to the darkness, now
listening as if her whole life's hope lay in the coming of some expected
sound. And in her veins there burned a fever of suspense.

"So you failed to get the rascals, did you, Mr. Narkom?" Cleek was
saying. "I feared as much; but I couldn't get word to you sooner. We
blew out a fuse, Dollops and I, in that mad race to the mill, and of
course we had to come home at a snail's pace afterward. I'm sorry we
didn't get Margot, sorrier still that that hound Merode got away. They
are bound to make more trouble before the race is run. Not for her
ladyship, however, and not for this dear little chap. Their troubles are
at an end, and the sacred son will be a sacred son no longer."

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, do tell me what you mean," implored Lady Chepstow. "Do
tell me how----"

"Doctor Fordyce at last!" struck in Ailsa excitedly, as the door-bell
and the knocker clashed and the butler's swift footsteps went along the
hall. "Now we shall know, Mr. Cleek, now we shall know for certain!"

"And so shall all the world," he replied as the door opened and the
doctor was ushered into the room. "I don't think you were ever so
welcome anywhere or at any time before, doctor," he added with a smile.
"Come and look at this little chap. Bonny little specimen of a
Britisher, isn't he?"

"Yes; but, my dear sir, I--I was under the impression that I was called
to a scene of excitement; and you seem as peaceful as Eden here. The
constable who came for me said it was something to do with Scotland
Yard!"

"So it is, doctor. I had Mr. Narkom send for you to perform a very
trifling but most important operation upon this little boy here."

"Upon Cedric!" exclaimed Lady Chepstow, rising in a panic of alarm. "An
operation to be performed upon my baby boy? Oh, Mr. Cleek, in the name
of Heaven----"

"No, your ladyship, in the name of Buddha. Don't be alarmed. It is only
to be a trifling cut, a mere re-opening of that little wound in the
thigh which you dressed and healed so successfully at Trincomalee. You
made a mistake, all of you, that night when the boy was shot. The native
poor Ferralt saw skulking along with the gun was not a mere tribesman
and had not the very faintest thought of discharging that weapon at your
little son, or, indeed, at anybody else in the world. He was the High
Priest, Seydama, guardian of the holy tooth, the one living being who
dared by right to touch it or to lay hands upon the shrine that
contained it. Fea