Another taxi ran close alongside, almost at the moment that the press
of vehicles moved on again. Certainly, I had no more than a passing
glimpse of the occupants; but I could have sworn that violet eyes
looked suddenly into mine, and with equal conviction I could have sworn
to the gaunt face of the man who sat beside the violet-eyed girl for
that of Earl Dexter!

The travellers, however, were immediately lost to sight in the rear,
and I was left to conjecture whether this had been a not uncommon form
of optical delusion or whether I had seen a ghost.

At any rate, as I passed in between the big pillars, “The gateway of
the North,” I scrutinized, and closely, the numerous hurrying figures
about me. None of them, by any stretch of the imagination, could have
been set down for that of Dexter, The Stetson Man. No doubt, I
concluded, I had been tricked by a chance resemblance.

Having dispatched my telegram, I boarded the 6:55. I thought I should
have the compartment to myself, and so deep in reverie was I that the
train was actually clear of the platforms ere I learned that I had a
companion. He must have joined me at the moment that the train started.
Certainly, I had not seen him enter. But, suddenly looking up, I met
the eyes of this man who occupied the corner seat facing me.

This person was olive-skinned, clean-shaven, fine featured, and
perfectly groomed. His age might have been anything from twenty-five to
forty-five, but his hair and brows were jet black. His eyes, too, were
nearer to real black than any human eyes I had ever seen
before—excepting the awful eyes of Hassan of Aleppo. Hassan of Aleppo!
It was, to that hour, a mystery how his group of trained assassins—the
Hashishin—had quitted England. Since none of them were known to the
police, it was no insoluble mystery, I admit; but nevertheless it was
singular that the careful watching of the ports had yielded no result.
Could it be that some of them had not yet left the country? Could it
be—

I looked intently into the black eyes. They were caressing, smiling
eyes, and looked boldly into mine. I picked up a magazine, pretending
to read. But I supported it with my left hand; my right was in my coat
pocket—and it rested upon my Smith and Wesson!

So much had the slipper of Mohammed done for me: I went in hourly dread
of murderous attack!

My travelling companion watched me; of that I was certain. I could feel
his gaze. But he made no move and no word passed between us. This was
the situation when the train slowed into Northampton. At Northampton,
to my indescribable relief (frankly, I was as nervous in those days as
a woman), the Oriental traveller stepped out on to the platform.

Having reclosed the door, he turned and leaned in through the open
window.

“Evidently you are not concerned, Mr. Cavanagh,” he said. “Be warned.
Do not interfere with those that are!”

The night swallowed him up.

My fears had been justified; the man was one of the Hashishin—a spy of
Hassan of Aleppo! What did it mean?

I craned from the window, searching the platform right and left. But
there was no sign of him.

When the train left Northampton I found myself alone, and I should only
weary you were I to attempt to recount the troubled conjectures that
bore me company to Birmingham.

The train reached New Street at nine, with the result that having
gulped a badly needed brandy and soda in the buffet, I grabbed my bag,
raced across—and just missed the connection! More than an hour later I
found myself standing at ten minutes to eleven upon the H— platform,
watching the red taillight of the “local” disappear into the night.
Then I realized to the full that with four miles of lonely England
before me there hung above my head a mysterious threat—a vague menace.
The solitary official, who but waited my departure to lock up the
station, was the last representative of civilization I could hope to
encounter until the gates of “Uplands” should be opened to me!

What was the matter with which I was warned not to interfere? Might I
not, by my mere presence in that place, unwittingly be interfering now?

With the station-master’s directions humming like a refrain in my ears,
I passed through the sleeping village and out on to the road. The moon
was exceptionally bright and unobscured, although a dense bank of cloud
crept slowly from the west, and before me the path stretched as an
unbroken thread of silvery white twining a sinuous way up the
bracken-covered slope, to where, sharply defined against the moonlight
sky, a coppice in grotesque silhouette marked the summit.

The month had been dry and tropically hot, and my footsteps rang
crisply upon the hard ground. There is nothing more deceptive than a
straight road up a hill; and half an hour’s steady tramping but saw me
approaching the trees.

I had so far resolutely endeavoured to keep my mind away from the idea
of surveillance. Now, as I paused to light my pipe—a never-failing
friend in loneliness—I perceived something move in the shadows of a
neighbouring bush.

This object was not unlike a bladder, and the very incongruity of its
appearance served to revive all my apprehensions. Taking up my grip, as
though I had noticed nothing of an alarming nature, I pursued my way up
the slope, leaving a trail of tobacco smoke in my wake; and having my
revolver secreted up my right coat-sleeve.

Successfully resisting a temptation to glance behind, I entered the
cover of the coppice, and, now invisible to any one who might be
dogging me, stood and looked back upon the moon-bright road.

There was no living thing in sight, the road was empty as far as the
eye could see. The coppice now remained to be negotiated, and then, if
the station-master’s directions were not at fault, “Uplands” should be
visible beyond. Taking, therefore, what I had designed to be a final
glance back down the hillside, I was preparing to resume my way when I
saw something—something that arrested me.

It was a long way behind—so far that, had the moon been less bright, I
could never have discerned it. What it was I could not even conjecture;
but it had the appearance of a vague gray patch, moving—not along the
road, but through the undergrowth—in my direction.

For a second my eye rested upon it. Then I saw a second patch—a third—a
fourth!

Six!

There were six gray patches creeping up the slope toward me!

The sight was unnerving. What were these things that approached,
silently, stealthily—like snakes in the grass?

A fear, unlike anything I had known before the quest of the Prophet’s
slipper had brought fantastic horror into my life, came upon me.
Revolver in hand I ran—ran for my life toward the gap in the trees that
marked the coppice end. And as I went something hummed through the
darkness beside my head, some projectile, some venomous thing that
missed its mark by a bare inch!

Painfully conversant with the uncanny weapons employed by the
Hashishin, I knew now, beyond any possibility of doubt, that death was
behind me.

A pattering like naked feet sounded on the road, and, without pausing
in my headlong career, I sent a random shot into the blackness.

The crack of the Smith and Wesson reassured me. I pulled up short,
turned, and looked back toward the trees.

Nothing—no one!

Breathing heavily, I crammed my extinguished briar into my
pocket—re-charged the empty chamber of the revolver—and started to run
again toward a light that showed over the treetops to my left.

That, if the man’s directions were right, was “Uplands”—if his
directions were wrong—then...

A shrill whistle—minor, eerie, in rising cadence—sounded on the dead
silence with piercing clearness! Six whistles—seemingly from all around
me—replied!

Some object came humming through the air, and I ducked wildly.

On and on I ran—flying from an unknown, but, as a warning instinct told
me, deadly peril—ran as a man runs pursued by devils.

The road bent sharply to the left then forked. Overhanging trees
concealed the house, and the light, though high up under the eaves, was
no longer visible. Trusting to Providence to guide me, I plunged down
the lane that turned to the left, and, almost exhausted, saw the gates
before me—saw the sweep of the drive, and the moonlight, gleaming on
the windows!

None of the windows were illuminated.

Straight up to the iron gates I raced.

They were locked!

Without a moment’s hesitation I hurled my grip over the top and
clambered up the bars! As I got astride, from the blackness of the lane
came the ominous hum, and my hat went spinning away across the
lawn!—the black cloud veiled the moon and complete darkness fell.

Then I dropped and ran for the house—shouting, though all but
winded—“Hilton! Hilton! Open the door!”

Sinking exhausted on the steps, I looked toward the gates—but they
showed only dimly in the dense shadows of the trees.

Bzzz! Buzz!

I dropped flat in the portico as something struck the metal knob of the
door and rebounded over me. A shower of gravel told of another
misdirected projectile.

Crack! Crack! Crack! The revolver spoke its short reply into the
mysterious darkness; but the night gave up no sound to tell of a shot
gone home.

“Hilton! Hilton!” I cried, banging on the panels with the butt of the
weapon. “Open the door! Open the door!”

And now I heard the coming footsteps along the hall within; heavy bolts
were withdrawn—the door swung open—and Hilton, pale-faced, appeared.
His hand shot out, grabbed my coat collar; and weak, exhausted, I found
myself snatched into safety, and the door rebolted.

“Thank God!” I whispered. “Thank God! Hilton, look to all your bolts
and fastenings. Hell is outside!”

CHAPTER XXXIII
HOW WE WERE REINFORCED

Hilton, I learned, was living the simple life at “Uplands.” The place
was not yet decorated and was only partly furnished. But with his man,
Soar, he had been in solitary occupation for a week.

“Feel better now?” he asked anxiously.

I reached for my tumbler and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. I
could hear Soar’s footsteps as he made the round of bolts and bars,
testing each anxiously.

“Thanks, Hilton,” I said. “I’m quite all right. You are naturally
wondering what the devil it all means? Well, then, I wired you from
Euston that I was coming by the 6:55.”

“H— Post Office shuts at 7. I shall get your wire in the morning!”

“That explains your failing to meet me. Now for my explanation!”

“Surrounding this house at the present moment,” I continued, “are
members of an Eastern organization—the Hashishin, founded in Khorassan
in the eleventh century and flourishing to-day!”

“Do you mean it, Cavanagh?”

“I do! One Hassan of Aleppo is the present Sheikh of the order, and he
has come to England, bringing a fiendish company in his train, in
pursuit of the sacred slipper of Mohammed, which was stolen by the late
Professor Deeping—-”

“Surely I have read something about this?”

“Probably. Deeping was murdered by Hassan! The slipper was placed in
the Antiquarian Museum—”

“From which it was stolen again!”

“Correct—by Earl Dexter, America’s foremost crook! But the real facts
have never got into print. I am the only pressman who knows them, and I
have good reason for keeping my knowledge to myself! Dexter is dead (I
believe I saw his ghost to-day). But although, to the best of my
knowledge, the accursed slipper is in the hands of Hassan and Company,
I have been watched since I left Euston, and on my way to ‘Uplands’ my
life was attempted!”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“I cannot surmise, Hilton. Deeping, for certain reasons that are
irrelevant at the moment, left the keys of the case at the Museum in my
perpetual keeping—but the case was rifled a second time—”

“I read of it!”

“And the keys were stolen from me. I am utterly at a loss to understand
why the Hashishin—for it is members of that awful organization who,
without a doubt, surround this house at the present moment—should seek
my life. Hilton, I have brought trouble with me!”

“It’s almost incredible!” said Hilton, staring at me. “Why do these
people pursue you?”

Ere I had time to reply Soar entered, arrayed, as was Hilton, in his
night attire. Soar was an ex-dragoon and a model man.

“Everything fast, sir,” he reported; “but from the window of the
bedroom over here—the room I got ready for Mr. Cavanagh—I thought I saw
someone in the orchard.”

“Eh?” jerked Hilton—“in the orchard? Come on up, Cavanagh!”

We all ran upstairs. The moonlight was streaming into the room.

“Keep back!” I warned.

Well within the shadow, I crept up to the window and looked out. The
night was hot and still. No breeze stirred the leaves, but the edge of
the frowning thunder cloud which I had noted before spread a heavy
carpet of ebony black upon the ground. Beyond, I could dimly discern
the hills. The others stood behind me, constrained by the fear of this
mysterious danger which I had brought to “Uplands.”

There was someone moving among the trees!

Closer came the figure, and closer, until suddenly a shaft of moonlight
found passage and spilled a momentary pool of light amid the shadows, I
could see the watcher very clearly. A moment he stood there,
motionless, and looking up at the window; then as he glided again into
the shade of the trees the darkness became complete. But I watched,
crouching there nervously, for long after he was gone.

“For God’s sake, who is it?” whispered Hilton, with a sort of awe in
his voice.

“It’s Hassan of Aleppo!” I replied.

Virtually, the house, with the capital of the Midlands so near upon the
one hand, the feverish activity of the Black Country reddening the
night upon the other, was invested by fanatic Easterns!

We descended again to the extemporized study. Soar entered with us and
Hilton invited him to sit down.

“We must stick together to-night!” he said. “Now, Cavanagh, let us see
if we can find any explanation of this amazing business. I can
understand that at one period of the slipper’s history you were an
object of interest to those who sought to recover it; but if, as you
say, the Hashishin have the slipper now, what do they want with you? If
you have never touched it, they cannot be prompted by desire for
vengeance.”

“I have never touched it,” I replied grimly; “nor even any receptacle
containing it.”

As I ceased speaking came a distant muffled rumbling.

“That’s the thunder,” said Hilton. “There’s a tremendous storm
brewing.”

He poured out three glasses of whisky, and was about to speak when Soar
held up a warning finger.

“Listen!” he said.

At his words, with tropical suddenness down came the rain.

Hilton, his pipe in his hand, stood listening intently.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sir; the sound of the rain has drowned it.”

Indeed, the rain was descending in a perfect deluge, its continuous
roar drowning all other sounds; but as we three listened tensely we
detected a noise which hitherto had seemed like the overflowing of some
spout.

But louder and clearer it grew, until at last I knew it for what it
was.

“It’s a motor-car!” I cried.

“And coming here!” added Soar. “Listen! it’s in the lane!”

“It certainly isn’t a taxicab,” declared Hilton. “None of the men will
come beyond the village.”

“That’s the gate!” said Soar, in an awed voice, and stood up, looking
at Hilton.

“Come on,” said the latter abruptly, making for the door.

“Be careful, Hilton!” I cried; “it may be a trick!”

Soar unbolted the front door, threw it open, and looked out. In the
darkness of the storm it was almost impossible to see anything in the
lane outside. But at that moment a great sheet of lightning split the
gloom, and we saw a taxicab standing close up to the gateway!

“Help! Open the gate!” came a high-pitched voice; “open the gate!”

Out into the rain we ran and down the gravel path. Soar had the gate
open in a twinkling, and a woman carrying a brown leather grip, but who
was so closely veiled that I had no glimpse of her features, leapt
through on to the drive.

“Lend a hand, two of you!” cried a vaguely familiar voice—“this way!”

Hilton and Soar stepped out into the road. The driver of the cab was
lying forward across the wheel, apparently insensible, but as Hilton
seized his arm he moved and spoke feebly.

“For God’s sake be quick, sir!” he said. “They’re after us! They’re on
the other side of the lane, there!”

With that he dropped limply into Hilton’s arms!

He was dragged in on to the drive—and something whizzed over our heads
and went sputtering into the gravel away up toward the house. The last
to enter was the man who had come in the cab. As he barred the gate
behind him he suddenly reached out through the bars and I saw a pistol
in his hand.

Once—twice—thrice—he fired into the blackness of the lane.

“Take that, you swine!” he shouted. “Take that!”

As quickly as we could, bearing the insensible man, we hurried back to
the door. On the step the woman was waiting for us, with her veil
raised. A blinding flash of lightning came as we mounted the step—and I
looked into the violet eyes of Carneta! I turned and stared at the man
behind me.

It was Earl Dexter.

Three of the mysterious missiles fell amongst us, but miraculously no
one was struck. Amid the mighty booming of the thunder we reentered the
houses and got the door barred. In the hall we laid down the
unconscious man and stood, a strangely met company, peering at one
another in the dim lamplight.

“We’ve got to bury the hatchet, Mr. Cavanagh!” said Dexter. “It’s a
case of the common enemy. I’ve brought you your bag!” and he pointed to
the brown grip upon the floor.

“My bag!” I cried. “My bag is upstairs in my room.”

“Wrong, sir!” snapped The Stetson Man. “They are like as two peas in a
pod, I’ll grant you, but the bag you snatched off the platform at New
Street was mine! That’s what I’m after; I ought to be on the way to
Liverpool. That’s what Hassan’s after!”

“The bag!”

“You don’t need to ask what’s in the bag?” suggested Dexter.

“What is in the bag?” ask Hilton hoarsely.

“The slipper of the Prophet, sir!” was the reply.

CHAPTER XXXIV
MY LAST MEETING WITH HASSAN OF ALEPPO

I felt dazed, as a man must feel who has just heard the death sentence
pronounced upon him. Hilton seemed to have become incapable of speech
or action; and in silence we stood watching Carneta tending the
unconscious man. She forced brandy from a flask between his teeth,
kneeling there beside him with her face very pale and dark rings around
her eyes. Presently she looked up.

“Will you please get me a bowl of water and a sponge?” she said
quietly.

Soar departed without a word, and no one spoke until he returned,
bringing the sponge and the water, when the girl set to work in a
businesslike way to cleanse a wound which showed upon the man’s head.

“She’s a good nurse is Carneta,” said Dexter coolly. “She was the only
doctor I had through this”—indicating his maimed wrist. “If you will
fetch my bag down, there’s some lint in it.”

I hesitated.

“You needn’t worry,” said Dexter; “as well be hung for a sheep as a
lamb. You’ve handled the bag, and I’m not asking you to do any more.”

I went up to my room and lifted the grip from the chair upon which I
had put it. Even now I found it difficult to perceive any difference
between this and mine. Both were of identical appearance and both new.
In fact, I had bought mine only that morning, my old one being past
use, and being in a hurry, I had not left it to be initialled.

As I picked up the bag the lightning flashed again, and from the window
I could see the orchard as clearly as by sunlight. At the farther end
near the wall someone was standing watching the house.

I went downstairs carrying the fatal bag, and rejoined the group in the
hall.

“He will have to be got to bed,” said Carneta, referring to the wounded
man; “he will probably remain unconscious for a long time.”

Accordingly, we took the patient into one of the few furnished
bedrooms, and having put him to bed left him in care of the beautiful
nurse. When we four men met again downstairs, amazement had rendered
the whole scene unreal to me. Soar stood just within the open door, not
knowing whether to go or to remain; but Hilton motioned to him to stay.
Earl Dexter bit off the end of a cigar and stood with his left elbow
resting on the mantelpiece.

His gaunt face looked gaunter than ever, but the daredevil gray eyes
still nursed that humorous light in their depths.

“Mr. Cavanagh,” he said, “we’re brothers! And if you’ll consider a
minute, you’ll see that I’m not lying when I say I’m on the straight,
now and for always!”

I made no reply: I could think of none.

“I’m a crook,” he resumed, “or I was up to a while ago. There’s a
warrant out for me—the first that ever bore my name. I’ve sailed near
the wind often enough, but it was desperation that got me into hot
water about that!”

He jerked his cigar in the direction of his grip, which lay now on the
rug at his feet.

“I lost a useful right hand,” he went on—“and I lost every cent I had.
It was a dead rotten speculation—for I lost my good name! I mean it!
Believe me, I’ve handled some shady propositions in the past, but I did
it right in the sunlight! Up to the time I went out for that damned
slipper I could have had lunch with any detective from Broadway to the
Strand! I didn’t need any false whiskers and the Ritz was good enough
for The Stetson Man. What now? I’m ‘wanted!’ Enough said.”

He tossed the cigar—he had smoked scarce an inch of it—into the empty
grate.

“I’m an Aunt Sally for any man to shy at,” he resumed bitterly. “My
place henceforth is in the dark. Right! I’ve finished; the book’s
closed. From the time I quit England—if I can quit—I’m on the straight!
I’ve promised Carneta, and I mean to keep my word. See here—”

Dexter turned to me.

“You’ll want to know how I escaped from the cursed death-trap at
Hassan’s house in Kent? I’ll tell you. I was never in it! I was hiding
and waiting my chance. You know what was left to guard the slipper
while the Sheikh—rot him—was away looking after arrangements for
getting his mob out of the country?”

I nodded.

“You fell into the trap—you and Carneta. By God! I didn’t know till it
was all over! But two minutes later I was inside that place—and three
minutes later I was away with the slipper! Oh, it wasn’t a duplicate;
it was the goods! What then? Carneta had had a sickening of the
business and she just invited me to say Yes or No. I said Yes; and I’m
a straight man onward.”

“Then what were you doing on the train with the slipper?” asked Hilton
sharply.

“I was going to Liverpool, sir!” snapped The Stetson Man, turning on
him. “I was going to try to get aboard the Mauretania and then make
terms for my life! What happened? I slipped out at Birmingham for a
drink—grip in hand! I put it down beside me, and Mr. Cavanagh here, all
in a hustle, must have rushed in behind me, snatched a whisky and
snatched my grip and started for H—!”

A vivid flash of lightning flickered about the room. Then came the
deafening boom of the thunder, right over the house it seemed.

“I knew from the weight of the grip it wasn’t mine,” said Dexter, “and
I was the most surprised guy in Great Britain and Ireland when I found
whose it was! I opened it, of course! And right on top was a waistcoat
and right in the first pocket was a telegram. Here it is!”

He passed it to me. It was that which I had received from Hilton. I had
packed the suit which I had been wearing that morning and must
previously have thrust the telegram into the waistcoat pocket.

“Providence!” Dexter assured me. “Because I got on the station in time
to see Hassan of Aleppo join the train for H—! I was too late, though.
But I chartered a taxi out on Corporation Street and invited the man to
race the local! He couldn’t do it, but we got here in time for the
fireworks! Mr. Cavanagh, there are anything from six to ten Hashishin
watching this house!”

“I know it!”

“They’re bareheaded; and in the dark their shaven skulls look like
nothing human. They’re armed with those damned tubes, too. I’d give a
thousand dollars—if I had it!—to know their mechanism. Well, gentlemen,
deeds speak. What am I here for, when I might be on the way to
Liverpool, and safety?”

“You’re here to try to make up for the past a bit!” said a soft,
musical voice. “Mr. Cavanagh’s life is in danger.”

Carneta entered the room.

The light played in that wonderful hair of hers; and pale though she
was, I thought I had never seen a more beautiful woman.

“Tell them,” she said quietly, “what must be done.”

Soar glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes and shifted uneasily.
Hilton stared as if fascinated.

“Now,” rapped Dexter, in his strident voice, “putting aside all
questions of justice and right (we’re not policemen), what do we
want—you and I, Mr. Cavanagh?”

“I can’t think clearly about anything,” I said dully. “Explain
yourself.”

“Very well. Inspector Bristol, C.I.D., would want me and Hassan
arrested. I don’t want that! What I want is peace; I want to be able to
sleep in comfort; I want to know I’m not likely to be murdered on the
next corner! Same with you?”

“Yes—yes.”

“How can we manage it? One way would be to kill Hassan of Aleppo; but
he wants a lot of killing—I’ve tried! Moreover, directly we’d done it,
another Sheikh-al-jebal would be nominated and he’d carry on the bloody
work. We’d be worse off than ever. Right! we’ve got to connive at
letting the blood-stained fanatic escape, and we’ve got to give up the
slipper!”

“I’ll do that with all my heart!”

“Sure! But you and I have both got little scores up against Hassan,
which it’s not in human nature to forget. But I’ve got it worked out
that there’s only one way. It may nearly choke us to have to do it,
I’ll allow. I’m working on the Moslem character. Mr. Hilton, make up a
fire in the grate here!”

Hilton stared, not comprehending.

“Do as he asks,” I said. “Personally, I am resigned to mutilation,
since I have touched the bag containing the slipper, but if Dexter has
a plan—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Soar interrupted. “I believe there’s some coal in the
coal-box, but I shall have to break up a packing-case for firewood—or
go out into the yard!”

“Let it be the packing-case,” replied Hilton hastily.

Accordingly a fire was kindled, whilst we all stood about the room in a
sort of fearful uncertainty; and before long a big blaze was roaring up
the chimney. Dexter turned to me.

“Mr. Cavanagh,” said he, “I want you to go right upstairs, open a
first-floor window—I would suggest that of your bedroom—and invite
Hassan of Aleppo to come and discuss terms!”

Silence followed his words; we were all amazed. Then—

“Why do you ask me to do this?” I inquired.

“Because,” replied Dexter, “I happen to know that Hassan has some queer
kind of respect for you—I don’t know why.”

“Which is probably the reason why he tried to kill me to-night!”

“That’s beside the question, Mr. Cavanagh. He will believe you—which is
the important point.”

“Very well. I have no idea what you have in mind but I am prepared to
adopt any plan since I have none of my own. What shall I say?”

“Say that we are prepared to return the slipper—on conditions.”

“He will probably try to shoot me as I stand at the window.”

Dexter shrugged his shoulders.

“Got to risk it,” he drawled.

“And what are the conditions?”

“He must come right in here and discuss them! Guarantee him safe
conduct and I don’t think he’ll hesitate. Anyway, if he does, just tell
him that the slipper will be destroyed immediately!”

Without a word I turned on my heel and ascended the stairs.

I entered my room, crossed to the window, and threw it widely open.
Hovering over the distant hills I could see the ominous thunder cloud,
but the storm seemed to have passed from “Uplands,” and only a distant
muttering with the faint dripping of water from the pipes broke the
silence of the night. A great darkness reigned, however, and I was
entirely unable to see if any one was in the orchard.

Like some mueddin of fantastic fable I stood there.

“Hassan!” I cried—“Hassan of Aleppo!”

The name rang out strangely upon the stillness—the name which for me
had a dreadful significance; but the whole episode seemed unreal, the
voice that had cried unlike my voice.

Instantly as any magician summoning an efreet I was answered.

Out from the trees strode a tall figure, a figure I could not mistake.
It was that of Hassan of Aleppo!

“I hear, effendim, and obey,” he said. “I am ready. Open the door!”

“We are prepared to discuss terms. You may come and go safely”—still my
voice sounded unfamiliar in my ears.

“I know, effendim; it is so written. Open the door.”

I closed the window and mechanically descended the stairs.

“Mind it isn’t a trap!” cried Hilton, who, with the others, had
overheard every word of this strange interview. “They may try to rush
the door directly we open it.”

“I’ll stand the chest behind it,” said Soar; “between the door and the
wall, so that only one can enter at a time.”

This was done, and the door opened.

Alone, majestic, entered Hassan of Aleppo.

He was dressed in European clothes but wore the green turban of a
Sherif. With his snowy beard and coal-black eyes he seemed like a
vision of the Prophet, of the Prophet in whose name he had committed
such ghastly atrocities.

Deigning no glance to Soar nor to Hilton, he paced into the room,
passing me and ignoring Carneta, where Earl Dexter awaited him. I shall
never forget the scene as Hassan entered, to stand looking with blazing
eyes at The Stetson Man, who sat beside the fire with the slipper of
Mohammed in his hand!

“Hassan,” said Dexter quietly, “Mr. Cavanagh has had to promise you
safe conduct, or as sure as God made me, I’d put a bullet in you!”

The Sheikh of the Hashishin glared fixedly at him.

“Companion of the evil one,” he said, “it is not written that I shall
die by your hand—or by the hand of any here. But it has been revealed
to me that to-night the gates of Paradise may be closed in my face.”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” drawled Dexter. “But it’s up to you.
You’ve got to swear by Mohammed—”

“Salla-’llahu ’aleyhi wasellem!”

“That you won’t lay a hand upon any living soul, or allow any of your
followers to do so, who has touched the slipper or had anything to do
with it, but that you will go in peace.”

“You are doomed to die!”

“You don’t agree, then?”

“Those who have offended must suffer the penalty!”

“Right!” said Dexter—and prepared to toss the slipper into the heart of
the fire!

“Stop! Infidel! Stop!”

There was real agony in Hassan’s voice. To my inexpressible surprise he
dropped upon his knee, extending his lean brown hands toward the
slipper.

Dexter hesitated. “You agree, then?”

Hassan raised his eyes to the ceiling.

“I agree,” he said. “Dark are the ways. It is the will of God...”

Dimly the booming of the thunder came echoing back to us from the
hills. Above its roll sounded a barbaric chanting to which the drums of
angry heaven formed a fitting accompaniment.

I heard Soar shooting the bolts again upon the going of our strange
visitor.

Faint and more faint grew the chanting, until it merged into the remote
muttering of the storm—and was lost. The quest of the sacred slipper
was ended.