and sliced with a knife. The cock's head flew off upon the
tiles. Hot blood spattered on Heywood's cheek. Half blinded, but not
daring to move, he saw the knife withdrawn, and a huge goblet held out
to catch the flow. Then arms, goblet, and convulsive wings jerked out of
sight, and the shutter slid home.

"Twice they've not seen me," thought Heywood. It was darker, here, than
he had hoped. He rose more boldly to the peep-hole.

Under the arch of swords, the new recruits, now standing upright,
stretched one by one their wrists over the goblet. The Incense Master
pricked each yellow arm, to mingle human blood with the blood of the
white cock; then, from a brazen vessel, filled the goblet to the brim.
It passed from hand to hand, like a loving-cup. Each novice raised it,
chanted some formula, and drank. Then all dispersed. There fell
a silence.

Suddenly, in the pale face of the black image seated before the shrine,
the eyes turned, scanning the company with a cold contempt. The lips
moved. The voice, level and ironic, was that of Fang, the Sword-Pen:--

"O Fragrant Ones, when shall the foreign monsters perish like this
cock?"

A man in black, with a red wand, bowed and answered harshly:--

"The time, Great Elder Brother, draws at hand."

"How shall we know the hour?"

"The hour," replied the Red Wand, "shall be when the Black Dog barks."

"And the day?"

Heywood pressed his ear against the chink, and listened, his five senses
fused into one.

No answer came, but presently a rapid, steady clicking, strangely
familiar and commonplace. He peered in again. The Red Wand stood by the
abacus, rattling the brown beads with flying fingers, like a shroff.
Plainly, it was no real calculation, but a ceremony before the answer.
The listener clapped his ear to the crevice. Would that answer, he
wondered, be a month, a week, to-morrow?

The shutter banged, the light streamed, down went Heywood against the
plaster. Thick dregs from the goblet splashed on the tiles. A head, the
flattened profile of the brisk man in yellow, leaned far out from the
little port-hole. Grunting, he shook the inverted cup, let it dangle
from his hands, stared up aimlessly at the stars, and then--to Heywood's
consternation--dropped his head to meditate, looking straight down.

"He sees me," thought Heywood, and held himself ready, trembling. But
the fellow made no sign, the broad squat features no change. The pose
was that of vague, comfortable t