On the second day I was again ushered
into the presence of the man in black, and
the man with the green shade. Again the
infernal drama was played. Again I was
tempted with rich food. Again, on my
expressing my inability to answer the question,
it was ordered to be removed.

"Stop!" I cried desperately, as Carol was
about to remove the food, and thinking I
might satisfy them with a falsehood; "I will
confess. I will tell all."

"Speak,'' said the man in black, eagerly,
"where is the child?"

"In Amsterdam," I replied at random.

"Amsterdam—nonsense!" said the man
in the green shade impatiently, "what has
Amsterdam to do with the Blue Tiger?"

"I need not remind you," said the man in
black, sarcastically, "that the name of any
town or country is no answer to the question.
You know as well as I do that the key to the
whereabouts of the child is there'" and he
pointed to the pocket-book.

"Yes; there,'' echoed the man in the green
shade. And he struck it.

"But, sir—" I urged.

The answer was simply, "Good morning.
Monsieur Müller."

Again was I conducted back to my prison;
again I met the lady in black, who
administered to me the barren consolation that
"Heaven would reward my devotedness."
Again I found the black loaf and the pitcher
of water, and again I was left a day and a
night in semi-starvation, to be again brought
forth, tantalised, questioned, and sent back
again.

"Perhaps," remarked the man in black, at
the fifth of these interviews, "it is gold that
Monsieur Müller requires. See." As he
spoke, he opened a bureau crammed with
bags of money, and bid me help myself.

In vain I protested that all the gold in
the world could not extort from me a secret
which I did not possess. In vain I exclaimed
that my name was not Müller; in vain I
disclosed the ghastly deceit I had practised.
The man in black only shook his head, smiled
incredulously, and told me—while
complimenting me for my powers of invention—that
my statement confirmed his conviction that I
knew where the child was.

After the next interview, as I was returning
to my starvation meal of bread and water,
the lady in black again met me.

"Take courage," she whispered. "Your
deliverance is at hand. You are to be removed
to-night to a lunatic asylum."

How my translation to a mad-house could
accomplish my deliverance, or better my
prospects, did not appear very clear to me;
but that very night I was gagged, my arms
were confined in a strait waistcoat, and placed
in a carriage, which immediately set off at a
rapid pace. We travelled all night; and, in
the early morning arrived at a large stone
building. Here I was stripped, examined,
placed in a bath, and dressed in a suit of
coarse grey cloth. I asked where I was? I
was told in the Alienation Refuge of the
Grand Duchy of Sachs-Pfeigiger.

"Can I see the head-keeper?" I asked.

The Herr-ober-Direktor was a little man
with a shiny bald head and very white teeth.
When I entered his cabinet he received me
politely and asked me what he could do for
me? I told him my real name, my history,
my wrongs; that I was a British subject, and
demanded my liberty. He smiled and simply
called—"Where is Kraus?"

"Here, Herr," answered the keeper.

"What number is Monsieur?"

"Number ninety-two."

"Ninety-two," repeated the Herr Direktor,
leisurely writing. "Cataplasms on the
soles of the feet. Worsted blisters behind
the ears, a mustard plaster on the chest, and
ice on the head. Let it be Baltic ice."

The abominable inflictions thus ordered
were all applied. The villain Kraus tortured
me in every imaginable way; and in the
midst of his tortures, would repeat, "Tell me
where the child is, Müller, and you shall
have your liberty in half an hour."

I was in the madhouse for six months. If
I complained to the doctor of Kraus's ill-
treatment and temptations, he immediately
began to order cataplasms and Baltic ice.
The bruises I had to show were ascribed to
injuries I had myself inflicted in fits of frenzy.
The maniacs with whom I was caged
declared, like all other maniacs, that I was
outrageously mad.

One evening, as I lay groaning on my bed,
Kraus entered my cell. "Get up," he said,
"you are at liberty. I was bribed, by you
know who, with ten thousand Prussian
thalers to get your secret from you, if I
could; but I have been bribed with twenty
thousand Austrian florins (which is really
a sum worth having) to set you free. I
shall lose my place, and have to fly; but
I will open an hotel at Frankfort for the
Englanders, and make my fortune. Come!"
He led me down stairs, let me out of a
private door in the garden; and, placing a
bundle of clothes and a purse in my hand,
bade me good night.

I dressed myself, threw away the mad-
man's livery, and kept walking along until
morning, when I came to the custom-house
barrier of another Grand Duchy. I had
a passport ready provided for me in the
pocket of my coat, which was found to be
perfectly en règle, and I passed unquestioned.
I went that morning to the coach-office of the
town, and engaged a place in the Eilwagen
to some German town, the name of which I
forget; and at the end of four days' weary
travelling, I reached Brussels.

I was very thin and weak with confinement
and privation; but I soon recovered my health
and strength. I must say that I made up
by good living for my former compulsory