'But people will be sceptical in such matters,' said Acharn, pulling his long black moustache angrily; 'and from much of what I heard on parade this morning there is a devil of a row impending.' 'Over me?' 'Yes.' At that moment there came a single knock smartly on the door, and the adjutant entered with an expression of grave concern on his face. After a few words of kind inquiry, and half apology, he said: 'I am so sorry for you, my poor fellow, but the chief is furious, and, by his order, I have come--for _your sword_.' The words seemed to sink into Falconer's soul. He knew all this implied, and that, too probably, it was the beginning of his destruction--the beginning of a bitter end!' So his sword was taken away, and he found himself under arrest--but arrest at large, as the adjutant informed him that he was at liberty to take exercise within defined limits, within the barracks, but not to go beyond the barrier-gates of the fortress, and not to quit his room otherwise than in uniform, minus a sword and sash. All this was not new to him, of course, yet he had listened to the adjutant as one in a dream, and saw him take away the sword. After the departure of this important official--the grand vizier of the colonel--the gravity of the situation became painfully apparent to all, and it may well be supposed there was no more jesting then, and Falconer felt all the horror of the new position. His mysterious illness seemed to grow worse now; a dreadful ache racked his head; his heart grew heavy as lead, and his spirit seemed to die under this disgrace and all it implied and all it imperilled, and as yet he had not the most remote idea that he was the victim of a wretch's revenue: thus the well-meant efforts of his friends to rouse him and inspire him with the hope that he would yet get over it--that all would be explained--that all would be well in the end, and so forth, were made in vain. Dick Freeport, Leslie Fotheringhame, and the entire corps were bewildered by the catastrophe, and poor Tommy Atkins, who doted on his master, was in despair--got very tipsy on the head of it, and had given him, therefore, three days in the black hole, to contemplate the unstability of human--and more especially of military--affairs. Events followed each other fast now; and when again the adjutant most reluctantly visited him, it was to announce that he was in orders for a general court-martial, and to furnish him, by the colonel's instructions, with a copy of the charge preferred against him, 'for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman at the ball,' together with a list of the witnesses for the prosecution.