y of the
society, to make them known to each other. With such a safeguard as
this there is no oath among us on admittance. We are identified with
the Brotherhood by a secret mark, which we all bear, which lasts while
our lives last. We are told to go about our ordinary business, and to
report ourselves to the president, or the secretary, four times a year,
in the event of our services being required. We are warned, if we
betray the Brotherhood, or if we injure it by serving other interests,
that we die by the principles of the Brotherhood--die by the hand of a
stranger who may be sent from the other end of the world to strike the
blow--or by the hand of our own bosom-friend, who may have been a
member unknown to us through all the years of our intimacy. Sometimes
the death is delayed--sometimes it follows close on the treachery. It
is our first business to know how to wait--our second business to know
how to obey when the word is spoken. Some of us may wait our lives
through, and may not be wanted. Some of us may be called to the work,
or to the preparation for the work, the very day of our admission. I
myself--the little, easy, cheerful man you know, who, of his own
accord, would hardly lift up his handkerchief to strike down the fly
that buzzes about his face--I, in my younger time, under provocation so
dreadful that I will not tell you of it, entered the Brotherhood by an
impulse, as I might have killed myself by an impulse. I must remain in
it now--it has got me, whatever I may think of it in my better
circumstances and my cooler manhood, to my dying day. While I was
still in Italy I was chosen secretary, and all the members of that
time, who were brought face to face with my president, were brought
face to face also with me."

I began to understand him--I saw the end towards which his
extraordinary disclosure was now tending. He waited a moment, watching
me earnestly--watching till he had evidently guessed what was passing
in my mind before he resumed.

"You have drawn your own conclusion already," he said. "I see it in
your face. Tell me nothing--keep me out of the secret of your
thoughts. Let me make my one last sacrifice of myself, for your sake,
and then have done with this subject, never to return to it again."

He signed to me not to answer him--rose--removed his coat--and rolled
up the shirt-sleeve on his left arm.

"I promised you that this confidence should be complete," he whispered,
s