"Well, Niti, what do you think of our gimlet-eyed friend? Will he do?"

"Yes, Dad; I like his manner, and he seems very clever in his own way. Quite a gentleman, too," she replied.

"I'm glad you think that," he added; "but what a pity it is that we could not get the world to accept fourth dimensional evidence without turning the said world inside out. We could clear up the whole affaire Zastrow in a week then."

"But we shouldn't enjoy our holiday as much, I'm afraid, it would be too exciting," concluded Nitocris.



CHAPTER XVIII

MURDER BY SUGGESTION

Two days later the Marmions left London for Copenhagen, whence they intended to take a trip among the Baltic Islands, now looking their brightest and prettiest, then up along the Norwegian Fiords, just before the tourist rush began, and finally across from Trondjem to Iceland. They were both excellent sailors, and both disliked crowds, especially when the said crowds were pleasure-hunting. Moreover, they had now a particular reason for being alone that they might enjoy together—they, the only two mortals who could do so—the countless marvels of that new existence which had now become possible for them. Where, too, could they do this to more advantage than in the ancient Northland, whose marvellous past would now be to them even as the present of their own temporal lives?

The Van Huysmans, and, of course, Lord Lester Leighton, were to remain in London until the end of the Season. Uncle Ephraim had cabled warm congratulations and large credits, and so Brenda, very naturally as a newly-engaged girl and a prospective Countess, wanted all that London and Ranelagh and Henley, Ascot and Goodwood and Cowes, could give her before her devoted lover's yacht carried them off to the Mediterranean. Later in the autumn they were all to go over to the States to spend the winter in Washington and New York, whence they were to return to London for the wedding in May: surely as pleasant a programme—I fear that Miss Brenda spelt it "program"—as could be desired even by a fair maiden upon whom the kindly Fates had already showered their choicest gifts. The only bitter drop in the family cup of content was the fact that Professor van Huysman was as far away as ever from the exposure of the fallacy which, as he was immovably convinced, those abominable demonstrations must contain.

After due consultation between Nicol Hendry and his colleagues of France, Germany, and Russia, it was decided to follow up the clues which he had so mysteriously received. The others would, of course, have been very glad to know where and how he got them, but at the outset he had put them on their honour not to ask, and so professional etiquette made it impossible for them to do anything but accept his assurance that he had received them from a source which was quite beyond reproach. Once they accepted the situation, they got to work with a quiet thoroughness which resulted in the spreading of an invisible but unbreakable net round the footsteps of every one of the suspects from the great Oscarovitch himself to the humble seller of curios in Candler's Court, and his still humbler friends Pent-Ah and Neb-Anat, who were known to the few who knew them as Mr and Mrs Pentana, renovators, and, possibly manufacturers, of ancient gems and relics.

But to one pair of eyes, at least, the police-net was as plainly visible as a spider's web hanging in the sunlight.

Within three days Phadrig received a visit from a shabbily-dressed but well-to-do Jew trader with whom he had done business before, who wanted to know if he could put him in the way of getting some really good old Egyptian gems and jewellery to show on approval to a wealthy patron who wanted to give his daughter a set of rare and uncommon ornaments on her wedding day. It was by this means, by acting as an intermediary between those who had something to sell and those who wished to buy, that Phadrig was supposed to make his modest living. His knowledge of Eastern antiquities was admittedly great, though, of course, no one knew how great, and he had often been asked why, instead of living in such a wretched way, he did not start a little business for himself; to which he always replied that he had no capital, and that he preferred independence, however poor, to the cares and ties of regular trading.

When the Jew had stated his business, Phadrig looked at him with sleepy eyes with a strange expression in them which, for some reason or other, held his visitor's usually shifty gaze fixed, and said in a slow, gentle voice:

"It is very kind of you, Mr Josephus, to bring me all these nice little commissions. They are of much benefit to a poor student of antiquities like myself, although I do not like trading in things that I love. Still, one must live if one would study. Now, I had a gem sent to me the other day which I would dearly love to possess, but, alas! as well might I long for the Koh-i-Noor itself. Moreover, it is already promised—nay, as good as sold. But what have the poor to do with such splendours save to help the rich to buy them!"

The Jew's prominent eyes shone with an inward light at the mention of the gem, and he said in a coaxing voice:

"My dear Phadrig, we have always been friends for ever so long, and you say I've been a good customer to you. Might I have a look at that gem? You know how fond I am of the pretty things. Have you got it here?"

"Yes, and you shall see it with pleasure, my good Josephus," replied Phadrig, well knowing the thought that was in his mind when he asked if he had the gem there in that shabby, unprotected room.

He went to the old oak secretaire, unlocked a cupboard at the side, and then a drawer within it, followed in every motion by the gleaming eyes of the Jew, and took from it a leather parcel. He undid this and produced a box, about four inches long and three wide, of plain black polished wood. It looked solid, but Phadrig made a swift motion with his fingers, and one half of it slid off the other. He held it towards his visitor, and said:

"What do you think of that as a specimen of ancient art, Mr Josephus?"

The Jew looked. The inside of the box seemed filled with green light tinted with yellow. Out of the midst of it began to shine a deeper green light which crystallised into the most glorious emerald that he had ever even dreamt of. It was fully an inch square, flawless, and of perfect colour. The yellow sheen came from a framework of heavy, exquisitely-wrought gold. Phadrig took it out and held it before him, and the green light seemed to radiate through the dull atmosphere of the room. The Jew stared at it with bulging eyes and trembling under-lip, and his hands went out towards it with a gesture which seemed like worship.

"God of Israel," he gasped, "was anything so splendid ever seen before! Mr Phadrig, is it—is it real?"

"Real?" echoed the Egyptian scornfully. "Did you ever see light like that come out of a sham stone? You should know more about gems than that, Mr Josephus."

"Ah yes, yes, of course. It is glorious; it is worthy to shine on the breastplate of the High Priest—and what a price it must be! Is it allowed to ask the name of the great millionaire for whom it is destined?"

"Yes. It will in a few hours be the property of Prince Oscar Oscarovitch."

As Phadrig spoke he hid the gem in his hand. His voice was so changed that the Jew looked up at him. His eyes were wide open now, and glowing with a fire that made them look almost dull red. They seemed to see right through his eyeballs and look into his brain. Josephus started as though he had been struck. He tried to turn his head away, but the terrible eyes held him. His fat, greasy, olive face grew grey and dry, and his head shook from side to side.

"What is the matter, my dear Mr Josephus?" asked Phadrig, in slow, stern tones. "The mention of the Prince seems to have affected your nerves. Are you acquainted with His Highness?"

"Me? I? Why, how should I know a great man like the noble Prince? No, no; of course I know him as a very grand and great gentleman, but that is all, really all, my dear Phadrig."

"Yes, yes, of course," said the Egyptian, once more in his gentle voice; "would not be likely, would it? Now, if you would like to look at the gem more closely, go and sit down there by the light and take it in your hand. You will see that it is engraved with hieroglyphics. They say that this jewel was once the property of Rameses the Great of Egypt, and was given by him to his daughter Nitocris."

This information did not interest the Jew in the slightest, since he had never heard the names in his life; but the delight and honour of holding such a glorious gem in his hand even for a few minutes was ecstasy to him. He sat down, and held out his fat, trembling hand greedily. With a smile of contempt Phadrig placed the jewel in it, and said:

"Examine it closely, my friend. It is well worth it, and it may be long before you see another like it."

"Like—like it, like this! By the beard of Father Moses, I should think not—I should think—I should—oh, beautiful—glor—glorious—splendid—did—splen—oh, what a light—li—light—li—oh——!"

As each of the disjointed syllables came from his shaking lips he mumbled more and more, and his head sank lower towards the priceless thing in his palm. As he gazed, the stone grew round and bigger and brighter, till it seemed like a great green-blazing eye glaring into the utmost depths of his being. Then the light suddenly went out, his head fell on his breast, and as his hand sank, Phadrig caught it and took away the jewel. Then he put the Jew back in the chair, and standing in front of him began in a slow, penetrating voice:

"Isaac Josephus, thou hast gazed upon the Horus Stone, and he who doeth that may not answer the questions of an Adept with lies save at the price of his life. Now answer me truly, or to-morrow morning those of thine household shall find thee dead in thy bed."

Wide open the eyes of the hypnotised man stared at him, and the loose lips quivered, but these were the only signs of life.

"Thou art not only a dealer in gems and curious things: thou art also a spy of the police; is not that so?"

"Yes."

"Believing that I am a very poor man, yet knowing that I dealt with objects of value, they thought me to be one who receives such things from thieves to sell them again, since they could not. Is that so?"

"Yes."

"And, believing this, and knowing thee to have dealings with me, they bribed thee to come here as my friend and fellow-dealer and spy upon my actions, so that they might have evidence against me and cast me into prison. Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Late on the last night but one thou didst go to the house of Nicol Hendry, who is no common catcher of thieves, but a spy of nations whose business is with the great ones of the earth. Tell me: whom did thy business with him concern?"

"Prince Oscarovitch and yourself."

"What were his orders?"

"To watch you both, especially you, and find out when you went to him, and why you were sometimes a poor devil in a miserable hole like this, and sometimes a swell going to swagger places with him."

"How were you going to do this?"

"I know your servant or chum, Mr Pentana. I've lent him money: and Peter Petroff, the Prince's particular servant, gambles like a lord, and he owes me and a friend of mine a lot of money. We were going to work through them."

"It is enough; and well for you that you have answered truthfully. Now tell me: do you know how to use a revolver?"

"Never fired a shot in my life."

Phadrig went to the secretaire and took a common, cheap revolver, identical with thousands of others which our criminally careless Government allows to be bought every day without the production of a licence—just a hooligan's weapon, in fact—went back and put it into the Jew's hand. He raised the hand several times, and pointed the muzzle to the temple, keeping the forefinger on the trigger. At length he let go the wrist, and said in a gentle, persuading tone:

"That is the way to handle a revolver when you are going to shoot, my dear Josephus. Now, let me see if you can do it by yourself."

With mechanical precision the Jew's arm went up until the muzzle touched his temple. Again and again he did the same thing at Phadrig's bidding, till at length he said rather more peremptorily:

"Now pull the trigger!"

The finger tightened and the hammer clicked. Five times more was the operation repeated, and then Phadrig gently took the revolver and laid the hand down. He went to the secretaire and loaded the six chambers, cocked the weapon and put it into the right hand side-pocket of the lounge jacket which Josephus was wearing, and said deliberately:

"Now remember, my dear Josephus: you will go straight back to your office in Waterloo Road and let yourself in with your key. In your private room you will see a man who wants to rob you of some valuable papers. You will be ruined if he gets them, so you must take your pistol out of your pocket and shoot him. Do you quite understand me?"

"Yes; I am to shoot him."

"That is right. Now, if you do not go he will have them before you get there. Get up and we will say good-night. You must not put your hand in your pocket until you see the man who wants to rob you. Good-night. There is your hat."

"Good-night!"

Mr Isaac Josephus put on his hat and walked away to his death with the motions of a mechanical doll.



CHAPTER XIX

THE HORUS STONE

An hour later Phadrig, the poor curio dealer, had disappeared, and Mr Phadrig Amena, the wonder-working Adept, clad in evening clothes and a light overcoat, alighted from a hansom at the great entrance to the Royal Court Mansions. The huge, gorgeously uniformed guardian of the Gilded Gates was saluting at his elbow in an instant, for a friend of Princes is a very great man in the eyes of even such dignitaries as he.

"The Prince expects you, sir," he said, loud enough to make the title heard by those who were standing by. "Will you be good enough to walk in? I will discharge the cab."

He stood aside with a bow and another salute, and Phadrig walked lightly up the broad steps. Peter Petroff opened the door of the flat, bowing low, and conducted him to his master's sanctum. Evidently he was expected, for the coffee apparatus stood ready on the Moorish table beside the cosy chair which he was wont to occupy. The Prince, who was standing on a white bear's skin by the mantel, motioned him to it, saying:

"Ah, Phadrig, my friend, punctual, of course; and equally, of course, you have something important to impart. Your wire just caught me in time to put off an engagement which, happily, is of no great consequence. There's the coffee, and you'll find the cigars you like in the second drawer. Now, what is the news?"

His guest filled a cup of coffee and took a cigar and lit it before he replied. Then, turning to the Prince, he said in his usual slow, even tone:

"Highness, I regret to say that my news is both urgent and bad."

"It would naturally be urgent," said the Prince, turning quickly towards him, "but bad I hardly expected. Well, all news cannot be good. What is it?"

"I fear that my warning was even more urgent than I thought it myself—I mean, in point of time. Your Highness is already being watched."

"What! A Prince of the Empire, the man whom they call the Modern Skobeleff, an intimate of Nicholas! What should I be watched for?" exclaimed the Prince, half angry and half astonished. "The thing is ridiculous; another of your dreams!"

"Ridiculous it may be, Highness," replied Phadrig, quite unruffled, "but it is no dream; and, moreover, the eyes which are watching you are keen ones—and they are everywhere. You are under the surveillance of the International Police."

These were not words which even a Prince of the Holy Russian Empire cared to hear. Oscarovitch was silent for a few moments, for the earnestness, and yet the calmness, with which they were spoken made it impossible for him to doubt them. As he had asked, what could such a man as he be watched for by this thousand-eyed organisation of which he himself was one of the supreme Directors? It was impossible that these people could suspect his great scheme of treachery and self-aggrandisement. That was known to only three persons in the world—himself, Phadrig, and the Princess Hermia; and the Princess, the woman who had willingly sacrificed her brilliant young husband to her guilty love and her boundless ambition—no, she could be no traitress. It must be something else: and yet what?

He took two or three rapid turns up and down the room, chewing and puffing at his cigar, until he stopped before Phadrig, and said quietly, but with angry eyes:

"Very well, we will grant that I am watched by the International. Tell me how you came to know it."

The Egyptian took a few sips of his coffee, and then related almost word for word his interview with Josephus. He ended by saying:

"Your Highness may believe or not now as you please, but I presume you will when you read in your paper to-morrow morning of the suicide of a respectable Hebrew merchant named Isaac Josephus at the address which I have mentioned."

Oscarovitch had pretty strong nerves, and he was well accustomed to regard any kind of crime as a quite proper means of furthering political ends: but there was something in this man's utter soullessness and the weird horror of the crime which he had just accomplished—for by this time his victim would be already lying self-slain on the floor of his own spider's lair—that chilled him, cold-blooded as he was. He looked at him lounging in his chair and calmly puffing the smoke from his half-smiling lips as though he hadn't a thought beyond the little blue rings that he was making.

"That was a devilish thing to do, Phadrig!" he said, a little above a whisper.

"Devilish, possibly, Highness, but necessary, of a certainty," was the quiet reply. "You will agree with me that Nicol Hendry is a dangerous antagonist even for you, and as for me—no doubt he thinks that he can crush me under his foot whenever he chooses to put it down. I should like to know his feelings as he reads of his spy's suicide when he had only just got to work."

"It will certainly be somewhat of a shock to him and his colleagues, and for that reason I am inclined, on second thoughts, to agree that it was necessary, and ghastly, as I confess; it seems to me, I think, that you took the best means to give them a salutary warning. After all, the life of an individual, and that individual a Jew, does not count for much when the fate of empires is at stake. What puzzles me is how these fellows came to suspect me, and what do they suspect me of. I suppose you have no idea on the subject, have you?"

He looked at him keenly as he spoke, but he might as well have looked at the face of a graven image. Then, like a flash of inspiration, the Zastrow affair leapt into his mind. Had his connection with that, by any extraordinary chance, come to the knowledge of the International? The thought was distinctly disquieting. Phadrig had helped in this with his strange arts. He would discuss this phase of the matter with him afterwards.

Phadrig replied, returning his glance:

"Highness, I have only one explanation to offer, and that you have already refused. Were I to speak of any other it would only be vain invention."

"You mean about Professor Marmion and his mathematical miracles?" said the Prince somewhat uneasily.

"I do," replied the Egyptian firmly. "I say now what I thought when I saw him work them. I did not believe that any man could have done what he did unless he had attained to what we styled in the ancient days the Perfect Knowledge, or, as they term it to-day, passed the border between the states of three and four dimensions. If Professor Marmion has achieved that triumph of virtue and intelligence—and in the days that I can remember there were more than one of the adepts who had done so—then Your Highness's Imperial designs must be as well known to him as to yourself: nay, better, for, while you can see only a part, the beginning and a little way beyond, he can see the whole, even to the end; for in that state, as we were taught, past, present, and future are one. Now, only three persons know of the project, and treason among them is not within the limits of reason, wherefore I would again ask Your Highness to believe that such information as the International may have has been given them directly or indirectly by Professor Marmion."

"But," said the Prince, who was now evidently wavering in his scepticism, since Phadrig's explanation of the mystery really seemed to be the only feasible one, impossible as it looked to him, "granted all you say, what possible interest could Professor Marmion, whether he's living in this world or the one of four dimensions, have in interfering in such a project, even if he did know all about it, especially as every educated Englishman admits that the state of affairs in Russia could hardly be worse than it is? I cannot see what conceivable interest he can have in the matter."

"But, Highness, his interest may be a private and not a public one."

"What do you mean by that, Phadrig?" asked the Prince sharply.

"As I have said," replied the Egyptian slowly, "it may be that his daughter, who was once the Queen, has also attained to the Knowledge. In that case the love which Your Highness so suddenly conceived for her would instantly bring you within the sphere of his and her influence and power. Now, she, as Nitocris Marmion, the mortal, is betrothed to the English officer, Merrill. She loves him, and therefore, since you are great and powerful in the earth-life, your ruin, or even your death, might seem necessary to remove you from her path."

Oscarovitch shivered in spite of all his courage and self-control. The idea of fearing anything human had never occurred to him after his first battle; but this, if true, was a very different matter. To be threatened with ruin or death by a power which he could not even see, to contend against enemies who could read his very thoughts, and even be present in a room with him without his knowing it—as Phadrig had assured him more than once that they could be—was totally beyond the power of the bravest or strongest of men. No, it was impossible: he could not, would not, believe that, such a thing could be. His invincible materialism came suddenly to his aid, and saved him from the reproach of fear in his own eyes.

"No, Phadrig," he said, with a gesture of impatience, "that is not to be credited. To you it may seem a reality: to me it can never be anything more than a phantasy of intellect run mad on a single point—which, I need hardly remind you, is a by no means uncommon failing of the greatest of minds. Another reason has just occurred to me which would need no such fantastic explanation."

"And that, Highness?" queried Phadrig, looking up with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.

"The Zastrow affair. Unlikely as it seems, it is not impossible that there has been treason there. I have many enemies in both Russia and Germany, and it is well known that Zastrow and I were rivals once. Yes, that is it: it must be so, and therefore we must prepare to fight the International; and with such weapons as you are able to use there is not much reason why we should fear them."

He dismissed the subject with an imperious wave of his hand, and continued in an altered tone:

"And now, apropos of your weapons. Tell me something about this wonderful gem with which you hypnotised the Jew."

"I will not only tell you about it, Highness, I will show it to you, if you desire to see it," replied Phadrig, who now fully recognised the hopelessness of overcoming the blind materialism which was, of course, inevitable to the life-condition in which the Prince had his present being.

"What! you have brought it with you! Excellent! Now I think we shall be able to talk on pleasanter subjects than conspiracies and such phantasms as the Fourth Dimension!" exclaimed Oscarovitch, who, like all Russians, was almost passionately fond of gems. "Fancy asking a Russian if he desires to see such a thing as that!"

"Your Excellency must be careful not to look at it too long or closely," said Phadrig, putting his hand down inside his waistcoat and drawing out a wash-leather bag. "As I have told you, it possesses certain qualities which are not to be trifled with. You are, of course, aware that many Eastern gems are credited with hypnotic powers. This one undoubtedly has them."

As he spoke he drew out the emerald, and held it by the clasp under a cluster of electric lights.

"What a glorious gem!" exclaimed the Prince, starting forward to look at it more closely. "There is nothing to compare with it even among the Imperial jewels of Russia."

"Have a care, Highness," said the Egyptian, raising his left hand, "unless you wish to fall under its influence. Once it seized your gaze you could not withdraw it without the permission of its possessor, and meanwhile he would have complete mastery of you. I am your faithful servant, and therefore I warn you."

Was there just the faintest suspicion of a sneer in his voice as he said this? If there was, Oscarovitch did not notice it. He was already too much under the charm of the Horus Stone. Phadrig suddenly put his hand over the gem and went on. "The story of this jewel, Highness, is that many ages ago, before the beginning of the First Dynasty, a little raft of a strange wood, as white as ivory and shaped like a river-lily, came floating down the Nile at full flood-time and drifted to the shore in front of the house of a wise and holy man who was reputed to hold perpetual communion with the gods. On the raft was a cradle of white wicker-work lined with down, upon which lay a man-child of such exquisite beauty that he could scarce have been born of mortal parents. His body was bare, but round his neck was a glistening chain of marvellously wrought gold, fastened to which was this gem lying on his breast. This was doubtless the origin of the Hebrew fable of the finding of Moses, who, as all scholars know, was not a Hebrew, but an Egyptian priest in the House of Ra.

"The holy man took him into his home, burying the chain and gem, lest it might bring temptation to those who saw them; and as the boy grew to manhood he taught him all his lore, until he, too, was wise enough to be admitted into the communion of the gods, which afterwards was called by the adepts the Perfect Knowledge. On the gem are engraved the three symbols by which the Trinity—Osiris, Isis, and Horus; Father: Mother, and Child, the antetype of Humanity—became known and worshipped. The holy man divined that the boy was the incarnation of Horus sent thus to earth to teach men the way of knowledge, which is the only righteousness, since those who know all cannot sin. Where his house stood was built the first Temple of the Divine Trinity, and of this Horus became High Priest. He crowned the King in the land, and hung this gem round his neck as the symbol of his kingship and the approval of the gods.

"From the first king it was handed down from monarch to monarch through all the changes of dynasties, until it hung from the royal chain of the great Rameses; and by him it was given to his daughter Nitocris, thereby making her Queen of Egypt after him; and she wore it on that fatal night of the death-bridal when, rather than wed with you, who were then Menkau-Ra, Lord of War, she flooded the banqueting hall of Pepi and drowned herself and all her guests—which, Highness, is an omen that it were well for you not to forget should you persist in your pursuit of the daughter of Professor Marmion."

Oscarovitch was a man of vivid imagination, as all great soldiers and statesmen must be, and so the story of the Horus Stone appealed strongly to him; but what interested him perhaps even more was the spectacle of this man, who had just been guilty of a peculiarly ghastly form of murder, sitting there and telling with simple eloquence and evident reverence the sacred Myth out of which what was perhaps the most ancient religion in the world had evolved. He heard him with a silence of both interest and respect until his last sentence. Then he got up and stretched his arms out and said with a laugh:

"Omen, Phadrig! Your tale of the stone has interested me deeply, but I believe no more in the omen than I do in the story. Ay, and even if I did, I would dare all the omens that wizards ever invented for their own profit in trying to make Nitocris Marmion what I want her to be, and what she shall be unless she is the cause of my first failure to achieve what I had set my heart upon. But you have not finished your story. Tell me now how the stone came into your possession, seeing that it was swept out into the Nile hanging on the breast of the Royal Nitocris."

"The next season of Flood, so the records ran, Highness, the skeleton of a woman was washed up to the foot of the river stairs of the House of Ptah, and the stone and chain were found among the weeds which filled the cavity of the chest. They were taken with all reverence to the High Priest, who bore them to the Pharaoh, and, amidst great rejoicing, hung them round his neck. Then from Pharaoh to Pharaoh it came down through the centuries until it fell into the possession of her who wrought the ruin of the Ancient Land. She gave the stone to her lover, and from his body it was taken by a priest of the Ancient Faith who once was Anemen-Ha, and is now Phadrig Amena, the degenerate worker of mean marvels which the ignorant of these days would call miracles did they not take them for conjuring tricks.

"Since then it remained hidden, seen only by the successors of him who rescued it from the plunderers of the body of Antony, until, seemingly in the way of trade, yet doubtless for some deep reason which is not revealed to me, it came back into my hands again. Such so far, Highness, is the end of the story of the Stone of Horus."

"And doubtless more yet remains to be written or told," said the Prince seriously, for he was really impressed in spite of his scepticism. Then, after a little pause, he continued: "Phadrig, you have said that the stone is dangerous to any but its possessor. I wish to possess it. Name your price, and, to half my fortune, you shall have it."

"The stone, Highness," replied the Egyptian, with the shadow of a smile flickering across his lips, "never has been, and never can be, sold for money, so I could not sell it, even if money had value for me, which it has not. There is only one price for it."

"And what is that?"

"A human life—perchance many lives—but all to be paid in succession by him or her who buys it, unless he or she shall attain to the Perfect Knowledge."

"Give it to me, then!" exclaimed Oscarovitch, holding out his hand. "The life I have I will gladly pay for it in the hope of laying it on the breast of the living Nitocris. As I do not believe in any others, I will throw them in. Give it to me!"

"It is a perilous possession, Highness, for one who has not even attained to the Greater Knowledge, as I have. Let me warn you to think again, for once you take it from me the price must be paid to the uttermost pang of the doom that it may bring with it."

"I care nothing about your knowledges, Phadrig," laughed the Prince, still holding out his hand. "It is enough for me to know that it is the most glorious gem on earth, and that it shall help me to win the divinest woman on earth. So, once more, give it to me!"

"Take it, then, Highness," said the Egyptian, with a ring of solemnity in his voice. "Take, and with it all that the High Gods may have in store for you!"

He dropped the more than priceless gem into his hand with as little reluctance as he would have given him a brass trinket. Then he turned away to take another cigar, leaving Oscarovitch gazing in silent ecstasy at, as he thought, his easily-come-by treasure. Then the Prince went to a large panel picture fixed to the wall on the left-hand side of the fireplace, touched it with his finger, and it swung aside, disclosing the door of a small safe built into the wall. He unlocked this, placed the stone in an inner drawer, closed the safe, and put the picture back in its place.

When he sat down again, he said:

"My good friend, I know that it is useless for me to thank you, for even if you wanted thanks I could not do justice to the occasion, as they say in speeches: but I want to ask you just one more question, and then I won't keep you any longer from that delightful Oriental Club of yours which I suppose you are bound to. Now that I have got the stone I am, as you may well believe, more than anxious to find the lady to whom it shall belong—again, as I suppose you would say. To my great disgust, the Professor and his daughter have disappeared from the sphere of London society for a holiday a deux, and have, apparently with intent, left all their friends in ignorance of their destination. Have you any idea of it? I know that that Coptic woman whom you employ has been ordered to keep a sharp watch on the movements of Miss Nitocris."

"Yes, Highness," replied Phadrig, "and she has obeyed her orders. The day before they left she waylaid that pretty maid of Miss Marmion's on the Common, and told her fortune. Of course, she talked the usual jargon about lovers and letters and going on a journey, and the maid quite innocently let out that she was going with her master and mistress by steamer to Denmark and up the coast of Norway, and then over to Iceland by the passenger steamers, and that she did not like the idea at all, because she knew that she would be very seasick."

"Excellent! the very thing!" exclaimed the Prince. "It couldn't be better if I had arranged it myself. My yacht is down in the Solent waiting for Cowes Week. I'll be afloat to-morrow. Give that woman a ten-pound note from me with my blessing. Now, I shall leave everything else to you. Do what you think fit with regard to our friends of the International. Kill as many of their spies as you can with safety, and make the chiefs believe that they are fighting the Devil himself. And now, good-night."

When Peter Petroff brought him the papers the next morning, the Prince took up the Telegraph, and turned to the page devoted to the minor events of the previous day. His eye was almost immediately caught by a paragraph headed:

"SUICIDE IN THE WATERLOO ROAD

"Shortly after seven last evening the passers-by on the eastern side of this thoroughfare were startled by hearing the report of a firearm, apparently coming from the office of Mr Isaac Josephus at 138a. Constable 206 Q., who was on point-duty near the spot, had seen Mr Josephus enter the office with his key only a few minutes before, walking in a rather curious way, and staring straight before him. As the door was locked, the officer thought it his duty to force it. The door of the inner office was also locked, and when this was opened, the unfortunate man was found lying across the desk with a bullet wound in his temple. His right hand still clutched a cheap revolver which was loaded in five chambers. There appears at present to have been no reason for the rash act. Mr Josephus was a broker dealing chiefly in curios and antique jewellery. Although not in a large way of business, his affairs are understood to have been in a prosperous condition. What makes the tragedy all the more strange is the fact that suicide is almost unknown among persons of the Jewish faith."

Oscarovitch felt a little shiver run down his back as he read the commonplace lines. The man who had done this had been in this room with him a few hours before, and one of the means of murder was now in his safe. It would have been just as easy for Phadrig to have caused him to look upon the fatal gem, left a bottle of poison with him, and told him to take it as medicine on going to bed. The only difference would have been that there would have been a very much greater sensation in the papers.

Nicol Hendry was reading the paragraph about the same time. His eyes contracted, and he stroked his beard with slow motions of his hand. The hand was steady, but even his nerves quivered a little. He divined instantly how the suicide-murder had been brought about, and this very fact, coupled with the absolute impossibility of proving anything, made the affair all the more disquieting.

"So that is the sort of thing we've got to fight, is it? I don't like it. Still, it goes far to prove that the Professor was perfectly right when he told me to keep a sharp eye on Mr Phadrig Amena."



CHAPTER XX

THROUGH THE CENTURIES

As they discovered that the sea journey to Copenhagen would be somewhat tedious and uninteresting, and that the steamers were not exactly palatial, Nitocris and her father decided at the last minute to cross to Ostend, spend a day there and go on to Cologne, put in a couple of days more among its venerable and odorous purlieus, and two more at Hamburg, so that, while the present-day inhabitants were asleep, they might, as Nitocris somewhat flippantly put it, take a trip back through the centuries, and watch the great city grow from the little wooden village of the Ubii and the Roman colony of Agrippina into the Hanse Town of the thirteenth century: watch the laying of the first stone of the mighty Dom, the up-rising of the glorious fabric, and the crowning of the last tower in 1880.

During the journey from Hamburg to Copenhagen, Nitocris, reclining comfortably in a corner of their compartment in the long, easily-moving car, entertained herself with a review of these extraordinary experiences from the point of view of her temporal life, and found them not only extraordinary, but also very curious. She had already learnt that the connecting link between the two existences, when once the border had been passed, was Will: but Will of a far more intense and exalted character than that which was necessary as an incentive to action on the lower plane. There was naturally something that seemed extra-human in the mysterious force which was capable of bidding the present-day world vanish like a shadow into either the future or the past, its solid-seeming substance melt away like "the airy fabric of a vision," and summon in an instant, too brief to be measured, the past from the grave where it lay buried beneath the dust of uncounted ages, or the future from the womb of unborn things.

But to her, at least at first, the strangest part of the new revelation was this: When her will had carried her across the confines of the tri-dimensional world, and she saw the centuries marshalled and motionless before her, she felt not the slightest sense of wonder or awe. She was simply a being apart, moving along their ranks and passing them in review, herself unseen and unknown save by that other being who, in this state, was no longer her father or even her friend, but merely a companion endowed with power and intelligence equal to her own. Her human hopes and fears and loves and passions had, as it were, been left behind. The men and things she saw were absolutely real to her, as they had been to the men of other days, or would be in days to come; but she herself was a pure Intelligence which saw and acted and thought with perfect clearness, but with absolutely no feeling save that of intellectual interest.

She saw armies meet in the shock of battle without a thrill of fear or horror; towns and cities roared up to the unheeding heavens in flame and smoke, and left her standing unmoved amidst their ruins; she heard the screams of agony that rang through the torture chambers without a quiver, and watched the long, pale lines of the martyrs to what in the earth-life was called Religion pass to the stake without a quiver of pity or a thrill of disgust. She stood face to face with the great ones of the earth who have graven their names deep upon the tablets of Time without reverence or admiration; and she witnessed the most heroic deeds and the most atrocious crimes with neither respect for the one nor hatred for the other.

Human history was in her eyes merely a logical sequence of necessary events, neither good nor bad in themselves, but only as they were viewed from this standpoint or that, by the oppressor or the oppressed, the slayer or the slain, the robber or the robbed, the governor or the governed. She learned that human emotion is merely a matter of time and space. One century does not feel the loves and hates of another, and the sorrows of Here have no real sympathy with the sufferings of There. Beyond the Border all these were merely matters of intense intellectual interest.

But when she returned to the temporal life the memory of them was marvellous and terrible. Her heart throbbed with pity and burned with righteous anger. Horror seemed to take hold of her soul and shake it with earthquake shudders when she thought that what she had seen but a few time-moments ago had really come to pass; and she longed for the power to show all this to the men and women of her own passing day, and bid them have done with the poor, shadowy images of themselves, which, had they really been gods, would have made of human life something better and happier and nobler than the ghastly tragedy which, as she had seen with her own eyes, it had been. But she knew that such a power was not hers. She, like her father, had, through the toil and strife and stress of many lives of mingled good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, won her way to the Perfect Knowledge; and so she knew that all these poor kings and slaves, conquerors and conquered, torturers and tortured, were all doing the same thing, were all groping their way through the shadows and the night towards the dawn and the light, through the hell of ignorance to the heaven of knowledge.

And now, too, since the Wisdom of the Ages was hers, she saw that over all the vast, weltering swarm of struggling immortals, hung the inevitable decree of silent, impersonal destiny. "As ye live, so shall ye die; as ye end, so shall ye begin again—in knowledge or ignorance, in good or evil, life after life, death after death, world without end."

It was clear to her now why "some are born to honour and some to dishonour": some to happiness and some to misery, each in his or her degree; why the liver of a good life was happy, no matter what his place in the earth-life might be: and why the evil liver, no matter how high he might stand in his own or others' sight, carried the canker of past misdeeds in his heart. Standing, as she now did, in the midway of the present, looking with single gaze on past and future, she saw at once the honest striver after good in his yesterday-life rise to his reward in the life of to-day, and the dishonest rich and powerful sitting in the high places of to-day cast down into the gutterways of to-morrow. Life had ceased to be a riddle to her now.

What with their halts at Ostend, Cologne, and Hamburg, the thirty-three-hour journey lengthened itself out very pleasantly into a week; and so, when the famous city on the Sound was reached, they were as fresh and unfatigued as they were on the morning that they left "The Wilderness." Of course, they put up at the Hotel d'Angleterre, and here they enjoyed themselves quietly for four days, for of all European capitals, Copenhagen is one of the pleasantest in which to idle a few fine summer days away.

On the evening of the fourth day they were just sitting down to their table by one of the windows overlooking the Oestergade when Nitocris happened to look up towards the door through which the diners were trickling in an irregular stream of well-dressed men and women. For a moment her eyes became fixed. Then she bent her head over the table, and said:

"Dad, there is Prince Oscarovitch. I wonder what he is doing here? He is alone: please go and ask him to join us. I will tell you why afterwards."

They exchanged glances, and the Professor got up and went towards the door, while his daughter got through a considerable amount of hard thinking in a very short time. She was, of course, perfectly conversant with his share in the Zastrow affair, so far as her father had yet gone with it; but she determined that when Copenhagen had gone to sleep that night they would cross the Border and pay a visit to the Castle of Trelitz at the time of the tragedy, and follow it out as far as it had gone.

It has already been shown that on her first meeting with the Prince she conceived an aversion from him which was then inexplicable save by the ordinary theory of natural antipathy: but now she knew that she had been Nitocris, Queen of Egypt, when he was Menkau-Ra, the Lord of War, who would have forced her to wed him by the might and terror of the sword, and the will of a blind and blood-intoxicated populace. She had hated him then even to death, and now she hated him still in life; wherefore she desired to make his closer acquaintance on the earth-plane on which they had met once more after many lives.

As he had been in those far-off days, so he was now, a splendid specimen of aristocratic humanity. Many eyes had followed her as she had walked to her table, but there were more people in the room now, and as the Prince walked towards her beside the famous Professor who had puzzled all the mathematicians of Europe, the whole crowd of guests was looking at nothing but these three.

"This is indeed good fortune, Miss Marmion, and as good as it is unexpected—which, perhaps makes it all the better! Who would have thought of finding you in Copenhagen?" he said, as he bowed low over her hand.

"If there is any reason at all for it, Prince, it is that my father and I always like to take our holidays at irregular times and in unexpected places: by which, I mean places where we do not expect to meet all our acquaintances," she replied, as she sat down. "I think we manage to bore each other quite enough in London, and we like each other all the better when we meet again."

"Is not that rather an ungracious speech, Niti, seeing that one of the said acquaintances has only just chanced to join us?" said the Professor mildly.

"You mean as regards the Prince?" she laughed. "Certainly not. His Highness is hardly an acquaintance—yet. You know we have only had the pleasure of meeting him once: and then, of course, I said all our acquaintances. There might be exceptions."

These words, spoken with a quite indescribable charm, were, as he thought, quite the sweetest that Oscarovitch had heard for many a day. It had been perfectly easy for a man with his official influence to trace by telegraph every movement that the Marmions had made after he had guessed that they would travel by either Calais or Ostend. He had wired for his yacht, the Grashna, to meet him at Dover, run across to Ostend, found that they had left there for Cologne with through tickets for Copenhagen, again guessed rightly that they would spend a few days there and in Hamburg, and then steam away for the Sound.

The farther north he travelled, the farther he left Phadrig and his phantasies behind, and the nearer he came to the belief that, if he had only a fair chance and the field to himself, as he intended to have, he would not find very much difficulty in convincing Nitocris that there was no comparison at all between the humble naval officer she had left behind to do his work on his dirty little destroyer, and the millionaire Prince who could give her one of the noblest names in Europe and everything that the heart of woman could desire. And now these sweetly-spoken words and the glance which accompanied them, her undisguised pleasure at the chance meeting, and her father's very evident approval of his presence, quickly but finally convinced him that he had come to a perfectly just conclusion.

Of course, there was the memory of another woman, only a little less fair than Nitocris, who had shut herself up yonder in the gloomy Castle of Trelitz, acting the farce of her official sorrow for love of him, and pining for the time when the finding of her betrayed husband's corpse should leave her free, after a decent interval of mock-mourning, to join her lot with his: but what did that matter? Was it not as easy to get rid of a woman as a man? Was not the fatal beauty of the Horus Stone at his command now that he was its possessor for good or evil? A well-arranged suicide might easily be taken by the world as the excusable, if deplorable, result of her mysterious bereavement.

The conversation during dinner naturally turned on ways and means of travelling, and, when the Professor had sketched out their plans, Oscarovitch said with an admirably simulated deference:

"My dear sir, I most sincerely hope that you and Miss Marmion will not think that I am presuming on an acquaintance which, if only a new one now, may perhaps one day be older, if I venture to suggest another way of making your tour. I am an old voyager in these waters, and I can assure you that the steamers, though vastly improved, have not quite reached the standard of the Atlantic liner."

"Oh, but you know, Prince, we didn't expect it," interrupted Nitocris. "Neither my father nor I have the slightest objection to roughing it a little. In fact, that is half the fun of wandering."

"And slow travelling between stated points, not always of the greatest or any interest, together with the enforced company of a promiscuous crowd of tourists and commercial travellers, who, by the way, are mostly German, and therefore of nature and necessity disagreeable, would about make up the other half," said Oscarovitch, leaning back in his chair with a low laugh. "No, no, my dear Miss Marmion, I am afraid you would not find that the reality quite squared with the anticipation. Now, may I risk the suspicion of presumption and offer an alternative proposition?"

"Why not?" said Nitocris with a smile, and a glance which dazzled him. "I'm sure it is very kind of you to take so much interest in our poor little attempt to get away for a while from the madding crowd who are doing the round of the same stale, weary pleasures that they try so hard to enjoy year after year, and then come back so tired, after all."

"Then," he replied, looking at them alternately, "as I have your permission, I would suggest that, instead of rushing from fixed point to fixed point in crowded steamers and the shackles of Company or Government regulations, you should take possession of a fairly comfortable steam yacht of a little over a thousand tons which will be entirely at your disposal, and will run you from anywhere to anywhere you choose at any speed you like, from five to thirty-five knots an hour, with properly trained servants to attend to you, and, as the advertisements say, 'every possible comfort and convenience.'"

"Which, of course, means that you have got your yacht here, and are so very kind as to ask us to become your guests for a time," said the Professor, with a suspicion of stiffness. "It is more than generous of you, Prince, but really——"

"But really, my dear sir," Oscarovitch interrupted, with a gesture of deprecation, "I can assure you that, so far as I am concerned, there is no kindness, to say nothing of generosity. It is pure selfishness. This is my position. I have managed to escape for a time from the toils of official work and worry, and the almost equally irksome bonds of that form of penal servitude which is called Society. Like you, I have fled overseas, but, unlike you, I have no company but my own, and I have had a great deal too much of that already, though I have only been three days and nights at sea. I have no plans, I have got nothing to do and nowhere to go; and so, if you and Miss Marmion would take pity on my loneliness all the generosity would be on your side. Of course, I cannot presume to ask you to change your plans all at once, but if you will sleep on my proposition and come and lunch with me to-morrow on board the Grashna and take a run up the Sound, say, to Elsinore, you may be able to come to a decision."

It was a lovely night, and so they took their coffee and liqueurs, and the two men their smokes on the balcony overlooking the Oestergade, which might be called the Rue de la Paix of Copenhagen, and watched the well-dressed crowds sauntering to and fro past the brilliantly lighted shops; and Nitocris, who seemed to her father to be in singularly high spirits, sent the conversation rippling over all manner of subjects with the exception of politics and the Fourth Dimension. Oscarovitch was becoming more and more fascinated as the light-winged minutes sped by, and he took but little pains to conceal the fact. Nitocris, of course, saw this, and simulated a delightful unconsciousness. The Professor was, for the time being, completely mystified. He knew that his daughter hated the Prince with a thorough cordiality, and yet he had never seen her make herself so entirely charming to any man, not even excepting Merrill himself, as she was to this man, her enemy of the Ages. He could have solved the problem instantly by crossing the Border, but then the sudden vanishing of a famous scientist from the midst of the brilliant company on the balcony would have set all the newspapers in Europe chattering, with consequences which would have been the reverse of pleasant both to his daughter and himself.

However, he had not long to wait, for Nitocris soon rose, saying that she must go to Jenny, her maid, to see about packing arrangements for to-morrow; and the Prince, after another cigarette and liqueur, took his leave and went on board the yacht to give orders for her to be put into her best trim, and then to have a luxurious half-hour with the Horus Stone, and indulge in fond imaginings as to how it would look hanging from a chain of diamonds on the white breast of Miss Nitocris.

When the Professor went to his own sitting-room he found his daughter waiting to say good-night.

"Niti," he said, as he closed the door, "I don't want to seem inquisitive, but, frankly, I was astounded at the gracious way in which you treated that scoundrel Oscarovitch."

"Dad," she replied, with apparent irrelevance, "do you believe in the forgiveness of sins?"

"Of course not! How could any one who holds the Doctrine do that? We know that every moral debit must be worked off and turned into a credit by the sinner, however many lives of suffering it takes to do it. Why do you ask?"

"So that you might answer as you have done!" she said, with a little laugh. "Now this Oscarovitch has sinned grievously, not only in this life but in many others, and I am going to see that he works off at least some of his debit as you put it somewhat commercially. He loved me in the old days in Memphis, and he loves me still in the same brutal, animal way. I know that if he cannot get me by fair means he will try to take me by force—and I am going to let him do it."

"Niti!"

"Yes, he shall take me; he shall think he had got me safe away from you and Mark—and when he has got me he shall taste what the hot-and-strong sort of Christian preachers call the torments of the damned. No, I shall not kill him. He shall live till he prays to all his gods, if he has any, that he may die. He shall hunger without eating, thirst without drinking, lie down without sleeping, have wealth that he cannot spend, and palaces so hideously haunted that he dare not live in them, until, when men wish to illustrate the uttermost extreme of human misery, they shall point to Prince Oscarovitch. I, the Queen, have said it!"

Then, with a swift change of voice and manner, she laid her hands on her father's shoulders, kissed him, and murmured:

"Good-night, Dad—at least as far as this world is concerned."



CHAPTER XXI

WHAT HAPPENED AT TRELITZ

It was the 6th of June again.

Once more Prince Zastrow rode with Ulik von Kessner and Alexis Vollmar and the attendant huntsmen up the avenue of pines leading to the gate of the Castle of Trelitz, but now accompanied by two unseen Presences which belonged at once to their own world and also to another and wider one. Once more the great doors opened and they passed into the trophy-decked, skin-carpeted hall: and once more they were welcomed by the stately, silken-clad woman who came down the broad staircase to greet her lord and his guests. Emil von Zastrow, last and worthiest scion of his ancient line, the very beau ideal of youthful strength and manly dignity, ran half-way up the stairs to meet his lady and his love, and then the men went away to their rooms, while the Princess Hermia, true housewife as well as princess, betook herself to the pleasant task of making sure that all the preparations for dinner were complete.

The dinner was served in one of the smaller rooms, in the modern wing of the Castle, on an oval table. The Prince sat at one end faced by his beautiful consort. To his right sat his guest, Alexis Vollmar, and a tall, handsome, but somewhat hard-featured woman of about thirty, with the clear blue eyes and thick, yellow-gold hair which proclaimed her a daughter of the northern German lowlands. This was Hulda von Tyssen, the Princess's companion and lady-in-waiting. They were faced by a stout, powerfully-built man with a full beard and moustache a la Friedrich, Ulik von Kessner, High Chamberlain of Boravia. Captain Alexis Vollmar was a typical Russian officer of the younger school, tall, well-set-up, and good-looking after the Muscovite fashion. He had distinguished himself in the Far East, but just now he preferred the serene atmosphere of Boravia to the thunder-laden air of Holy Russia.

The talk was of hunting and war and politics and the chances of the Russian revolution, and on this latter subject it was perfectly unrestrained, for all knew that the Powers had made a secret compact by which they bound themselves, in the event of the fall of the Romanoff Dynasty and the Arch-Ducal oligarchy—which all Europe would be very glad to see the last of—to support Prince Zastrow as elective candidate for the vacant throne.

The Revolutionary leaders had been sounded on the subject, and were found strongly in favour of the scheme. It meant a return to the ancient principle of elected monarchy, and Prince Zastrow, though now a German ruling prince, represented the union of two of the oldest and noblest families in Russia and Poland. Moreover, he had pledged himself to a Constitution which, without going to Radical or Socialistic extremes, embodied all that the moderate and responsible adherents of the Revolutionary cause desired or considered suitable for the people in their present stage of political development—which, of course, meant everything that Oscar Oscarovitch did not want.

After dinner they went out through the long French windows on to a verandah which overlooked a vast sea of forest, lying dark and seemingly limitless under the fading daylight and the radiance of the brightening moon. Since their marriage day the Prince had made it a bargain that whenever they dined en famille, his wife should prepare his coffee with her own hands. She even roasted the berries and ground them herself, and, as many a time before, she did it to-night in the seclusion of the little room set apart for that and similar purposes. She was alone in the physical sense, for the two watching Presences were invisible to her, and so, for all she knew, no one saw her measure twenty drops of a colourless fluid from a little blue bottle into the coronetted cup of almost transparent porcelain which had been one of her wedding presents to her husband.

After a couple of cups of coffee and half a dozen half-smoked cigarettes, the Prince stretched his long legs out, struggled with a yawn, and said in a sleepy voice:

"My Princess, you must ask our guests to excuse me. I am tired after the long day in the sun; and so, if I may, I will go to bed."

He rose, and the rest rose at the same moment. He bowed his good-night, and the two saluted. The Princess followed him into the dining-room.

The unseen watchers stood by the end of the great heavily-hung bed, in the midst of which lay Prince Zastrow, seemingly sinking into the slumber of death. Von Kessner leaned over and raised an eyelid, and said to the Princess, who was standing on the other side, the single word: "Unconscious." She bent forward for a moment as though she were bidding a silent farewell to the man to whom she had pledged her maiden troth, then straightened up and walked like some beautiful simulacrum of a woman towards the door which Vollmar held open for her....

The earth-hours passed, and the two men kept their watch by the bed, conversing now and then in whispers between long intervals of anxious silence, until three strokes sounded from the bell of the Castle clock. The whole household, save one fair woman, who, in softly-slippered feet, was pacing the floor of her bedroom, was fast asleep, and the days of sentries were far past. Von Kessner gently lifted one of the arms lying on the coverlet of the bed and let it fall. It dropped as the arm of a man who had just died might have done. Again he raised an eyelid, this time with some difficulty. The eyeball beneath was fixed and glassy as that of a corpse. He nodded across the bed to the Russian, and together they turned the bedclothes down to the foot. Then from under the bed he pulled out a bundle of grey skins which he spread on the floor beside the bed. It was a sleeping bag such as hunters use in winter on the snow-swept plains and forests of Northern Europe. Vollmar turned the head-flap back. Then they lifted the body of the Prince from the bed, slid it into the sack, and buttoned the flap down over the face.

"That Egyptian's drug has worked well," whispered Von Kessner.

Vollmar nodded, and whispered back:

"I wish I had a handful of it. But it is time. He will be ready for us now."

Even as he spoke the locked door opened, as it were of its own accord, and Phadrig stood in the room dressed in the livery of the Prince's coachman. Von Kessner and Vollmar turned grey as he bowed, and whispered:

"The doors are open, Excellencies, and all is ready!"

Then the three lifted the shapeless bag and carried it with noiseless tread down to the hall and out through the half-open doors to where a carriage drawn by four black horses stood waiting. Though there was no one in charge of them, they stood as still as though carved out of blocks of black marble until the body of the Prince had been laid in the carriage and Von Kessner and Vollmar had taken their places beside it. Then Phadrig mounted the box, shook the reins, and the rubber-shod horses moved silently away at a trot, which, as soon as the main road was reached, became a gallop only a little less silent than the trot.

The carriage turned aside from the road, and ran down a broad forest lane till it stopped by the shore of a little sandy inlet. The bow of a long black boat was resting on the sand, and six closely-blindfolded men were sitting on the thwarts with oars out. Another stood on the beach with the painter in his hands. The body of the Prince was carried from the carriage to the boat, and laid in the stern sheets. Von Kessner and Vollmar remained on board, and Phadrig went back to the carriage. At a short word of command the oarsman backed hard, and the boat slid off the sand into the smooth water of the little cove. Then she shot away and melted into the light haze which hung over the outside sea.

The boat stopped under the shadow of the long, low-lying black hull of a four-funnelled destroyer. A rope dropped from the deck and was made fast by Vollmar in the bow. The blindfolded crew were helped up the ladder which hung over the side and taken below forward. Then came a sharp order: "All hands below"; and when the deck was deserted, Von Kessner and Vollmar went up the ladder and were met on deck by Oscar Oscarovitch in civilian dress. There was another man beside him in the uniform of a lieutenant. He slacked off the tackle falls of the davits under which the boat had brought up, dropped down the ladder and hooked them on. When he got back to the deck the four men hauled first on one tackle and then on the other, till the boat was up flush with the deck. The falls were belayed, and Oscarovitch got into the boat and opened the flap of the sleeping-sack. He touched the spring of an electric pocket-lamp and looked upon the calm, cold features of his rival. Then he buttoned down the flap again and returned to the deck. The four went down into the cabin: glasses were filled with champagne, and as Oscarovitch raised his to his lips, he said:

"Count and Captain Vollmar, I am satisfied. Let us drink to the New Empire of the Russias and the sceptre of Ivan the Terrible!"

"And his illustrious successor!" added Von Kessner.

Within half an hour a small boat was lowered; the Chamberlain and Vollmar got into it and rowed away toward the cove. The Russian officer went on to the little bridge, signalled "full speed ahead" to the engine-room, and then took the wheel. The screws ground the water astern into foam, the black shape leapt forward and sped away eastward into the glimmering dawn with its silent passenger lying in the swinging boat, and the unseen watchers standing by the helmsman....

More earth-hours passed. The sun rose upon a lonely sea. The destroyer stopped, and a white speck on the eastward horizon rapidly grew into the white shape of a large yacht flying through the water at a tremendous speed. In a few minutes she was almost alongside. She swung round in a sharp curve, slowed down and dropped a boat. Oscarovitch and the lieutenant lowered the destroyer's boat till it touched the water. The other came alongside, and the body of Prince Zastrow was transferred to it, and Oscarovitch followed it. Four men from the yacht's boat jumped on board the destroyer and hauled hers up. The other was backed to the ladder and they came on board. A silent salute passed between Oscarovitch and the lieutenant, and a few minutes later the yacht's boat was hoisted to the davits, and the white shape was growing smaller and dimmer amidst the light haze that lay on the water shimmering under the slanting rays of the rising sun.

Morning grew into noon, noon faded into evening, and evening darkened into night. The yacht ran into a wide-opening gulf between two forest-clad points, on the southern of which twinkled the lights of a large town. These were soon left behind by the flying yacht, and as a vast sea of fleecy cloud drifted up from the north-east and spread its veil across the path of the half moon, a little cluster of lights gleamed out on the port bow. Her bowsprit swerved to the left till it pointed directly to them. Presently she slowed down and ran into a little land-locked bay surrounded with dense pine woods which came down almost to the water's edge, swung round and slowed up alongside a wooden jetty. From this a broad road, cut straight through the forest, sloped steeply up to a plateau on which stood a gaunt, grey, turreted castle, the very picture of the sea-robbers' home that it had been in the days of Oscarovitch's not very remote ancestors. Up this road and into the outer gate across the lowered drawbridge the sleeping-sack and the insensible man within were borne. Through the keep-yard it was taken into the Castle and up to a large room in the eastern turret, comfortably furnished, and containing a bed almost as luxurious as that in which Prince Zastrow had lain down to sleep the evening before. Oscarovitch preceded the men who carried him, and was met at the door by a grey-haired, keen-eyed man, who bowed before him, and said in a low tone:

"May I presume to ask if this is my charge, Highness?"

"It is, Doctor Hugo; and I give him into your hands with every confidence that you will restore your patient to health as quickly as any man in Europe could do. I must leave immediately, and so I trust everything to you. All care must be taken of him. He must want for nothing that you can give him—except liberty."

Oscarovitch returned the doctor's assenting bow and left the room. In half an hour the yacht was flying at full speed over the smooth waters of the Baltic, heading a little to the south of West.



CHAPTER XXII

A TRIP ON THE SOUND

"Good morning, Dad," said Nitocris, as she entered the sitting-room about half an hour before breakfast the next morning. "What is your opinion of the European situation now?"

"Good morning, Niti; what is yours?" asked her father, looking at her with grave eyes and smiling lips.

"As it was yesterday, only rather more so. In his present incarnation, Prince Oscar Oscarovitch is, I should think, about as black-hearted a scoundrel as ever polluted the air that honest people breathe."

"I entirely agree with you. And now, believing that, do you still propose to trust yourself to his tender mercies on board his own yacht, surrounded, as you will be, by men who, no doubt, are his absolute slaves?"

"I trust myself to his tender mercies, Dad?" she replied, drawing herself up and throwing her head back a little; "you seem to have got hold of the thing by the wrong end, as Brenda would say. That is only what it will look like. The reality will be that he will blindly trust himself to my mercies—and I can assure you that he will find them anything but tender. No, dear, we shall accept His Highness's invitation to lunch, and then his offer of the hospitality of the yacht for the trip, which, by the way, I fancy will be more to the eastward than to the northward——"

"You mean, I suppose, Trelitz and Viborg?"

"Not Trelitz, I think, but Viborg almost certainly. That will be the end of the abduction as far as I can see from our present plane of existence."

"Really, Niti—well, well. Of course, I know that you will be perfectly safe: but what would our good friends on this plane, as you put it, the Van Huysmans, for instance, think if they could hear you talking so calmly to your own father about getting yourself abducted by a man whom you justly think to be one of the most unscrupulous scoundrels on earth! And, by the way, what is to become of me in the carrying out of this little scheme of yours? I hope you don't expect me to connive at the abduction of my own daughter. I have a certain amount of reputation to lose, you know."

"Oh, if His Highness is the clever villain that we know him to be, I think we may safely trust him to arrange for your temporary disappearance from the scene. And whatever he does it will be easy for you to play the part of the passive victim for the time being. He can't injure or kill you, for if it came to extremities you have the means of giving his people such a fright as would probably drive them out of their senses, just as I could if their master got troublesome. Really, from a certain point of view, the adventure will have a decidedly humorous aspect."

"With a very considerable leaven of tragedy."

"Yes, the tragedy will be a logical sequence of the comedy—and, as I said last night, it will be tragedy. And now suppose we go to breakfast. I have been up nearly two hours helping Jenny with the packing, and this lovely air has given me a raging appetite. There's a little more to do yet, and we shall have His Highness here before long to ask for our decision and take us off to the yacht."

Here she was quite right, for she had hardly left her father to his after-breakfast pipe and gone upstairs to help her maid, than Oscarovitch came into the smoking-room.

"Good morning, Professor Marmion! I need not ask you if you have had a good night. You look the very picture of a man who has slept the sleep of the just. And Miss Marmion?"

"Thanks, Your Highness, I think we have both managed to spend the night to good purpose. The air here is glorious just now. I always think that sound, dreamless sleep is the best sign that a place is doing you good."

"Oh, undoubtedly, though for some reason or other I did not sleep very well last night. Something had disagreed with me, I suppose. I seemed to have a sense of being pursued to the uttermost ends of the earth and back again by some relentless foe who simply would not allow me to take a moment's rest. But I didn't come to talk about the stuff that dreams are made of. I came to ask whether my cruise is to be a lonely one, or whether I am to have the very great pleasure of your company."

Franklin Marmion, for perhaps the first time in his life, felt distinctly murderous towards a fellow-creature as he looked at this splendid specimen of physical humanity, knowing so well the real man who was hiding behind that fascinating exterior; but he managed to answer pleasantly enough:

"We have talked the matter over, Prince, and we have come to the conclusion that your very kind invitation is really too good to be refused. We know that we are incurring a debt that we shall not be able to pay, but we are trusting to your generosity to let us off."

"On the contrary, my dear Professor," said Oscarovitch, without the slightest attempt to conceal the pleasure that the acceptation gave him, "it is yourself and Miss Marmion who have made me your debtor. In fact, if you had not found yourselves able to come, I should have run the Grashna back to Cowes, gone up to London, plunged into a maelstroem of dissipation, and probably ended by losing a great deal of money at Ascot and Goodwood. Ah, Miss Marmion, good morning! How well the air of Copenhagen seems to agree with you! The Professor has just gladdened my soul by telling me that you have decided to take pity on my loneliness."

"Good morning, Prince!" she replied, putting her hand for a moment in the one he held out. "Yes, we are coming, if you will have us. In fact, I have just finished packing."

"Ah, excellent! Well now, since that is happily arranged, it would be a pity to waste any of this lovely morning. The Sound is like a streak of blue sky fallen from heaven. My gig is down at the jetty, and I have a couple of my men here who will convoy your baggage down. If it is packed, as you say, you need not trouble about it. You will find everything safe on board."

"Thank you, Prince," said the Professor. "Then I will go and settle up at the office while Niti puts her hat on. I will have the things sent down, and we may as well walk to the jetty. It will do me good after that big breakfast. Jenny had better get into a cab and go down with the luggage."

When they reached the promenade along the Sound shore Oscarovitch pointed to a beautifully-shaped, three-masted, two-funnelled white yacht lying about five hundred yards out, and said:

"That is the Grashna, Miss Marmion. I hope you like the look of her."

"She is beautiful!" exclaimed Nitocris, recognising at once the vessel which had met the Russian destroyer on the early morning of the 7th. "She almost looks as if she could fly."

"So she can in a sense," laughed the Prince. "Come now, here is the gig. We will get on board, and you shall see her go through her paces."

Neither she nor her father were strangers to yachts, but when they mounted the bridge of the Grashna and looked over her from stem to stern, they had to admit that they had never seen anything quite so daintily splendid. They had chosen their rooms, and Jenny was below unpacking. Although, of course, he had a captain on board, the Prince often sailed the yacht himself when he had guests on board. He had a genuine love for the beautiful craft, and he took an almost boyish delight in showing what she could do. She was a twelve-hundred-ton, triple-screw, turbine-driven boat, and, thanks to the space-economy of the new system, her builders had been able to stow away fifteen thousand horse-power in her engine-room, and this when fully developed gave a speed in smooth water of thirty-five knots or a little over forty statute miles an hour.

The anchor was up almost as soon as they got on to the bridge, and Oscarovitch moved the pointer of the telegraph to "Ahead slow." The quartermaster in the oval wheel-house behind him moved the little wheel a few spokes to starboard, her mellow whistle tooted, and she glided in an outward curve through the other yachts and shipping, and gained the open water.

"Now," he said, turning to Nitocris, "we can begin to move. It is roughly thirty English miles to Elsinore. If you have never done any fast travelling at sea and would like to do some now, I can get you there in about three-quarters of an hour."

"What!" exclaimed the Professor, "thirty miles in forty-five minutes by sea! That is over forty miles an hour. A wonderful speed."

"Yes," he replied, almost tenderly; "but my beautiful Grashna is a wonderful craft—at least, I think you will say so when you see what she can do. Now, if you will take advice, you and Miss Marmion will go into shelter, for it will begin to blow soon."

Behind the wheel-house was an observation room, as it would be called in the States, running nearly the whole length of the bridge, and fronted with thick plate glass. They went in, and Oscarovitch turned the pointer to half-speed. There was no increase in vibration, but the shore began to slip away behind them faster and faster, and the northern suburbs of Copenhagen rose ahead and fell astern as though they were part of a swiftly moving panorama. Then the pointer went down to full speed, and the Prince, after a word to the quartermaster, joined them in the bridge-house and closed the door.

"You will need all your eyes to see much of the shore now," he said; "I have given her her wings."

Nitocris felt a shudder in the carpeted floor. Looking ahead she saw the bow lift slightly. Then a smooth, green swathe of water curled up on either side. She looked aft, and saw a broad torrent of froth, foaming like a furious, rapid stream away from the stern. The houses and trees on the shore seemed to run into each other, and slide out of sight almost before the eye could rest upon them. The water alongside was merely a blue-green blur. Nitocris involuntarily held her breath as though she had been out on deck.

"It is wonderful, Prince!" she said, almost in a whisper. "That alleged express from Hamburg was nothing to this: and yet how steadily she moves in spite of the speed. I should have thought that it would have nearly shaken us to jelly."

"That is the turbines, dear," said her father, who was already wondering whether Oscarovitch was doing this just to show how hopeless any pursuit of such a vessel would be. "They are a marvellous means of applying steam power. Lieutenant Parsons is robbing the sea of one, at least, of its worst terrors."

"Yes," added the Prince, "we are travelling a little over forty miles an hour; and if you got that speed out of reciprocating engines you would scarcely be able to lie on the deck without holding on to something, yet here we are as comfortable as though we were standing in a drawing-room."

"You have given us a new experience to begin with," said Nitocris, thinking how nice it would be to take her wedding trip with Merrill in such a craft as this. "Why, look at the two shores coming together, Dad!"

"No, excuse me," said Oscarovitch, "we are only about half-way to the Gate of the Baltic yet. That land on the right is the island of Hvreen. When we have passed that you will soon see the heights of Elsinore and Helsingborg rising ahead. There are only about two and a half miles between Denmark and Sweden there."

"Oh yes, of course. I am forgetting my geography," laughed Nitocris, as the low, wooded patch of land came rushing towards them as though it were adrift on a fast-flowing stream. "Goodness, what a speed!"

"A very wonderful craft, Prince," added the Professor, as the island drifted past; "she quite inclines me towards a breach of the tenth commandment. Now that you have given us this taste of the delights of speed, I think that if I were a millionaire, I should try to build one to beat her."

"Exactly," laughed Oscarovitch. "It is marvellous this fascination of speed. Your poet, Henley, touched the pulse of the times when he wrote those splendid lines of his. But surely, Professor, you would not have very much difficulty in leaving all far behind. A man to whom mathematical impossibilities are as easy as an addition sum ought to be able to realise the dream of the ages and solve the problem of aerial navigation."

He looked him straight in the eyes as he said this. He fully believed in the possibility of human flight, given the transcendent genius who could work out the equation of weight and power. Perhaps that genius might be with him now in the bridge-house. His vivid imagination was already picturing the lovely girl at his side crowned Empress of the Russias and the East, and himself in command of an aerial navy, beneath whose assault the armies and navies and fortresses of the rest of the world would be as so many toys to play with and destroy.

"If I could do that, and I do not think it would be so very difficult after all," said Franklin Marmion, returning his glance, "I would not do it. It would put too much power in the hands of a few men, and we have enough of that already. The owner of a fleet of aerial warships would be above all human law. He could terrorise the earth, and make mankind his slaves. Life would become unendurable under such conditions. Commercialism, which only means slavery plus the liberty to starve, is bad enough, but it is at least possible. The other would be impossible. There is no man quite honest enough to be trusted with such a power as that. I have worked the thing out, and it is perfectly feasible, but I burnt my designs and calculations."

"What!" exclaimed Oscarovitch, flushing in spite of his effort to keep the blood back from his face. "You have solved the problem, and won't make use of the greatest invention of all the ages! Surely, Professor, that is a little quixotic, is it not?"

"Who am I that I should bring a curse upon humanity, Prince?" he answered gravely. "Do you not kill each other fast enough now? No, the world is not fit for such a development yet. My results will remain my own until Tom Hood's ideal of good government has been realised."

"And what was that, Dad?" asked Nitocris, who had a double reason for being interested in the conversation. "If I ever knew it, I have forgotten it."

"Despotism, Niti—and an angel from heaven for the despot," he replied, with another look into the Prince's eyes which brought him to the conclusion that the sooner his presence on board the Grashna was dispensed with the better for his plans. There was a sense of quiet mastery in Franklin Marmion's manner which made him uneasy.

"Ah! there is the famous fortress, is it not? the home of Hamlet and Ophelia and the Ghost!" she exclaimed, pointing ahead to where a grey-blue mass was rising out of the water. "Do you believe in ghosts, Prince?" she added suddenly, flashing a glance at him which seemed to pierce his brain like a ray of unearthly light.

"Ghosts? No, Miss Marmion. I'm afraid I am too hopelessly materialistic for that. I never saw or heard of an authentic ghost, and I do not propose to believe until I see."

"We have a ghost at 'The Wilderness,'—the wraith of a poor young lady who killed herself after some royal blackguard had abused his own hospitality. She often comes to visit me in my study," said the Professor, as though he were relating the most ordinary occurrence.

"Ah," smiled the Prince, "that is very interesting: but, of course, it would be in the power of a man like yourself to have experiences which are denied to ordinary mortals. Still, granted all that, I confess that I have often wondered whether or not I should be frightened if I really did see a ghost."

"Yes, I wonder?" murmured Nitocris, with a great deal more meaning than he had any idea of just then.

All three felt that the conversation was getting a little difficult, and they were not sorry when the rapid rising of the rock of Elsinore made it necessary for Oscarovitch to go out to the engine telegraph.

"His Highness doesn't believe in ghosts now," whispered Nitocris to her father, when the door shut behind him, "but I think he will before very long. I wonder what he is really going to do? I've half a mind to——"

"No, no, Niti," he said quickly; "keep this side of the Border till you really have to cross it. What on earth, literally, would happen if he came back and found me standing here alone?"

"Oh, of course I didn't mean it," she smiled. "It would be very poor sport to spoil both the comedy and the tragedy before the curtain goes up. I wonder if the drama will begin to-night? I shouldn't be surprised."

"Nor I," said the Professor, a trifle grimly. "I didn't at all like his looks when I was talking about the flying machine. The brute looked as if he were quite capable of locking me up and starving or torturing me until I gave him the secret. My word, I should like to see him try! I'd have him grovelling at my feet in five minutes."

The door opened and Oscarovitch came in. He took off the cap which had been pulled tight over his eyes, and said:

"Well, we have arrived! Almost exactly forty-five minutes. There is Elsinore, there is Kronborg, King Frederick's sixteenth-century castle, and there is Marienlyst, which is to Copenhagen what Brighton is to London, only, I must say, in a much more refined sense. Now what is your pleasure, Miss Marmion? We have still nearly two hours before lunch, so, if you would like an hour's stroll ashore, the gig will be ready in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you, Prince," she said with a rewarding smile. "Dad, what do you think? It all looks very beautiful under this sun and sky."

"Which, of course, means that you want to go ashore, Niti," said her father. "For my own part, I certainly should like a little walk on new ground. I have never been here before."