s by which such as you were burnt--the _wise_ laws of long
ago--are no more," said Dr. Cairn. "English law cannot touch you, but
God has provided for your kind!"

"Perhaps," whispered Ferrara, "you would like also to burn this box to
which you object so strongly?"

"No power on earth would prevail upon me to touch it! But you--you
_have_ touched it--and you know the penalty! You raise forces of evil
that have lain dormant for ages and dare to wield them. Beware! I know
of some whom you have murdered; I cannot know how many you have sent
to the madhouse. But I swear that in future your victims shall be few.
There is a way to deal with you!"

He turned and walked to the door.

"Beware also, dear Dr. Cairn," came softly. "As you say, I raise
forces of evil--"

Dr. Cairn spun about. In three strides he was standing over Antony
Ferrara, fists clenched and his sinewy body tense in every fibre. His
face was pale, as was apparent even in that vague light, and his eyes
gleamed like steel.

"You raise other forces," he said--and his voice, though steady was
very low; "evil forces, also."

Antony Ferrara, invoker of nameless horrors, shrank before him--before
the primitive Celtic man whom unwittingly he had invoked. Dr. Cairn
was spare and lean, but in perfect physical condition. Now he was
strong, with the strength of a just cause. Moreover, he was dangerous,
and Ferrara knew it well.

"I fear--" began the latter huskily.

"Dare to bandy words with me," said Dr. Cairn, with icy coolness,
"answer me back but once again, and before God I'll strike you dead!"

Ferrara sat silent, clutching at the arms of his chair, and not daring
to raise his eyes. For ten magnetic seconds they stayed so, then again
Dr. Cairn turned, and this time walked out.

The clocks had been chiming the quarter after eleven as he had entered
Antony Ferrara's chambers, and some had not finished their chimes when
his son, choking, calling wildly upon Heaven to aid him, had fallen in
the midst of crowding, obscene things, and, in the instant of his
fall, had found the room clear of the waving antennae, the beady eyes,
and the beetle shapes. The whole horrible phantasmagoria--together
with the odour of ancient rottenness--faded like a fevered dream, at
the moment that Dr. Cairn had burst in upon the creator of it.

Robert Cairn stood up, weakly, trembling; then dropped upon his knees
and sobbed out prayers of thankfulness that came from his frightene