energy of long-forgotten Eastern necromancy, just as ready as ever to
awake into action at the first words which had power to evoke it.

There was no one; but even if there had been such a person, Paul
Bultitude was a sober prosaic individual, who would probably have
treated the warning as a piece of ridiculous superstition.

As it was, no man could have put himself in a position of extreme peril
with a more perfect unconsciousness of his danger.

2. _A Grand Transformation Scene_

"Magnaque numinibus vota exaudita malignis."

Paul Bultitude put on his glasses to examine the stone more carefully,
for it was some time since he had last seen or thought about it. Then he
looked up and said once more, "What use would a thing like this be to
you?"

Dick would have considered it a very valuable prize indeed; he could
have exhibited it to admiring friends--during lessons, of course, when
it would prove a most agreeable distraction; he could have played with
and fingered it incessantly, invented astonishing legends of its powers
and virtues; and, at last, when he had grown tired of it, have bartered
it for any more desirable article that might take his fancy. All these
advantages were present to his mind in a vague shifting form, but he
could not find either courage or words to explain them.

Consequently he only said awkwardly, "Oh, I don't know, I should like
it."

"Well, any way," said Paul, "you certainly won't have it. It's worth
keeping, whatever it is, as the only thing your uncle Marmaduke was ever
known to give to anybody."

Marmaduke Paradine, his brother-in-law, was not a connection of whom he
had much reason to feel particularly proud. One of those persons endowed
with what are known as "insinuating manners and address," he had, after
some futile attempts to enter the army, been sent out to Bombay as agent
for a Manchester firm, and in that capacity had contrived to be mixed up
in some more than shady transactions with rival exporters and native
dealers up the country, which led to an unceremonious dismissal by his
employers.

He had brought home the stone from India as a propitiatory token of
remembrance, more portable and less expensive than the lacquered
cabinets, brasses, stuffs and carved work which are expected from
friends at such a distance, and he had been received with pardon and
started once more, until certain other proceedings of his, shadier
still, had obliged Paul to forbid hi