r
services to Rallywood. He thanked them, and was about to accept, when
Captain Adiron interposed.

'If either of these gentlemen will resign in my favour I shall feel it
an obligation, as I can then offer myself to Captain Rallywood as one of
his seconds.'

Courtesy demanded that Rallywood and his friends should fall in with
this proposal, and Rallywood, replying to Adiron, added:

'You have heard exactly what passed between Lieutenant Unziar and
myself, and I am sure I cannot do better than leave the matter in your
hands in conjunction with my friend, Colonel Jenard.'

Colendorp and Adolf, as representing Unziar, accompanied Rallywood's
seconds to make the necessary arrangements. Meanwhile, Rallywood
strolled back to the gallery above the ballroom, and looked down at the
dancers. He could not see Valerie, but he remembered Selpdorf and his
injunctions to avoid a quarrel, and smiled as he thought over the words,
since the Chancellor must have been perfectly aware that he had pushed
an unwelcome foreigner into a position that could only be held by force
of arms, even in the case of a Maasaun candidate of noble blood. At that
moment he saw his own position clearly. He knew himself to be an
unconsidered unit in the big game of diplomacy that was being played
over his head, and he remembered that the day of human sacrifices is not
yet, as many suppose, quite a thing of the past. The gods are changed,
or called by other names, and the high priest no longer dips his hands
in the actual blood of the victim; but the whole deadly drama goes on
repeating itself as it always must while the generations of men have
their being under various modifications of the primeval system of the
strong hand. That his life might be deliberately requisitioned by
Selpdorf to forward some secret policy of his own was by no means an
impossible supposition. Rallywood glanced at the clock. In another
quarter of an hour he must either be dancing with Valerie Selpdorf or
lying dead in the famous Cloister of St. Anthony, which overlooked the
river, and where many another man had died under much the same
circumstances.

Rallywood laughed again and turned on his heel. At that period it did
not seem to matter greatly which way it ended, but he was going to carry
the undertaking through with what credit his wits afforded him.

In the meantime the Cloister of St. Anthony had been lit up from end to
end with a brilliant light, and while the other two s