ession to him, when presently he
awakened, that it had fallen from it sconce. Then, without waiting for
more, I backed swiftly away, watching the progress of the flames as they
devoured the paper and presently reached his hand and scorched it.

At that I dropped again on all fours, and having gained the corner of
the buffet, I crouched there, even as with a sudden scream of pain he
woke and sprang upright, shaking his blistered hand. As a matter of
instinct he looked about to see what it was had hurt him. Then his eyes
fell upon the charred paper on the table, and the fallen candle, which
was still burning across one end of it, and even to the dull wits of
Ramiro del' Orca the only possible conclusion was suggested. He stared
at it a moment, then swept that flimsy sheet of ashes from the table
with an oath, and sank back once more into his great leathern chair.

"Body of God!" he swore aloud, "it is well that I had read it a dozen
times. Better that it should have been burnt than that someone should
have read it whilst I slept."

The idea of such a possibility seemed to rouse him to fresh action, for
seizing the fallen candle and replacing it in its socket, he rose once
more, and holding it high above his head he looked about the hall.

The light it shed may have been feeble, and the shadows about my buffet
thick; but, as I have said, my doublet was open, and some ray of that
weak candlelight must have found out the white shirt that was showing
at my breast, for with a sudden cry he pushed back his chair and took a
step towards me, no doubt intent upon investigating that white something
that he saw gleaming there.

I waited for no more. I had no fancy to be caught in that corner,
utterly at his mercy. I stood up suddenly.

"Magnificent, it is I," I announced, with a calm and boundless
effrontery.

The boldness of it may have staggered him a little, for he paused,
although his eyes were glowing horribly with the frenzy that possessed
him, the half of which was drunkenness, the other fear and wrath lest I
should have seen his treacherous communication from Vitelli.

"What make you here?" he questioned threateningly.

"I thirsted, Excellency," I answered glibly. "I thirsted, and I
bethought me of this buffet where you keep your wine."

He continued to eye me, some six paces off, his half-drunken wits no
doubt weighing the plausibility of my answer. At last--

"If that be all, what cause had you to hide?" he ask