a sense of the peril of his
enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave,
made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought
his master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about
behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from
others, and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained
easy ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation.
The doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had
voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he
knew. He only felt a moment's apprehension, however. He had been moved
to come from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of
the predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of "The Scytheman"
before his appointed time. His mind resumed its composure, and he
watchfully waited the return of the slave.

Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard
no one approach. He swung round and was met by the passive face of the
black slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak,
but motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards
it. David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they
passed through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden
darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with
light. Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was
visible. He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and
the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw
sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.

David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a
different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement,
and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face
with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity
in the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which
mastered him--a root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex
personality, of a man in whom two natures fought. He understood it.
By instinct the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that
strange commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many
criminals. In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin.
The rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker
f