"You have only forestalled Fate by a few hours, Reggie," remarked the pater. "You see, here is the exact key to the cipher--the figures your uncle took to be merely business papers. However, run on down for the police." As I passed through the hall to get my cap, I gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise, for there were no signs of the Brazilian. In reply to my shout, my father and uncle came running up, and their astonishment was, in spite of the situation, comical to behold. We made a hasty yet thorough search of the house and grounds, with no result. The man had vanished as completely as if he had been provided with wings. "But he cannot get far, with a badly wounded leg," I remarked. "It certainly is strange; but he must have a wonderful nerve to play 'possum like that. However, I think we need not send for the police, after all; for they will think we are either mad or else inventing fairy-tales." Everything considered, there was not much to grumble about. We had, it is true, a wounded man on our hands, and Uncle Herbert had received a slight cut from the Brazilian's knife; but as a set-off we had regained the papers, though they served merely to confirm my solution to the cipher, while the Brazilian, who had an ounce of lead through his leg, would hardly care to repeat his burgling exploits after such a disastrous ending to his first attempt. While at breakfast they told me about the wounded man upstairs, and why I was not to have mentioned him to the police. The man, who gave his name as Alec Johnston, a Scotsman, had broken out of Bodmin Naval Prison, where he had been sent after being sentenced by court-martial for the heinous offence, in naval law, of striking a superior officer. He appeared, said my father, to be a well-set-up, healthy young fellow, with a fair amount of intellect, and there was no reason to doubt his story. Left an orphan at an early age, he was sent by his relatives to the training-ship "St. Vincent." In due course he was "passed out" and sent on a sea-going ship, and, by thorough devotion to his duty, bade fair speedily to become a petty officer. By some means or other he incurred the enmity of a bully, who, by a fawning subservience to his superiors, had been recently made a bos'n's mate, and the climax was reached when Johnston refused to participate in a drunken spree ashore. From that time his life on board became intolerable. Under the cloak of discipline the bos'n's mate seized every possible opportunity to humiliate and insult the young seaman, till one day the young Scot turned upon his tormentor and struck him violently in the face.