The name of an Emperor is a fine thing to conjure with. When we arrived at the station at Cuyaba at early evening a score of saddle-horses and several carriages were awaiting the royal party.

I stood in the shadows of the station and watched the guardsmen mount and surround the equipage in which their imperial master seated himself. His civic companions—men of high rank, evidently—occupied the other carriages; and then the entire cavalcade swept away into the gloom and left me alone.

The station agent was known to me as a patriot, but he was still bobbing his head after the royal party when I accosted him.

“Get me a horse, Pedro.”

“A horse! Ah, your excellency is joking. Every horse that could be found has been impressed by the Emperor.”

145“Anything will do. A nag of any sort, with saddle or cart, will answer my purpose. The Cause demands it, Pedro.”

“I am powerless, your excellency. Absolutely powerless!”

It was true enough. The only way for me to get to de Pintra’s mansion was on foot, and after inducing the man to give me a peasant’s dress in exchange for my police uniform, I set out at once.

It was a long and gloomy walk. There was a moon, but large banks of clouds were drifting across the sky, and the way was obscured more than half the time, causing me to go slowly in order to avoid stumbling into the ditches.

I met no one on the road, for the highways were usually deserted at this hour, and the silence all about me added its depressing influence to the anxiety of my thoughts.

The Emperor’s advent into this stronghold of the Revolution indicated that at last he had determined to act and suppress the conspiracy that had grown to such huge proportions. With the real leader—“the 146brains of the revolt,” as de Pintra was called—out of the way, Dom Pedro doubtless had concluded he could easily crush the remainder of the conspirators.

But his success, I argued, would depend upon his securing the key to the secret vault, for without that the records would never come into his possession.

Did he have the key? Was this the explanation of his sudden activity? The thought made me hasten my steps, but although I put forth my best efforts it was close upon midnight before I sighted the great hedge that surrounded de Pintra’s mansion. I half-expected to find the gateway guarded, but to my relief the avenue was as deserted as the highway had been.

Cautiously I passed along the drive leading to the mansion. I am not usually nervous at such times, but something in the absolute stillness of the scene, something menacing in the deep shadows cast by the great trees, unnerved me and made me suspicious of my surrounding.

Once, indeed, I fancied that I heard a stealthy footstep advancing to meet me, 147and with a bound I sprang from the driveway and crouched among the thick shrubbery, listening intently. But after a few moments I became reassured and resumed my journey, avoiding this time the graveled drive and picking my way noiselessly across the grass, skirting the endless array of flower-beds and shrubbery.

Fortunately the moon came out, or I might have lost my way; and before long the black line of shadow cast by the mansion itself fell at my feet. Peering ahead, I saw that I had approached the right wing of the house. It was here that my own room was located, and with a low exclamation of relief I was about to step forward into the path when my eyes fell upon a sight that caused me to suddenly halt and recoil in horror.

It was a man’s arm showing white in the moonlight, and extending from beneath a clump of low bushes.

For a few moments I gazed at it as if fascinated, but quickly recovering myself I advanced to the bushes and gently withdrew the body until it lay exposed to the 148full rays of the............