The flush of excitement died out of his cheeks, leaving him ghastly pale and overcome with confusion. His mouth, opened to conclude his sentence, hung gaping, as if it had suddenly been frozen in that position. His eyes glared with rage and terror. Count Poltavo advanced, hat in hand, and bowed gravely to the masked company. "Monsieur Baggin does me an honour that I do not deserve," he said. Baggin, recovering himself, shot a swift side glance at a curtained recess behind which stooped a crop-haired man in a convict shirt, fingering a brand-new knife. "Monsieur Baggin," Count Poltavo went on, "is wrong when he says I am the only man who stands between the Nine Bears of Cadiz and freedom--there is another, and his name is T. B. Smith." "T. B. Smith is dead, or dying," said Baggin angrily; "we have your word for it." His antagonist favoured him with the slightest bow. "Even I may fall into an error," he said magnanimously. "T. B. is neither dead nor dying." "But he fell?" The count smiled. "It was clever, and for the moment even I was deceived," he confessed. He walked forward until he was opposite the curtain where the assassin waited. "He is in Jerez, messieurs--with an assistant. I saw them upon the street this morning. Mr. Smith," he concluded, smiling, "wore his arm in a sling." "It's a lie!" shouted Baggin. "Strike, Carlos!" He wrenched the curtain aside, revealing the sinister figure behind. Poltavo fell back with an ashen face, but the convict made no move. Baggin sprang at him in a fury, and struck madly, blindly, but Poltavo's arm caught his, and wrenched him backward. In the count's other hand was a revolver, and the muzzle covered the convict. "Gentlemen," he said, and his eyes blazed with triumph, "I have told you that T. B. Smith was here with an assistant--behold the assistant!" And Cord Van Ingen, in his convict shirt, standing with one hand against the wall of the recess, and the other on his hip, smiled cheerfully. "That is very true," he said. Under his hand were the three switches that controlled the light in the room. "It is also true, my young friend," said Poltavo softly, "that you have meddled outrageously in this matter--that you are virtually dead." Van Ingen nodded. "Wasn't it a Polish philosopher," he began, with all the hesitation of one who is beginning a long discourse, "who said----" Then he switched out the light and dropped flat on the floor. The revolvers cracked together, and Poltavo uttered an oath. There was a wild scramble in the dark. A knot of men swayed over a prostrate form; then a trembling hand found the switch, and the room was flooded with light. Poltavo lay flat on his back with a bullet through his leg, but the man they sought, the man in the striped shirt and with a three days' growth of beard, was gone. CHAPTER XXV IN THE GARDEN