"But perhaps the devil has not," said Phadrig, with a politeness which was infuriating in its mildness. "You gentlemen will understand that I do not wish to have this espionage going on any longer. If you cannot promise that it shall stop at once I shall, for my own protection, have to suggest to you that you shall remove yourselves, as the others have done." "No, no, not that, man, not that!" shouted Von Hamner, springing from his seat and making for the door. "I have done with the whole business, curse it! Let me go, let me go! Hendry, do as you like, but do it alone. I have finished." Before Hendry could reply, or before Von Hamner could reach it, the door was flung open, and Franklin Marmion strode into the room. Von Hamner crawled back to his chair. He did not like the look of a dead man who had come to life again. Nicol Hendry held out his hand, and said: "And is it really you, Professor? Mr Amena here has just had news that you were dead--'fallen overboard in the Baltic from Prince Oscarovitch's yacht. Body not recovered,' is what the telegram says." "The body is here right enough, M. Hendry. I did not fall overboard. I was bound hand and foot, had a mass of iron tied to my feet, and was thrown out of a port-hole by the Prince and his captain. Of course, I got rid of the rope and the iron even more easily than this man got rid of your handcuffs a short time ago, and after keeping myself afloat for half an hour or so, I was picked up by a fishing-boat which took me to Stralsund. I got a change of clothes there, and came home _via_ Hamburg and Ostend. My daughter has gone on in the yacht to Oscarburg, where the Prince expects to make her his wife, and where she will make a very considerable fool of him. That is all, and now I suppose I had better deal with this man." "Mercy, mercy, Thou Who Knowest! Pity, pity!" Phadrig raised his hands above his head, turned round thrice slowly, and sank in a heap on the floor. "Thou who wast once High Priest in the House of Ptah: thou who hast held the Doctrine: thou darest to ask for mercy, knowing well that there is no forgiveness of sins: thou hast taken innocent lives, believing thyself above human law. A wasted life is behind thee: see that thou doest better for thy soul's sake in the next. Die now! The High Gods have spoken, and the penalty of sin is death--and the life beyond. Die!" And Phadrig died. His eyes glazed and his flesh withered; his lips and his gums dried up and shrivelled away from his jaws. His clothes fell away from his body in rotting shreds, and before Nicol Hendry and Von Hamner had quite grasped the full meaning of the horror that was happening before their eyes, all that was left of him was a little heap of yellow bones with a few fragments of cloth clinging to them.