s bent forward listening.

"Last week," it murmured, "the Countess Petrushka was suspected. She
was torn from her home, imprisoned"--The voice grew lower and lower.
"She was beaten--tortured by the guards; she never returned,--yesterday
she was--buried." The voice broke into sobs. "The man who signed the
paper was--"

So the trial went on amid the stillness, more and more solemn, more and
more impressive, as one accusation followed the other in swift
succession; the candles dropping low in their sockets, the light
growing dimmer, the room larger and lower and more ghostly, the night
waning.

In every case the name was left a blank; but in that strange pause, as
if for judgment, the eyes of the masks sought the bier, resting with
slow fascination on the words across it, gleaming scarlet beneath the
flickering candles, vivid and red like blood.

The final accusation had been made. The twelfth and last mask had sunk
back in his chair and the leader rose. The silence was like a pall
over the table. When his voice broke through, it was sharp and stern,
as the voice of a judge admonishing a court.

"You have all heard," he said, "You are aware of what this man has
done, is now doing, will continue to do. Does he merit to live?--Has
he deserved to die? For the sake of our country, our people,
ourselves, deliberate and determine.--His fate rests in the hands of
the _Black Cross_."

He bowed his head on his breast and waited. No one moved or spoke. At
the far end of the room, the candles dripped one by one on the bier,
falling lower and lower. Occasionally the wax flared up, lighting the
darkness; then all was dim.

Suddenly, as from some mysterious impulse, the thirteen sprang to their
feet, and again their hands flashed out in that curious crisscross
motion over the breast, the forehead, the eyes, and a murmur went from
mouth to mouth like a hiss.

"_Cmeptb_--Death!" rising into a sound so intense, so terrifying, so
muffled and suppressed and menacing, it was as the cry of an animal
wounded, dying, about to spring. Falling on their knees, they remained
motionless for a moment; then, following the leader, each stepped
forward in turn and took their places about the bier.

The ceremony that followed was strange and solemn; one that no outside
eye has ever gazed on, no lips have ever dared to breathe. They stood
in the shadow of death, their own and another's. Their heads were
bowed. Their bodies shook