"You remember that out at the point, beside the way that leads from the
shore to the fortress, there are many big rocks, and the waves roll
about there. Three weeks after you caught Count Verdt cheating at cards,
his dead body was found floating there."

"Gracious heavens!" Brand exclaimed, with his face grown pale. And then
he added, breathlessly, "Suicide?"

Mr. Lind smiled.

"No. Reassure yourself. When they picked out the body from the water,
they found the mouth gagged, and the hands tied behind the back."

Brand stared at this man.

"Then you--?" He dared not complete the question.

"I? Oh, I had nothing to do with it, any more than yourself. It was a
Camorra affair."

He had been speaking quite indifferently; but now a singular change came
over his manner.

"And if I _had_ had something to do with it?" he said, vehemently; and
the dark eyes were burning with a quick anger under the heavy brows.
Then he spoke more slowly, but with a firm emphasis in his speech. "I
will tell you a little story; it will not detain you, sir. Suppose that
you have a prison so overstocked with political prisoners that you must
keep sixty or seventy in the open yard adjoining the outer wall. You
have little to fear; they are harmless, poor wretches; there are several