While the Sicilian satiated his thirst for vengeance, one of the other spies, La Grive, regained his footing and fought desperately with Louis Pierre, whom he quickly so battered with fist blows that the Knight of Liberty lay prone upon the grass. La Grive next turned his attention upon Giacinto and Volpetti. The latter lay dead in a pool of blood. The case of papers was near. He remembered the leader's injunction: 'The casket must be saved, at all costs.' Seizing his opportunity, while Giacinto feasted his eyes upon his dead enemy, he grasped the papers and ran off, soon being lost among the trees. So vanished the last proofs of Naundorff's identity. The defeat was complete. It was the culmination of the lengthy drama initiated in prison and developed in London, Dover, Picmort and Paris. While La Grive possessed himself of the papers René was engaged in combat with the brutal and athletic Sec. At length he dispossessed him of his hunting knife and threw him senseless, as he thought, to the ground. Then he ran swiftly to Naundorff and cut his cords. Sec watched his opportunity. Gliding noiselessly toward his vanquisher, he aimed a bullet which made René spin around and fall lifeless to the ground. It had pierced his heart. Meanwhile, the Duchess, motionless on her garden seat, was powerless to summon the courage to return to the castle. Scarcely could she restrain herself from running after Naundorff, calling, "Brother, brother!" The sun no longer reddened the sky. The evening was chill. Suddenly a shot rang out. She shuddered but remained paralyzed, in the throes of conflicting emotions. The branches rustled and swift footsteps hurried along the path. Was this an apparition? A young girl in black, her face framed in a glory of golden hair, her hands raised menacingly and dropping blood! It was the image of her mother, her eyes gleaming, her mouth livid and mutely pronouncing maledictions and her forefinger held prophetically and accusingly in the Duchess's face. Marie Thérèse de Bourbon fell upon the ground, writhing and groaning: "Mother, mother!" Chapter IX GIACINTO'S FATE Soliviac nimbly leaped to the wharf from a skiff and held out his hands to Louis Pierre and Giacinto. He uncovered respectfully to Naundorff and Amélie and caressed Baby Dick's head, as the little fellow clung to his adoptive mother's hand. Amélie, in deep mourning, was the shadow of her former self. Wasted away, almost blue in her pallor, her sunken eyes surrounded by red circles, and of an agonized expression, she was indeed the picture of the unhappy queen; not the queen in faces and crowned with roses, but the queen of the prison and the guillotine. Like unto Marie Antoinette, sorrow only augmented her grace and dignity. When she held her hand to Soliviac to be kissed, no court might show so regal a movement. Naundorff opened his arms to Soliviac, both shedding tears. "When do we start?" the former asked, as though longing to be off.