t can readily be carried by a heavy plane! One such
plane in a flight from Suez to Port Said, could destroy all the
shipping in the Canal and explode every grain of ammunition on either
shore! Since I must leave England to-night, the model must be
destroyed, and unfortunately a good collection of bacilli has already
suffered the same fate."

Placidly, slowly, and unmoved from his habit of unruffled dignity,
Fo-Hi placed the model in a deep mortar, whilst Stuart watched him
speechless and aghast. He poured the contents of a large pan into the
mortar, whereupon a loud hissing sound broke the awesome silence of
the room and a cloud of fumes arose.

"Not a trace, doctor!" said the cowled man. "A little preparation of
my own. It destroys the hardest known substance--with the solitary
exception of a certain clay--in the same way that nitric acid would
destroy tissue paper. You see I might have aspired to become famous
among safe-breakers."

"You have preferred to become infamous among murderers!" snapped
Stuart.

"To murder, Dr. Stuart, I have never stooped. I am a specialist in
selective warfare. When you visit the laboratory of our chief chemist
in Kiangsu you will be shown the whole of the armory of the Sublime
Order. I regret that the activities of your zealous and painfully
inquisitive friend, M. Gaston Max, have forced me to depart from
England before I had completed my work here."

"I pray you may never depart," murmured Stuart.

Fo-Hi having added some bright green fluid to that in the flat pan,
had now poured the whole into a large test-tube, and was holding it
in the flame of the burner. At the moment that it reached the boiling
point it became colourless. He carefully placed the whole of the
liquid in a retort to which he attached a condensor. He stood up.

Crossing to a glass case which rested upon a table near the _diwan_
he struck it lightly with his hand. The case contained sand and
fragments of rock, but as Fo-Hi struck it, out from beneath the pieces
of rock darted black active creatures.

"The common black scorpion of Southern India," he said softly. "Its
venom is the basis of the priceless formula, _F. Katalepsis,_ upon
which the structure of our Sublime Order rests, Dr. Stuart; hence the
adoption of a scorpion as our device."

He took up a long slender flask.

"This virus prepared from a glandular secretion of the Chinese
swamp-adder is also beyond price. Again-the case upon the pedestal
yond