"Everything. When an admiral detaches a part of his fleet in war time, he sends the detached part away with sealed orders which are to be opened under certain circumstances. If those said circumstances do not arise, then the sealed orders are destroyed. As I do not desire my second in command to know too much, I gave him sealed orders. If I do not return by a certain time, those orders are to be opened. I should say that they are being opened about now. You understand me?" Sartoris nodded; it was quite clear that he understood perfectly well. But his dry little face did not change in the slightest. "That was clever," he said; "but not quite clever enough. I should have gone a little further if I had been in your position. What you say merely induces me to get rid of you altogether. But let us go into my room and discuss the matter quietly. Kindly turn my chair around, no, not that way. Grip the handle at the back and push me----" Berrington heard no more. As his hands came in contact with the brass rail at the back of the chair there came a tremendous blow at the base of the brain, a cold feeling of sudden death, and the crisis was past. When Berrington came to himself again he was lying on a bed in a small room; there was a lamp on a table by his side. He had no feeling whatever that he had suffered from violence of any kind, his head was clear and bright, his limbs felt as elastic and virile as ever. He was like a man who had suddenly awakened from a long sleep; he was just as fresh and vigorous. The bed on which he was lying completed the illusion. "What new devil's work is this?" Berrington muttered. "Oh, I recollect." The room was small but comfortably furnished. There was a fire ready laid in the grate; on the ceiling was a three-branch electrolier, but the switch by the door had been removed for some reason or other. On the table by the bed was a very liberal supper, flanked by a decanter of whisky and a syphon of soda water, also a box of cigarettes and another of cigars. A silver match-box invited the prisoner to smoke. He took a cigarette. Clearly he was a prisoner. The window was shuttered with iron, and a small round ventilator; high up, inside the door, was another sheet of iron. There was perhaps a little consolation in the fact that no personal violence was intended. For a long time Berrington reviewed the situation. At any rate he could see no way out of the mess for the present. He smoked his cigarette and ate his supper, and that being done, a feeling of fatigue stole over him. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was past one o'clock in the morning, a very late hour for him. "I'll go to bed," Berrington told himself. "Perhaps I shall be able to see a way out in the morning. On the whole my diplomacy does not seem to have been a success. It would have been much better if I had not hinted that I had taken somebody else into my confidence."