“By all means,” says Tom:  and gives up the revolver.

The gendarme takes it very cautiously; meditates awhile how to carry it; sticks the point of his bayonet into its muzzle, and lifts it aloft.

“Schon!  Das kriegt!  Has der Herr any more death-instruments?”

“Dozens!” says Tom, and begins fumbling in his pockets; from whence he pulls a case of surgical instruments, another of mathematical ones, another of lancets, and a knife with innumerable blades, saws, and pickers, every one of which he opens carefully, and then spreads the whole fearful array upon the grass before him.

The gendarme scratches his head over those too plain proofs of some tremendous conspiracy.

“So!  Man must have a dozen hands!  He is surely Palmerston himself; or at least Hecker, or Mazzini!” murmurs he, as he meditates how to stow them all.

He thinks now that the revolver may be safe elsewhere; and that the knife will do best on the bayonet-point So he unships the revolver.

Bang goes barrel number two, and the ball goes into the turf between his feet.

“You will shoot yourself soon, at that rate,” says Tom.

“So?  Der Herr speaks German like a native,” says the gendarme, growing complimentary in his perplexity.  “Perhaps der Herr would be so good as to carry his death-instruments himself, and attend on the Herr Polizeirath, who is waiting to see him.”

“By all means!” And Tom picks up his tackle, while the prudent gendarme reloads; and Tom marches down the hill, the gendarme following, with his bayonet disagreeably near the small of Tom’s back.

“Don’t stumble!  Look out for the stones, or you’ll have that skewer through me!”

“So!  Der Herr speaks German like a native,” says the gendarme, civilly.  “It is certainly der Palmerston,” thinks he, “his manners are so polite.”

Once at the crater edge, and able to see into the pit, the mystery is, in part at least, explained:  for there stand not only Stangrave and Bursch number two, but a second gendarme, two elderly gentlemen, two ladies, and a black boy.

One is Lieutenant D——­, by his white moustache.  He is lecturing the Bursch, who looks sufficiently foolish.  The other is a portly and awful-looking personage in uniform, evidently the Polizeirath of those parts, armed with the just terrors of the law:  but Justice has, if not her eyes bandaged, at least her hands tied; for on his arm hangs Sabina, smiling, chatting, entreating.  The Polizeirath smiles, bows, ogles, evidently a willing captive.  Venus had disarmed Rhadamanthus, as she has Mars so often; and the sword of Justice must rust in its scabbard.

Some distance behind them is Stangrave, talking in a low voice, earnestly, passionately,—­to whom but to Marie?

And lastly, opposite each other, and like two dogs who are uncertain whether to make friends or fight, are a gendarme and Sabina’s black boy:  the gendarme, with shouldered musket, is trying to look as stiff and cross as possible, being scandalised by his superior officer’s defection from the path of duty; and still more by the irreverence of the black boy, who is dancing, grinning, snapping his fingers, in delight at having discovered and prevented the coming tragedy.