rest. The other boys slept a good deal
this afternoon, so I left them to wake me at night. Nothing odd about
that, is there?"

"Nothing save the nerve of it."

Two high officers now made their appearance in the room and beckoned to
the prisoners. All arose save the man from whom the disguise had been
stripped. He remained in the chair into which he had dropped, seemingly
in a stupor.

"Come," said the officer.

The man arose, desperation in his eyes, and moved toward the door. A
few days before that miserable night he had been one of the leaders in
the statecraft of the world. Now he was being marched to a prison like
any ordinary criminal.

The speaker was interrupted by a quick movement on the part of the
prisoner, the man he had addressed as Count. There was no one between
he desperate man and the still open window. Ned was at the door,
Captain Martin was out in the corridor, and Frank, Jack and Jimmie were
talking together in a corner.

Handcuffed as he was, the Count leaped to the window and shot down to
the hard pavement below. There was a shrill cry as his body hurtled
through the air, then a crash.

Below passersby drew away from what lay in a bloody heap on the
pavement. A little crowd gathered, at a distance, but none knew that the
body of one of the most distinguished statesmen in the world lay there.

"It is finished!" Ned said, with a sigh. "The whole story of the
conspiracy will never be told. It is the story of a treacherous
government and a treacherous statesman.

"The documents I have will fully prove that the United States had no
hand in the gold shipment, and that is all that we care for. The old
world may take care of its own political messes."

"It is a mess indeed," Captain Martin, said. "In less than a year China
will be red with blood, and the streets of Peking will witness the
retreat of the royal family."

How true this prophecy was the readers of the daily newspapers now know.

"Well," Jack said, with a yawn, as the boys and the Captain were left
alone in the room together, "I presume it is us for little old New York
to-morrow. How do you like this motorcycle-flying-squadron business,
boys," he added. "We seem to have flown ahead of the flying squadron."

"Then we ought to fly back and look after the ones who were wounded on
the road," Frank said. "Suppose we all go back on our machines, and
really see something of the country?"

This was agreed to, and the