r half-brother Foy, at the tabernacle of your enemy,
the wizard Arentz, is true, is it not?"

"Yes," answered Adrian, "but I do not see what that has to do with the
matter."

"Silence!" thundered the Master. Then he paused a while, and Adrian
seemed to hear certain strange squeakings proceeding from the walls.
The sage remained lost in thought until the squeakings ceased. Again he
spoke:

"What you have told me of the part played by the said Foy and the said
Martin as to their sailing away with the treasure of the dead heretic,
Hendrik Brant, and of the murders committed by them in the course of its
hiding in the Haarlemer Meer, is true, is it not?"

"Of course it is," answered Adrian, "but----"

"Silence!" again thundered the sage, "or by my Lord Zoroaster, I throw
up the case."

Adrian collapsed, and there was another pause.

"You believe," he went on again, "that the said Foy and the said Dirk
van Goorl, together with the said Martin, are making preparations to
abduct that innocent and unhappy maid, the heiress, Elsa Brant, for evil
purposes of their own?"

"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 w