first one; and it is a task which must be done by myself
alone. To have even one confidant would be to stultify the whole affair.
Another glass of claret, and then I will introduce you to my sanctum."

The coloured man who had opened the door for Captain Ducie had been in
and out of the dining-room several times. He was evidently a favourite
servant. Platzoff had addressed him as Cleon, and Ducie had now a
question or two to ask concerning him.

Cleon was a mulatto, tall, agile and strong. Not bad-looking by any
means, but carrying with him unmistakable traces of the negro blood in
his veins. His hair was that of a genuine African--crisp and black, and
was one mass of short curls; but except for a certain fulness of the
lips his features were of the ordinary Caucasian type. He wore no beard,
but a thin, straight line of black moustache. His complexion was yellow,
but a different yellow from that of his master--dusky, passionate,
lava-like; suggestive of fiery depths below. His eyes, too, glowed with
a smothered fire that seemed as if it might blaze out at any moment, and
there was in them an expression of snake-like treachery that made
Captain Ducie shudder involuntarily, as though he had seen some
loathsome reptile, the first time he looked steadily into their
half-veiled depths. One look into each other's eyes was sufficient for
both these men.

"Monsieur Cleon and I are born enemies, and he knows it as well as I
do," murmured Ducie to himself, after the first secret signal of
defiance had passed between the two. "Well, I never was afraid of any
man in my life, and I'm not going to begin by being afraid of a valet."
With that he shrugged his shoulders, and turned his back contemptuously
on the mulatto.

Cleon, in his suit of black and white tie, with his quiet, stealthy
movements and unobtrusive attentions, would have been pronounced good
style as a gentleman's gentleman in the grandest of Belgravian mansions.
Had he suddenly come into a fortune, and gone into society where his
antecedents were unknown, five-sixths of his male associates would have
pronounced him "a deuced gentlemanly fellow." The remaining one-sixth
might have held a somewhat different opinion.

"That coloured fellow seems to be a great favourite with you," remarked
Ducie, as Cleon left the room.

"And well he may be," answered Platzoff. "On two separate occasions I
owed my life to him. Once in South America, when a couple of brigands
had me a