might slip
out of the back door and run for it, without my great coat or hat
although the night was so cold and I should probably be taken up as a
lunatic. No, it was impossible for I had forged a chain that might not
be broken. I had passed my word of honour. Well, I was in for it and
after all what was there of which I need be afraid that I should tremble
and shrink back as though I were about to run away with somebody's wife,
or rather to be run away with quite contrary to my own inclination?
Nothing at all. A mere nonsensical ordeal much less serious than a visit
to the dentist.

Probably that stuff had lost its strength by now--that is, unless it
had grown more powerful by keeping, as is the case with certain sorts
of explosives. And if it had not, the worst to be expected was a silly
dream, followed perhaps by headache. That is, unless I did not chance
to wake up again at all in this world, which was a most unpleasant
possibility. Another thing, suppose I woke and she didn't! What should
I say then? Of a certainty I should find myself in the dock. Yes, and
there were further dreadful eventualities, quite conceivable, every one
of them, the very thought of which plunged me into a cold perspiration
and made me feel so weak that I was obliged to sit down.

Then I heard the gong; to me it sounded like the execution bell to a
prisoner under sentence of death. I crept downstairs feebly and found
Lady Ragnall waiting for me in the drawing-room, clothed with gaiety as
with a garment. I remember that it made me most indignant that she could
be so happy in such circumstances, but I said nothing. She looked me up
and down and remarked,

"Really from your appearance you might have seen the Ragnall ghost, or
be going to be married against your will, or--I don't know what. Also
you have forgotten to fasten your tie."

I looked in the glass. It was true, for there hung the ends down my
shirt front. Then I struggled with the wretched thing until at last she
had to help me, which she did laughing softly. Somehow her touch gave me
confidence again and enabled me to say quite boldly that I only wanted
my dinner.

"Yes," she replied, "but you are not to eat much and you must only drink
water. The priestesses in Kendah Land told me that this was necessary
before taking _Taduki_ in its strongest form, as we are going to do
to-night. You know the prophet Harut only gave us the merest whiff in
this room years ago."

I groaned and