thoroughly well
beknown to all of you. There's Colonel Quorn,' he says--Did you ever
'ear of Colonel Quorn, sir?"

"Yes, yes!" I answered. "Go on with your story."

"'There's Colonel Quorn,' 'e says, 'lying off Civita Vecchia with the
count on board 'is ship with the arms and ammunition.' Now I'm a-coming
to it, sir; don't you stop me. Such a wicked plot you never heard in all
your life. 'The count's on board,' he says, 'and the arms is on board.
The count won't land until he gets both arms and ammunition. Colonel
Quorn won't 'hand over neither arms nor ammunition,' he says, 'until he
gets that forty thousand pounds. The very minute he gets that money he
hands it over to Colonel Quorn, he gets the arms, and he lands. But now,
mind you,' says Sacovitch, 'there's this to be considered: the count
won't trust his foot on Italian soil, arms or no arms,' he says, 'after
what's happened to him, unless he's sure of meeting his friends when
he get's there. Now what's got to be done,' says he, 'is to time the
delivery of the money. That money mustn't be paid until we've got our
people ready. The count won't land until he thinks he's safe, and we
must take jolly good care,' says Sacovitch, ''e don't land until we're
ready,' he says. 'To be a day too soon on the one side, or a day too
late on the other,' he says, 'would wreck us all. And mind you,' he
says, 'the Austrian government puts more importance onto this affair
than anything else as is happening just at present. They'd sooner pay a
million pounds,' he says (I'm giving you his very words, sir)--' they'd
sooner pay a million pounds,' he says, 'than miss the Count Rossano."

In spite of my lame foot I was pacing about the room by this time,
altogether too eager to control myself longer to physical quietude.

"And then," said Hinge, "this come out, and this is what I want to tell
you. Says Sacovitch to the other lady: 'You bring your messenger,'
says he, 'at this time to-morrow here, and I'll give him his last
instructions.'"

CHAPTER XIX

My story until now has dragged a lingering length along, but from this
point onward it moves swiftly to its close. In the haste I feel to reach
that close I strive to obliterate from my mind whatever came between the
hour of Hinge's revelation and the hour of the appointment. The task is
not easy, for the four-and-twenty hours that intervened were filled with
a suspense and anxiety of no common sort. The night passed, as even the