into his possession, at any rate," retorted John Harland, "but whether he stole it or not remains to be seen. But I should more correctly have said that part of the mystery is cleared up. We known, at any rate, who Wickliffe is, and the reason why you have been subjected to all these unpleasant episodes in Bythnia."

"What do you mean? Who is Wickliffe?" I exclaimed. "The thing doesn't seem clear to me now. All I understand is that the man whom I have known for some time, and who I regarded as a friend, has got possession of my diamond, and is engaged in some extraordinary plot for upsetting the dynasty of Bythnia. That appears to me only to make the mystery all the more profound."

"You see," continued my uncle, as if taking no notice of my remarks, "I have established one of the facts that I first suspected on setting eyes on this man, Wickliffe. He is the stepbrother of the late King of Bythnia― the one member of the old family that was not destroyed during that horrible butchery. What we have seen to-night undoubtedly marks the culmination of the plot, and the centre of that plot is Wickliffe. His desire to secure the diamond was natural enough, for the people hold it in curious reverence, and its possession will give him a superstitious authority. But how he obtained it we have yet to learn."

"We are not likely to learn here," I put in. "I have not yet fathomed, uncle, why you made me this present, and why you pretended to be dead. At any rate, your bequest has got us into a pretty muddle."

I think John Harland would have told me then something of the motives underlying his conduct were we not at that moment both brought to attention by the sound of a key being slipped softly into the lock. We stepped stealthily behind the door as we heard the bolt shot back; my uncle fumbling for his revolver, only to find that it had been taken from him in the struggle.

As the door moved slowly on its hinges we got ready for our spring. We were just about to dart forward when we saw, to our surprise, that it was not a man at all who entered― it was a woman, and the woman was Edith Beverley.

She looked very careworn and ill. There were deep lines under her eyes, and she was very different, indeed, to the splendid, statuesque woman I had first seen at The Heathlands. She never uttered a word until she had closed the door behind her, and then she turned and faced us.

"Don't speak a word," she said, raising her hand for silence. "I have only a few minutes in which to tell you much, and every moment is of value. They intend to take your lives. Prince John has issued orders for you to be shot at dawn. To-morrow he will kill the King, and, through blood and treachery, wade to the throne."

Careless of her request for silence, I broke in: "Miss Beverley, why are you here? What have you got to do with, it? How come you to be mixed up in such things?"

A wan smile flitted across her face. "You only know Prince John as Henry Wickliffe," she said simply. "You believed him to be your friend. It is he that has ordered you to be shot."

I shook my head hopelessly, completely bewildered and bemused, and utterly unable to comprehend this tangle of dual Identities with which I was surrounded. My Uncle, John Harland, had called himself John Langdon, and now the man whom I thought my friend, and had known― as Henry Wickliffe, was Prince John, and had ordered me to be shot. Was all the world going mad?

"I gathered as much, Miss Beverley," said my uncle, "but perhaps if it is possible, you can explain how you come to be talking part in the dynastic disputes of Bythnia!"

"That is part of the story I intended telling later, and at some other opportunity," she replied, "but I may as well tell it now. From a child I went under an English name― such are the needs of life here― but I am of the blood of the present royal house of Bythnia. Prince John is of the late reigning family. We plotted together to gain everything. We were to be married. Prince John is my betrothed. I had influence here when he was simply an exile, and I used it on his behalf, but now―"

She suddenly put her two hands to her face and burst out crying, while we stood watching her, not knowing what to do. She recovered herself with an effort, and then began to speak more quickly, as though carried away by the tempest of her passion.

"He used me as long as I was useful. And now, when everything is in his hands, he has thrown me aside, insulted me, told me that he will never marry me. And I have come to you for vengeance. To-morrow there is a review. The King will be present. The programme includes the ascent of two war balloons― one from either side of the parade ground. They have been so placed that one will be carried over the King as he sits on horseback for the final march-past of the troops. Men faithful to the cause of Prince John are in charge of the balloons. There is one of them who, when just over the King, is to drop a dynamite bomb."

She paused a moment, and then continued hurriedly:

"They are still all in the Council Chamber, but men are on guard downstairs, and I can't let you out now. In the morning I will come and set you free: You must act as you think fit then. But don't spare this man." Another outburst of sobbing cut her speech short.

Although there was something peculiarly uncanny about her remarks, coming, as they did from a woman, I felt sorry for her, and, acting on impulse I went over to her side and touched her arm.

"Miss Beverley, believe me, I will do everything I can for you― everything to help you."

She suddenly slipped her hands from her face, and looked at me with a wild, uncanny look in her eyes.

"You, you help me!" she gasped, in an agonised voice. "You, whose life I have ruined!"

Her glance held me for a moment, and then it shifted. She turned suddenly, and moving to the door swiftly, opened it, and was outside without another word.

25

I CANNOT REMEMBER now how we passed those weary hours. Eternity seemed to elapse. We talked in undertones, sitting side by side on the floor; at least; my uncle talked. For myself, my mind was too much occupied to heed what he said. The mystery in which I had become entangled seemed about to be solved. The veil which had hid from my sight in an incomprehensible manner all that had taken place during the last few weeks seemed to be about to be torn away. It was tantalising and exasperating. I longed to be up and doing, to be able to git at the outcome of this series of events. Behind it all was the fierce hope that hid suddenly come into my heart, that, perhaps after all Elaine was not guilty; that my eyes had played me a trick;  that these much-desired possibilities were about to be proved to me clearly and conclusively.

I had thought the whole situation was so simple, and I had been mistaken. I had believed that Wickliffe was my friend, and I had found that he to whom I had entrusted my confidence was my adversary. This friend I had discovered had my diamond, and this intimate of mine had ordered me to be shot at dawn. Might it not be, I asked myself a thousand times during those long hours, that I had been mistaken also in Elaine?

It was with a feeling of intense relief that I heard the door open and saw Edith Beverley again standing there, and with it fierce joy, I knew that our time for action had arrived. She came in softly, with her finger to her lips, and motioned to us to remove our boots. We followed her directions obediently.

"You must go carefully," she said, as she led the way. "One man is still on guard, but I could not wait. It is your only chance."

We followed her down the long passage to the head of the stairs. The whole place was in darkness. Through a window that we passed I could see the night quickening to the dawn. She stopped a moment, looking over the banisters into the hall below; and then motioned with her finger. Beneath us we could see a man standing in the shadow with his back to the staircase, resting motionless on his bayoneted rifle. Miss Beverley― I knew her by no other name― explained clearly what we had to do. She dared not speak, but in that silence our common danger seemed to have established a sort of telepathic communication between our minds. Langdon and I advanced to the top of the stairs. One on either side, we crept cautiously down, our stockinged feet making no noise as we slowly advanced upon the guard. Half-way down, I looked back for one moment, and saw a woman's features in the darkness strained and eager. Just before we reached our man, my uncle stumbled against the banisters. It was hardly a sound, but in a flash the man had turned.

I was three steps from the bottom, and without hesitation I sprang at him. Fortunately for me he had no time to bring his bayonet into position, or else I certainly should have impaled myself. The impetus of my spring brought both of us to the ground, and as we fell I stretched out my hand and clasped it over his mouth. We were a match for the man, the two of us, but I feared lest it should make any sound that would arouse the  house. I could hear Langton behind m, seize the rifle and twist it from the fellow's hand. Then there was a thud as he brought the butt down on the man's head. I had my hand over his mouth and nose, and I felt beneath me his body grow limp and placid. Whether he was killed or only stunned, I know not. And, indeed, so inhuman  does one's fear for one's own life make one, that neither of us stopped to find out. We went straight to the door, opened it, and without looking back sped out into the street.

We ran swiftly until we got into some side streets, and there we paused a moment to consider the situation. Our boots we had left behind, and we presented a curious appearance standing there in our-stockinged feet, with the dawn brightening in the sky.

"Where shall we go?" said my uncle, looking at me, I thought, rather strangely.

"To the parade ground," I said; "We must stop this crime, at all costs."

"Why?"

He uttered the word calmly. There was no suspicion of a jest about his lips.

"We can't see the King massacred by those brutes," I exclaimed hotly, "without in effort to save him."

My uncle shrugged his shoulders, "If you wish to do it, Stephen, you can do it," he replied. "For myself, I would not raise a hand to avert this catastrophe. It seems like interposing oneself between the Divine wrath of Providence and the victim."

I remembered then what my uncle had told me in his letter―  what l had heard him say to Colonel Alexieff on the night when the soldiers massacred the late King and Queen and I understood his point of view. Nonetheless, was I determined to prevent this crime If I could; besides, it was our understood agreement with Edith Beverley.

"Come," I said, "let us go to the parade ground."

"As the crow flies it is eight miles from here," he retorted calmly, "as we shall have to go to avoid suspicion It means ten at the least, and, moreover, we have no boots."

I showed my impatience in my face.

"As you will," replied John Harland, and began to lead the way.

By the time we had worked our way through the back streets of Neva into the open country our stockings were worn through, and it was almost with bare feet that we finally forced our way through a wood and came out on the open spot where the tragedy had been planned to be enacted.

The review was at seven, for the King was an early riser.  Already, as we reached our destination, we were greeted by the sound of military bands and the roar of a cannon announcing the arrival of the Sovereign of Bythnia. On either side of the parade ground the balloons swayed like great Jellybags in the air. If we were to do anything we must act quickly. My uncle had talked of warning the King; but already that was an impossibility, for he was mounted his charger and was riding down the lines. To have attempted to reach him would have simply ended in our being arrested as dangerous lunatics.

"If you are still bent on this, Stephen," said my uncle, "your must take one balloon and I will take the other. It is a madman's scheme, but as you wish it, we will play it through."

It did, indeed, seem a hopelessly impossible task, but at last we determined to make the effort. Agreeing with my uncle to take my chance with the further balloon, leaving the other to his care, I made a circuit of the parade ground through the wood that fringed it on one side, until I got within a hundred yards of my destination.

Already the balloon was about to rise, soldiers were hanging on to the ropes, awaiting the word of command to let go. Their attention was riveted on the great bag of silk, while one of the officers was watching, through a field glass, for the signal for the ascent. I came up to them unnoticed until I was but a few feet from the car.

Suddenly I saw the officer put down his field glass and give the order. Intuitively I sprang forward, gripping the edge of the car. I felt a pull and a jerk, and then an easy, swinging motion. Shouts and yells greeted me from below. With an effort I pulled myself up, swinging one leg over the edge of the basket, and in another second stood facing the two officers.

26

ALREADY WE were several hundred feet from the ground, and no man ever more regretted his position than I did, for I stood there 'twixt heaven and earth, looking directly into the months of two revolvers.

"We give you one minute to explain who you are before we kill you!" said one of the two men in German. The sight of those two barrels, out of which death might come at any moment, quickened my wits.

"Thank God I have come in time, gentlemen!" I exclaimed, pretending not to notice their weapons. "I was sent post haste by Prince John from the Maximin-strasse. The plans have been altered; someone has warned the King. Their attempt is to be postponed till next week."

With feelings of intense relief, which to the best of my ability I kept out of my face, I saw their revolvers drop. Both men had turned a shade paler.

"Do you know the names? Who has given the plot away?"

"The Princess, I believe," I replied, with a burst of inspiration, "but no names are known."

One of the officers turned to his companion. "I told you so, Ludwig; the Prince should not have broken with the Princess. A slighted woman is the very devil." He turned and looked over the edge of the car. "I say," he went on, "how easily we could do it, even now!"

With something of a shudder I followed the direction of his gaze. Far below us the regiment stood, looking like ants from that height. Directly beneath us a splash of white and scarlet showed where the guards stood. A little further on to the right my eye caught the figure of the King on his white charger, flanked on both sides by his marshals and high officers of state in brilliant uniforms.

We were moving directly towards them, and, even as I watched, we floated right over their heads. The conspirators only had to drop their bomb and Bythnia's Sovereign would be no more. I was startled by an exclamation from one of the officers.

"Look," he said in a trembling voice, "the other balloon has not gone up."

He seized his field-glasses.  "There are men fighting there. We have been betrayed."

The other also had his glasses glued to his eyes. He suddenly put them down, and the two men looked at each other..

"Quick, now; it is our only chance," one of them exclaimed. He picked up something carefully from the floor, and I caught a glimpse of it as he turned with it in his hand. It was a bomb. We had risen into another current of air, which kept us still directly above the group below. If I was to do anything I must act at once. The two officers, with their heads together, were intent upon adjusting the machinery of the bomb. One of them had his back to me. My eye lit upon his revolver that he carried in his belt. I crept forward a few paces, and stealthily, with hands that trembled in spite of myself, opened the leather case.

Cautiously I drew the weapon out, fearful every moment that I should attract his attention. At last the revolver was in my hand, but even now, as I write, a tremor of horror seizes me when I think of that cold-blooded deed which I brought thyself to commit.

The men had just completed their task. The one who had had his back to me had turned with the bomb in his hand to the edge of the car. I put the muzzle of the revolver to his neck and fired. He stumbled like a drunken man over the edge of the car, and hung there, limp. I stepped back quickly. Like lightning the hand of the other man had gone to his side, but before he could touch the butt of his revolver I fired again― twice.

He stumbled with a shriek against the ropes, his hand holding on to them for support. For a moment he hung there, and then, gently, like one who has fallen asleep, he slipped on to the floor. He lay there, his head lolling forward, limp, with at little stream of crimson trickling down from his forehead over his whitened cheek.

I looked over the edge of the car. We had sunk at least several hundred feet, and another current had caught us, and was sweeping us over the wood. I remembered the bomb, and seizing the lifeless arms of the man who hung just over the basket, I tore it from his clammy grip and hurled it as far as I could, into that sea of leaves below me. A sudden flash of light, followed a few seconds later by a tremendous explosion, showed me that I had only just been in time. I seized the valve rope and pulled it, and immediately the earth came up to me. In a few more seconds the bottom of the car thumped on the ground and rebounded, sending me flying. I picked myself up quickly and slid myself over the side of the car. The force of the rebound had taken the car up again, but we were settling down once more with a run.

Within a few feet of the ground I swung myself clear, dropping on my hands and knees. As I rose to my feet, I saw the balloon, relieved of my weight, drifting majestically over the top of the wood. Then, from all sides, so it seemed, soldiers sprang at me. My arms were seized, and savage-looking persons pressed their bayonets against my chest. They began to talk to me excitedly, savagely, in a dialect that was beyond me. I carefully refrained from struggling or showing any fight, and my pacific attitude seemed to have a quietening effect on their tempers.

They pushed me forward between them; evidently intending to take me before their commander, but an officer on horseback galloped up and barred their progress. He said something in their own language to the soldiers, and then turned to me, asking me my name and my business. I told him I was an Englishman, and added that I had better reserve my story for someone in authority.

"You were in that balloon, weren't you?" he questioned. I admitted it with a nod.

"Well, your nation," he went on with a smile, "seems to have made a general attack on our balloons this morning. There is another Englishman over there," and he pointed to a group of men a hundred yards distant, "who deliberately cut the silk of the other balloon with his knife."

"If you will take me before somebody in authority," I said, with, a feeling of relief that my uncle was safe, "I will explain my position. And the sooner I have the opportunity of doing so the better."

"Very well," said the officer, and giving some orders to the men, I was conducted towards a little group of men, among whom I had been told my uncle was. There I found John Harland. His dress seemed somewhat disordered, his feet sticking out through his stockings, but his face as calm and as placid as ever. He turned to me with a smile of greeting as I came up.

"I waited, Stephen," he said in English, "until I knew you were safe to tell our story. Shall I begin? They are somewhat anxious to hear it."

"I think it is best in your hands," I replied. "German does not come easily to me."

I could not follow him all through the narrative, for he spoke very quickly, but I could read the effect of his story on the faces of his hearers, who for the most part surrounded him on horseback.

There were ejaculations of surprise and anger, and when he had finished I added my quota to the narrative. At the story of the two men I had left dead in the car of the balloon the whole group of them seemed to be stupefied. As we were standing there, the centre of all eyes, suddenly from the fringe of the little group there came a whisper. The officers backed their horses, and I heard a murmur, "The King! The King!" as His Majesty, on his white charger, joined the throng.

One of the officers, in a breathless flow of German, narrated our story to him as quickly as possible, and when he came to the part that I had played, I saw His Majesty glance at me with a look of puzzled surprise, as it he was trying to remember my face. When he was placed in possession of all the facts, the King turned to me.

"How am I to know that this story is true?" he said, his brow contracting sternly.

"You have my word for it, your Majesty," I replied hotly, "and if that will not satisfy you, you will find the corpses of two officers in the car of the balloon when it comes to the ground and―"

I was going on, but suddenly, in the direction of Neva, there came the clear-cut sound of volley-firing.

"What's that?"said the King, turning sharply to one of the officers.

"That," I replied, answering the question, "is the revolutionaries in the streets of Neva, and this, I think, will convince your Majesty of the truth of our story."

The King listened for a moment, and then turned to me, and the sternness had gone from his face.

"Mr. Stephen Harland, I thank you, and you, sir," he added, bowing to my uncle; and then turning to his officers, he said: "It is clear that I am indebted to these gentlemen for my life. I shall take the opportunity later of showing them my gratitude. Meanwhile, we will deal with these traitors."

27

THEY OFFERED us horses on which to follow the troops, which were immediately called off from, the parade ground to march on Neva. But we pointed to our bedraggled, bare feet, and, with an ill-disguised smile, the equerry of the King placed a carriage at our disposal. As, in this conveyance, my uncle end I rolled back luxuriously to the capital, he narrated to me how he had successfully prevented the flight of the second balloon. Unable to think of any other method of averting the impending tragedy, he had made a rush at the car while it was still held captive by the soldiers, and, heedless of its occupants, had climbed on to the edge, and with an open penknife had made several incisions in the envelope before he could be stopped.

His experiences subsequent to that l had been very much the same as mine. He had been arrested, and taken before the group of officers. His narrative had been cut short by the rising of the other balloon, and he had refused to go on with his story until he had seen that I was safe. When he heard the explosion he had at first thought that I had failed, or been killed, and my sudden appearance, under arrest, had caused him much relief.

"And now, Stephen," he said, when he had finished, "for the English Embassy."

I felt myself grow hot suddenly.

"Not now," I mumbled, "let us get back to the hotel and change first."

My uncle shook his head. "I insist upon going now," he said. "We have cleared up so many mysteries already that I can't rest until this final one is solved. Besides, If the revolutionaries are out, we stand little chance of getting to our hotel."

I tried to dissuade him, but it was useless. Meanwhile our carriage, which had already passed the outskirts of the city, now reached the city itself. We soon had evidence of Prince John's enterprise, for our further progress was barred by a huge barricade composed of tramcars, carriages, and all sorts of other impedimenta. But the fact that no living man stood behind this barricade seemed to prove that the attempt to snatch the Bythnian crown had failed. My uncle looked at me, pointing to two forms that lay stretched among the debris.

"There, you see," he said, "the futility and tragedy of revolutions."

They were the bodies of two women.

Our driver turned down a side street, and by dint of keeping in the slums, which hung like parasites throughout Neva on the main thoroughfares, we soon found ourselves outside of the gates of the English Embassy. Here there was a great crowd of people, all talking excitedly, and gesticulating wildly with their arms. Our carriage managed to get through the press, but it was only the royal livery of the coachman that persuaded the strong force of gendarmes that guarded the gate to open before us. It was with difficulty that the crowd were kept back when once we had passed through. As it was, they made an ugly rush at the door, and only by the promptness of the two porters on duty, who shot the bolts home as quickly as possible, were they kept outside. Both my uncle and myself wondered at this extraordinary excitement outside the Embassy.

Our curiosity was not kept long unsatisfied. Acting on my uncle's suggestion, instead of dismounting from the carriage, we gave our names to the servant, requesting him to ask Sir George Gibney if he could speak to us. We had made up our minds to seek the Ambassador's help in getting the boots of which we stood so sorely in need. The servant, excellent specimen though he was of the English footman, wore a very harassed and troubled look, and we lead to repeat our request twice before he started on his mission. He was absent for some time, and when he returned he came with a message that set my heart beating strangely.

"Miss Gibney begs you to excuse Sir George, and requests you to come in, gentlemen. I was told to add that it was a matter of great urgency."

In spite of my bedraggled feet, I jumped out quickly, followed by my uncle. The footman, discreetly oblivious to our extraordinary appearance, led the way through the hall into the great, high-ceilinged morning-room. He opened the door without announcing us.

A strange silence hung about the room, a silence which seemed to be intensified by the close-drawn blinds. At the other end of the room was a group of four persons, two ladies and two men. Sir George was standing near the sofa, at the head of which was Elaine. On the sofa lay the figure of a man, over whom the other woman bent, kneeling on the floor. Sir George beckoned to me with his band. I strode across the room, followed by my uncle, on bare feet making no sound on the carpet.

"He has been asking for you, Mr. Harland," Sir George said in my ear, "just as you arrived."

"Who?" I questioned, and then, turning to the sofa on which the man lay, I found my answer. There, his head bandaged, and propped up on a cushion, lay Prince John, the man I had known as Henry Wickliffe. His eyes caught mine, even as I glanced at him.

"Harland, come here," he said in a voice which was so feeble that the words were almost a whisper. I went over and stood by his side, looking down at him. The woman kneeling on the ground never moved. Her face was covered with her hands. It was Edith Beverley. All this time I had never glanced at Elaine. Indeed, I did not dare.

"Harland," said Wickliffe's feeble voice, "I am dying. Everything has failed. I deserved to fail. I was shot out in the streets there. Thank God, they brought me here to die! I want you to forgive me― if you can. It was I who stole the diamond. I had spent months plotting to get it, and then, suddenly, one night, I happened to be present when you received your uncle's bequest. It seemed that fate had brought it to my hand. When you told me you were taking it to The Heathlands, I saw my chance. I had a box made of similar size, covered it up and sealed it with my own seal, and took it with me to The Heathlands. I advised you to let me seal up the diamond. I put a piece of paper round the real box, and when you turned round to got something for my burnt finger I substituted the package I had prepared, and slipped the real one in my pocket. I persuaded you to deposit the bogus package sealed in the Safe Deposit for six months, believing that before then I should be King of Bythnia― that the diamond would be my talisman. Then my spurious package was stolen. I was fearful that my fraud would be discovered before my plans out here were matured. Then, one day, I saw it in Langdon's pocket in the grounds. I watched the Turks stalking him, and followed, and as the package fell from his pocket I secured it. I did not know how it came into his possession."

The voice sank to a whisper, and he paused a moment, as though to recover his strength. Then he went on: "My way was now clear, the plans here were ripening, but we wanted money badly― Edith and I― She had lost at bridge and so had I. So I persuaded you to offer a reward, and then Edith passed you the bogus package through the hole in the wall of the house we had taken for the purpose. I was to come round the following morning and go with you to the Safe Deposit. Again I was baulked. You left your rooms that night without saying where you had gone.

"The Sultan's emissaries got to know that I had the diamond, that is why they attacked me in the flat that day I rang you up on the telephone. When they heard that you had sent for the police they hurried away, and Edith and I went also to avoid inquiries. I should have had you shot this morning, if you hadn't escaped. I was mad then with the lust of power; that made me cruel. If you can forgive me, Harland, do forgive me."

He looked at me pitifully, and raised his head a moment, and his eyes shifted to the woman kneeling at his side. "She has forgiven me," he said, "and she has much to forgive. Won't you, Harland?"

I bent down and took his hand in mine. "Wickliffe, old chap," I said, struggling hard to speak, "of course, I forgive you. Why―" A look of gladness came into his eyes, and he interrupted me before I could say more.

"Thank you, Harland, you always were a good fellow. Feel in my pocket. The case is there."

I would have hesitated, but his eyes beseeched me to obey his request. I felt in his waistcoat-pocket and drew out the case.

"Open it," he commanded.

I pressed the spring, and there once more glittered in my hand the great diamond of Diocletian. With a sudden access of strength, Wickliffe raised himself on his elbow, and pointed at the jewel with his finger.

"The luck has passed from it," he said. His voice trembled, his lips moved as if to speak again, but only a groan escaped him. His head slipped back on the pillow. He closed his eyes like a tired child. The woman at his side suddenly uncovered her face and looked at him. A wild, hysterical scream broke the silence. "He is dead! He is dead!"

She flung herself on him, covering his white face with kisses. Then, her whole frame shaken with her grief, she fell sobbing on the dead man's body. I felt a touch on my shoulder.

"Let us leave her a while," said Sir George, and the four of us moved quietly away from that tragic scene. When out in the hall, I went straight up to Elaine, where she stood struggling with the emotions aroused by the tragedy we had just witnessed.

"Elaine," I said, taking her hand boldly, "I owe you an apology. Blackguard that I was, I thought you stole the diamond."

She looked at me straight in the face, but the coldness had gone from her eyes. "Why did you think I was a thief?"

I spluttered, and grew red.

"I saw you," I said jerkingly, "that night come into the billiard-room and lift the sealed box which I thought contained the diamond.

"Surely," she went on quietly, "I am entitled in my father's own house to come down and fetch a bangle that I had left on the mantelpiece when I was playing billiards. Now you recall the fact, I remember somebody had put a paper package on it which I lifted aside."

I stamped my bare foot on the ground. It all came back to me now. It was at the very instant she lifted the box that my assailant noiselessly sprang upon me. Had he been a second later―

"Idiot, fool, blackguard that I am to have suspected you!" I cried, "and now you can never forgive me!"

I dropped her hand and turned desperately, thinking I would run from the house. Indeed, I had crossed the hall and was almost at the door, mad with hate of myself, when suddenly I felt a hand on my arm, and it voice that sounded like the music of angels in my ear.

"Stephen, I can forgive you."

The shock of joy almost took my breath away.

"You can forgive me, after thinking such wicked things of you?" I said wonderingly.

"Yes," she answered, and I saw something in her eyes which suddenly gave me a new boldness.

"And can you forgive me enough to marry me, and love me?" I whispered.

"Yes, it is because I love you that I forgive you," she answered simply. Heedless of Sir George and my uncle I gathered her into my arms and kissed her. And then I led her over to Sir George.

"Sir George, your daughter has promised to be my wife," I said.

He held out his hand. "My boy, I have always wished this, and I have been wondering what had kept you apart of late. Now I understand."

He took Elaine's face in his hands, and kissed her on the cheek. "My dearest girl, I wish you every joy."

"And may I also join in the congratulations, and take the privilege of an old man and a relation?" It was my uncle who spoke, and as he did so, he drew Elaine to him and kissed her also. To say that Elaine was surprised hardly expressed her feelings. Even Sir George looked rather startled.

"Did I understand you to say a relation, Mr. Langdon," he said, in suave tones.

"I am no longer Mr. Langdon. I once killed myself, Sir George, in order to gratify a foolish whim. I gave the diamond to Stephen because I quarrelled with his father. I wished to make him suffer because I had suffered. But he has taught me that I was wrong, and, perhaps, cruel. Some other time I will tell you the story. It was because I wished him to believe that I was dead that I took the name of Langdon, and tried to lose my real identity of John Harland. From now, I am Stephen's uncle, and, I hope, this brave girl's, too. John Harland ceases from this day the shadow he once was."

End

Table of Contents

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27