een served, he demanded half the
property on board, or he would give notice to the Russian naval
authorities that the pirate yacht was afloat. He attempted to blackmail
my father, as he had already done so many times, but his scheme was
frustrated. My father, because of his inhuman treatment of poor Elma,
defied him, when it appears that Oberg, who was in Helsingfors,
telegraphed to the admiral of the Russian fleet in the Baltic. The crew
from the _Iris_ were at once landed at Riga, and only Mackintosh and my
father put to sea again. Ah! my father was desperate, for he knew the
merciless character of that man whose victim he had been for so long.
They watched a Russian cruiser bearing down upon them, when, just as it
drew near, they got off in a boat and blew up the yacht, which sank in
three minutes with its ill-obtained wealth on board."

"And your father?"

She was silent, and I saw tears standing in her eyes.

"There was a tragedy," Jack explained in a low, hoarse voice. "He and
the captain did not, unfortunately, get sufficiently far from the yacht
when they blew her up, and they went down with her."

And I looked in silence at Muriel, who stood with her head bent and her
white face covered with her hands.

Almost at the same moment there was a low tap at the door, and the
servant-maid announced:

"Mr. Santini, miss."

"Ah!" exclaimed Jack quickly, as Olinto entered the room. "Then you had
my note! We have asked you here to reveal to us this dastardly plot
which seemed to have been formed against Mr. Gregg and myself. As you
know, I've had a narrow escape."

"I know, signore. And the Signor Commendatore is also threatened."

"By whom?"

"By those who killed my poor wife, and who intended also to silence me,"
was his answer.

"The same who compelled you take me to that house where the fatal chair
was prepared, eh?"

"It was Archer, who, fearing that you came to London in search of them,
devised that devilish contrivance," he said in his broken English. Then
continuing, he went on fiercely: "Now that I have discovered why my poor
Armida was killed, I will tell the truth, and not spare them. Since you
left Scotland, signore, I have been up in Dumfries, and have discovered
several facts which prove that for some reason known only to himself,
Leithcourt, while at Rannoch, wrote to both Armida and myself
separately, making an appointment to see us at the same time at that
spot on the edge of the wood, as