were meditating a breach of your parole, and that he had informed you
that the privileges extended to you would, therefore, be withdrawn.
Then, he said, transported by rage, you sprang upon him. He drew his
sword and attempted to defend himself, but the two of you, closing
with him, hurled him through the window, in spite of his struggles."

The other officer had, while the doctor was speaking, been examining
the writing-table.

"I do not see the papers he spoke of," he said to the doctor.

Then, turning to the sergeants of the guard, he asked if any papers
upon the table had been touched. The sergeant replied that no one had
gone near the table since he had entered the room.

"In that case," the officer said, "his mind cannot have been quite
clear, although he seemed to speak sensibly enough. You heard him
order me, doctor, to fold up a report and attesting statement directed
to the Minister of the Interior, and to post them immediately? It is
clear that there are no such documents here. I entered the room with
the sergeant almost at the moment when the struggle ended, and as no
one has touched the table since, it is clear that they cannot have
been here. Perhaps I may find them on the table downstairs. It is
now," he said, turning to Jack, "my duty to inform you that you are in
custody for the deliberate murder of Count Smerskoff, as sworn to by
him in his last moments."

"He was a liar when he was alive," Jack said, "and he died with a
falsehood on his lips. However, sir, we are at your orders."

A stretcher was brought in, Dick was placed upon it, and under a guard
the midshipmen were marched to the prison, the soldiers with
difficulty keeping back the crowd who pressed forward to see the
English prisoners who had murdered the governor.

Doctor Bertmann walked with Jack to the prison door. Upon the way he
assured Jack that he entirely believed his version of the story, as he
knew the governor to be a thoroughly bad man.

"Singularly enough," he said, "I had intended to see you to-day. I
went back to Sebastopol on the very day after you arrived here, with a
regiment marching down, and left again with a convoy of wounded after
only two days' stay there. I got here last night, and I had intended
coming out to call upon you at Count Preskoff's to-day. You would, no
doubt, like me to see him at once, and inform him of what has taken
place."

Jack said that he would be very much obliged, if he would do so.