Suddenly a side door opened, and there emerged a small procession. Slowly there walked in front a clergyman bare-headed, reciting with solemn intonation the Burial Service. Behind him, with unsteady step and bent shoulders, a trembling man with blanched, haggard face, and a wild look of terror in his dark, deep-sunken eyes. He wore a shabby morning-coat tightly buttoned, and his hands in bracelets of steel were behind his back.
Glancing furtively around at the grey dismal landscape, he shuddered. Beside and behind him soldiers tramped on in silence.
The officer's sword grated along the gravel.
Suddenly a word of command caused them to halt against a wall, and a sergeant, stepping forward, took a handkerchief and tied it over the eyes of the quivering culprit, who now stood with his back against the wall. Another word from the officer, and the party receded some distance, leaving the man alone. The monotonous nasal utterances of the chaplain still sounded as four privates advanced, and, halting, stood in single rank before the prisoner.
They raised their rifles. There was a momentary pause. In the distance a dog howled dismally.
A sharp word of command broke the quiet.
Then, a second later, as four rifles rang out simultaneously, the condemned man tottered forward and fell heavily on the gravel, shot through the heart.
It was the spy and murderer, Karl von Beilstein!
He had been brought from Glasgow to London in order that certain information might be elicited from him, and after his actions had been thoroughly investigated by a military court, he had been sentenced to death. The whole of his past was revealed by his valet Grevel, and it was proved that, in addition to bringing the great disaster upon England, he had also betrayed the country whose roubles purchased his cunningly-obtained secrets.