Gregorescu thought his work was complete, he had it inspected--by Prince Soudaroff himself. It was a good thing that I had had fair practice in guile by that time, or I could never have held out, but I baffled even him. He also went away quite satisfied----” “And met us on the hill here, and told us a whole lot of lies about Shishman Pelenko,” said Usk savagely. “Well,” said Mr Hicks, with some complacency, “I guess the champion liar of Europe had met his match that time, any way.” “Thanks for the compliment!” said Cyril. “I believe now that his perfect satisfaction with what he had seen and heard must have made him less clear-sighted with regard to what was going on in Neustria. He thought that with me helpless and in safe custody he had nipped the Palestine scheme in the bud, but no doubt he intended to make things safe after a while by opening negotiations with Ernestine and Goldberg, and handing me over, as a hopeless idiot, in exchange for a promise that the existing state of affairs at Jerusalem should remain undisturbed. It has been about the only consolation I have had, to think that the real scheme would go on all the better because Soudaroff was congratulating himself on having put a stop to the bogus one. But I needed the consolation, for it was just about that time that I lost poor Paschics. We had been kept so strictly apart that I had never had a chance of conferring with him or explaining matters, but he seems to have had some idea that I was only shamming madness. At any rate, one night, when there was a tremendous thunderstorm, I found him by my bed again. He did not utter a sound, simply took my hand in the darkness, and talked on it in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. He said he believed he could escape under cover of the storm, for the Dardanians were all in a lively state of funk, taking shelter wherever they could, and he would bring back help and release me. I asked him in the same way why I should not come too, but he told me that the usual man--a rascally French-speaking Greek who posed as my personal attendant--was on guard at my door, and had only let him pass when he gave him all the money he had, under the pretext that I was always afraid of thunder. In fact, I saw the fellow inside the room by the next flash of lightning, listening jealously, but as he only saw Paschics holding my hand, he got nothing to tell his master. Well, as soon as the storm became less severe, Paschics departed, and the next thing I heard was that he was dead.” “And was he murdered?” asked Usk quickly.