you ever hear
of sealed orders?"

"Naturally I have. But what have they to do with the present case?"

"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 Berr