the Milky Way. It was maddening, but it was true,
and he knew the man well enough now to feel absolutely assured that no
extremity of mental or physical torment would wring the priceless secret
from him.

Well, if it had to be, it must be. If he could not learn the secret, at
least no one else should. Before morning it would be buried for ever
under the waters of the Baltic, and he would revenge himself on the
daughter for that which the father refused to do. If Franklin Marmion
would not give him the sceptre of the World-Empire, then Nitocris should
be his wife and Empress if she would, and if not, his slave and
plaything, as he had sworn to Phadrig the Egyptian. The fortress-castle
of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a
secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in
the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues
around, was his, body and soul, as their fathers before them had been
the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law,
and his will was fate. There was no "liberty" within his domains, since
no man wanted it, or would have understood it had it been given to him.

When their argument was over they parted, apparently the best of
friends. Franklin Marmion went to bed calmly curious as to what was
going to happen, and Oscarovitch paid a visit to his captain.

A little after three that morning he opened the door of the Professor's
state-room very gently and looked in. The room was dark, and he
listened. A soft, just audible sound of breathing came from the bed. It
was the breathing of a man fast asleep. He pressed the spring of his
electric lamp, and turned the thin ray on to the water-bottle in the
rack over the wash-stand. It was half-empty, and a glass stood on the
table in the middle of the room. Then the ray fell on the face of the
sleeping man. It was as Prince Zastrow's face had been the last night he
went to sleep in the Castle of Trelitz--rather the face of a corpse than
that of a living man. His captain stood behind him, and he turned and
whispered:

"He is ready. Are the men below?"

"All, Highness, save Grovno at the wheel and Hartog on the look-out.
They will see nothing, as they did before," came the whispered reply.

"Very well, then. You and I can manage this between us. You have the
line?"

The captain nodded, and they went into the room, softly closing the
door. In a few minutes they came o