“I never told you so,” said Adrian, “but I think it is a fact; at least there is a lot of packing going on.”

“You never told me!  Do you not understand that there is no need for you to tell me anything?”

“Then, in the name of your Lord Zoroaster, why do you ask?” exclaimed the exasperated Adrian.

“That you will know presently,” he answered musing.

Once more Adrian heard the strange squeaking as of young and hungry rats.

“I think that I will not take up your time any more,” he said, growing thoroughly alarmed, for really the proceedings were a little odd, and he rose to go.

The Master made no answer, only, which was curious conduct for a sage, he began to whistle a tune.

“By your leave,” said Adrian, for the magician’s back was against the door.  “I have business——­”

“And so have I,” replied the sage, and went on whistling.

Then suddenly the side of one of the walls seemed to fall out, and through the opening emerged a man wrapped in a priest’s robe, and after him, Hague Simon, Black Meg, and another particularly evil-looking fellow.

“Got it all down?” asked the Master in an easy, everyday kind of voice.

The monk bowed, and producing several folios of manuscript, laid them on the table together with an ink-horn and a pen.

“Very well.  And now, my young friend, be so good as to sign there, at the foot of the writing.”

“Sign what?” gasped Adrian.

“Explain to him,” said the Master.  “He is quite right; a man should know what he puts his name to.”

Then a monk spoke in a low, business-like voice.

“This is the information of Adrian, called Van Goorl, as taken down from his own lips, wherein, among other things, he deposes to certain crimes of heresy, murder of the king’s subjects, an attempted escape from the king’s dominions, committed by his stepfather, Dirk van Goorl, his half-brother, Foy van Goorl, and their servant, a Frisian known as Red Martin.  Shall I read the papers?  It will take some time.”

“If the witness so desires,” said the Master.

“What is that document for?” whispered Adrian in a hoarse voice.

“To persuade your treacherous rival, Foy van Goorl, that it will be desirable in the interests of his health that he should retire from Leyden for a while,” sneered his late mentor, while the Butcher and Black Meg sniggered audibly.  Only the monk stood silent, like a black watching fate.

“I’ll not sign!” shouted Adrian.  “I have been tricked!  There is treachery!” and he bent forward to spring for the door.

Ramiro made a sign, and in another instant the Butcher’s fat hands were about Adrian’s throat, and his thick thumbs were digging viciously at the victim’s windpipe.  Still Adrian kicked and struggled, whereon, at a second sign, the villainous-looking man drew a great knife, and, coming up to him, pricked him gently on the nose.