to me a matter of confidential
duty--diplomatic secrets which would compromise his late Majesty Louis
XVIII--Indeed, monsieur, it would be better----However, you are a
magistrate--and, after all, the Ambassador, to whom I refer the whole
question, must decide."

At this juncture the usher announced the arrival of the doctor and the
infirmary attendant, who came in.

"Good-morning, Monsieur Lebrun," said Camusot to the doctor. "I have
sent for you to examine the state of health of this prisoner under
suspicion. He says he had been poisoned and at the point of death since
the day before yesterday; see if there is any risk in undressing him to
look for the brand."

Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin's hand, felt his pulse, asked to look
at his tongue, and scrutinized him steadily. This inspection lasted
about ten minutes.

"The prisoner has been suffering severely," said the medical officer,
"but at this moment he is amazingly strong----"

"That spurious energy, monsieur, is due to nervous excitement caused by
my strange position," said Jacques Collin, with the dignity of a bishop.

"That is possible," said Monsieur Lebrun.

At a sign from Camusot the prisoner was stripped of everything but his
trousers, even of his shirt, and the spectators might admire the hairy
torso of a Cyclops. It was that of the Farnese Hercules at Naples in its
colossal exaggeration.

"For what does nature intend a man of this build?" said Lebrun to the
judge.

The usher brought in the ebony staff, which from time immemorial has
been the insignia of his office, and is called his rod; he struck it
several times over the place where the executioner had branded the fatal
letters. Seventeen spots appeared, irregularly distributed, but the most
careful scrutiny could not recognize the shape of any letters. The usher
indeed pointed out that the top bar of the letter T was shown by two
spots, with an interval between of the length of that bar between the
two points at each end of it, and there was another spot where the
bottom of the T should be.

"Still that is quite uncertain," said Camusot, seeing doubt in the
expression of the prison doctor's countenance.

Carlos begged them to make the same experiment on the other shoulder and
the middle of his back. About fifteen more such scars appeared, which,
at the Spaniard's request, the doctor made a note of; and he pronounced
that the man's back had been so extensively seamed by wounds that the