narrow way, when the woman
listlessly uttered that ominous cough.

The cough was too full of meaning to be disregarded. Thangobrind turned
round and saw at once what he feared. The spider-idol had not stayed at
home. The jeweller put his diamond gently upon the ground and drew his
sword called Mouse. And then began that famous fight upon the narrow way
in which the grim old woman whose house was Night seemed to take so
little interest. To the spider-idol you saw at once it was all a
horrible joke. To the jeweller it was grim earnest. He fought and panted
and was pushed back slowly along the narrow way, but he wounded Hlo-hlo
all the while with terrible long gashes all over his deep, soft body
till Mouse was slimy with blood. But at last the persistent laughter of
Hlo-hlo was too much for the jeweller's nerves, and, once more wounding
his demoniac foe, he sank aghast and exhausted by the door of the house
called Night at the feet of the grim old woman, who having uttered once
that ominous cough interfered no further with the course of events. And
there carried Thangobrind the jeweller away those whose duty it was, to
the house where the two men hang, and taking down from his hook the
left-hand one of the two, they put that venturous jeweller in his place;
so that there fell on him the doom that he feared, as all men know
though it is so long since, and there abated somewhat the ire of the
envious gods.

And the only daughter of the Merchant Prince felt so little gratitude
for this great deliverance that she took to respectability of a
militant kind, and became aggressively dull, and called her home the
English Riviera, and had platitudes worked in worsted upon her
tea-cosy, and in the end never died, but passed away at her residence.

THE HOUSE OF THE SPHINX

When I came to the House of the Sphinx it was already dark. They made
me eagerly welcome. And I, in spite of the deed, was glad of any
shelter from that ominous wood. I saw at once that there had been a
deed, although a cloak did all that a cloak may do to conceal it. The
mere uneasiness of the welcome made me suspect that cloak.

The Sphinx was moody and silent. I had not come to pry into the
secrets of Eternity nor to investigate the Sphinx's private life, and
so had little to say and few questions to ask; but to whatever I did
say she remained morosely indifferent. It was clear that either she
suspected me of being in search of the secrets of one of h