As he did so his eye travelled along the empty beds in the ward, and along a row of pegs above them, and stiffened suddenly.
There were twelve pegs, and all were bare save one—the one in the wall-space separating his bed from the bed which had been prepared for Menehwehna; and from this peg hung Sergeant Barboux's white tunic.
It had not been hanging there last night when he dropped asleep: to that he could take his oath. He had supposed it to be left behind in the armoire at Boisveyrac. For a full minute he sat on the bed's edge gazing at it in sheer dismay, its evil menace closing like a grip upon his heart.
But by and by the grip relaxed as dismay gave room to rage, and with rage came courage.
He laughed again fiercely. Up to this moment he had always shrunk from touch of the thing; but now he pulled it from its peg, held it at arm's length for a moment, and flung it contemptuously on the floor.
"You, at least, I am not going to fear any longer!"
As he cast it from him something crackled under his fingers. For a second or two he stood over the tunic, eyeing it between old disgust and new surmise. Then, dropping on one knee, he fumbled it over, found the inner breast-pocket, and pulled from it a paper.
It was of many sheets, folded in a blue wrapper, sealed with a large red seal, and addressed in cipher.
Turning it over in his hand, he caught sight, in the lower left-hand corner, of a dark spot which his thumb had covered. He stared at it; then at his thumb, to the ball of which some red dust adhered; then at the seal. The wax bore the impress of a flying Mercury, with cap, caduceus and winged sandals. The ciphered address he could not interpret; it was brief, written in two lines, in a bold clear hand.
This, then, was the missive which Barboux had carried.