lad anatomy. And then--death? An end of the glorious
adventures whose trail he had followed now for well upon ten years?

And still the death bullet was withheld. Groping about in the darkness
with one hand as he loosened the magazine clip on the butt, and finding
that the clip of cartridges had been removed, he finally discovered the
whereabouts of the suit-case, and dragged it slowly toward him, with
his eyes pinned upon the vacant port.

Fumbling among the numerous objects contained in the suit-case, his
fingers encountered at length a cartridge clip. He slipped this into
the magazine, and indulged in a silent grunt of relief as the clip
moved up into place. He drew back the rejecting mechanism, and heard
the soft, reassuring _snick_ of the cartridge as it slid from the
magazine into the chamber.

Then sounds without demanded his attention, the sounds of a tussle, of
oaths spoken in a high, feminine tongue, in a language not his own.

Peter would have shouted, but he had long ago learned the
inadvisability of shouting when such grim business as to-night's was
being negotiated.

Slipping on his bath-robe, he opened the door and tentatively peered
out into the half-light of the orlop deck from the cross corridor
vestibule-way, for indications of a shambles.

They were gone. The deck was deserted. But he caught his breath
sharply as he made out a long, dark shape which lay, with the inertness
of death, under his port-hole, blending with the shadows. He rolled
the man over upon his back, and dragged him by the heels under the
deck-light, and, dragging him, a dark trail spread out upon the boards,
and even as Peter examined the cold face, the spot broadened and a
trickle broke from it and crept down toward the gutter.

Stabbed? More than likely. Pausing only long enough to reassure
himself that this one was the assassin whose square head had been
framed by the port, Peter looked for a wound, and shortly he found the
wound, and Peter was not greatly astounded at the proportions thereof.

It was a small wound, running entirely through the neck from a point
below the left ear to one slightly below and to the right of the locked
jaw. Upon close scrutiny the death wound proved to be small and
thorough and of a triangular pattern.

Just why he had expected to find that triangular wound Peter was unable
to explain even to himself, but he was quite as sure that Romola
Borria's hand was in this latest developm