refore, that, even as you ordered, so have I acted according to the
means at my disposal--considering only the end which justifies them--for
you tell me a great interest of the society is concerned.

"In your hands, I have been what we all ought to be in the hands of our
superiors--a mere instrument: since, for the greater glory of God, we
become corpses with regard to the will.(7) Men may deny our unity
and power, and the times appear opposed to us; but circumstances only
change; we are ever the same.

"Obedience and courage, secrecy and patience, craft and audacity, union
and devotion--these become us, who have the world for our country, our
brethren for family, Rome for our Queen!

"J. V."

About ten o'clock in the morning, Mahal the Smuggler set out with this
despatch (sealed) in his possession, to board the "Ruyter." An hour
later, the dead body of this same Mahal, strangled by Thuggee, lay
concealed beneath some reeds on the edge of a desert strand, whither he
had gone to take boat to join the vessel.

When at a subsequent period, after the departure of the steamship,
they found the corpse of the smuggler, M. Joshua sought in vain for the
voluminous packet, which he had entrusted to his care. Neither was there
any trace of the note which Mahal was to have delivered to the captain
of the "Ruyter," in order to be received as passenger.

Finally, the searches and bushwhacking ordered throughout the country
for the purpose of discovering Faringhea, were of no avail. The
dangerous chief of the Stranglers was never seen again in Java.

(7) It is known that the doctrine of passive and absolute obedience,
the main-spring of the Society of Jesus, is summed up in those terrible
words of the dying Loyola: "Every member of the Order shall be, in the
hands of his superiors, even as a corpse (Perinde ac Cadaver)."--E. S.

CHAPTER XXIII. M. RODIN.

Three months have elapsed since Djalma was thrown into Batavia Prison
accused of belonging to the murderous gang of Megpunnas. The following
scene takes place in France, at the commencement of the month of
February, 1832, in Cardoville Manor House, an old feudal habitation
standing upon the tall cliffs of Picardy, not far from Saint Valery,
a dangerous coast on which almost every year many ships are totally
wrecked, being driven on shore by the northwesters, which render the
navigation of the Channel so perilous.

From the interior of the Castle