do must be
mentioned in this company."

Sunday had spent his life in astonishing his followers; but it seemed
as if he had never really astonished them until now. They all moved
feverishly in their seats, except Syme. He sat stiff in his, with his
hand in his pocket, and on the handle of his loaded revolver. When the
attack on him came he would sell his life dear. He would find out at
least if the President was mortal.

Sunday went on smoothly--

"You will probably understand that there is only one possible motive
for forbidding free speech at this festival of freedom. Strangers
overhearing us matters nothing. They assume that we are joking. But
what would matter, even unto death, is this, that there should be one
actually among us who is not of us, who knows our grave purpose, but
does not share it, who--"

The Secretary screamed out suddenly like a woman.

"It can't be!" he cried, leaping. "There can't--"

The President flapped his large flat hand on the table like the fin of
some huge fish.

"Yes," he said slowly, "there is a spy in this room. There is a traitor
at this table. I will waste no more words. His name--"

Syme half rose from his seat, his finger firm on the trigger.

"His name is Gogol," said the President. "He is that hairy humbug over
there who pretends to be a Pole."

Gogol sprang to his feet, a pistol in each hand. With the same flash
three men sprang at his throat. Even the Professor made an effort
to rise. But Syme saw little of the scene, for he was blinded with a
beneficent darkness; he had sunk down into his seat shuddering, in a
palsy of passionate relief.

CHAPTER VII. THE UNACCOUNTABLE CONDUCT OF PROFESSOR DE WORMS

"SIT down!" said Sunday in a voice that he used once or twice in his
life, a voice that made men drop drawn swords.

The three who had risen fell away from Gogol, and that equivocal person
himself resumed his seat.

"Well, my man," said the President briskly, addressing him as one
addresses a total stranger, "will you oblige me by putting your hand in
your upper waistcoat pocket and showing me what you have there?"

The alleged Pole was a little pale under his tangle of dark hair, but he
put two fingers into the pocket with apparent coolness and pulled out
a blue strip of card. When Syme saw it lying on the table, he woke up
again to the world outside him. For although the card lay at the other
extreme of the table, and he could read nothing of the inscriptio