ed)
would probably have shared the same fate, had not the occupants of
several of the neighbouring houses--amongst whom were some half-dozen
athletic young men--roused by the noise, come out into the street, and
the ruffian and his companion, seeing the odds were against them,
decamped.

Shiel had not fully regained consciousness, when Lilian Rosenberg,
regardless of propriety, led him into her sitting-room, bathed his
forehead, dosed him with brandy, and making up a bed for him on the
sofa, bade him rest there, till the morning.

When he took his departure, he had quite recovered, and Lilian
Rosenberg had, at last, realized that she loved him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: There is no doubt that Moses inflicted the plagues,
with which he tormented Pharaoh, in this way.]

[Footnote 24: In stage two this might have been performed by
ethereal projection, but Hamar could not resort to this method as
the power of projection had now passed from him.]

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SUBPOENA

A few days after the incident in Margaret Terrace, Shiel had an
inspiration. He was lunching with an old schoolfellow whom, quite by
chance, he had met in Lincoln's Inn, having previously lost sight of
him for many years, and the conversation, which had at first been
confined to the old days, had gradually drifted to what was ever
uppermost in Shiel's mind--namely, the Modern Sorcery Company, _i.e._
Hamar, Kelson and Curtis.

"Did you know," his friend remarked, "that the old statute, introduced
in Henry the Fifth's reign against sorcery, has never been repealed?"

"You don't mean to say so," Shiel cried excitedly--a vague idea
dawning on him. "Tell me all about it."

"Well, that's rather a long order. For one thing, it imposes all kinds
of penalties from capital punishment to fines. For another, it was in
force up to the beginning of George the Third's reign, when the last
case of a person being burned for witchery in England occurred, and
since then it has fallen into disuse."

"Could it be revived?" Shiel asked, a sudden wild hope surging through
him.

"For all I know to the contrary, it could," his friend--who, by the
way, was a barrister--replied. "Of course no one could be burned or
hanged under it, but they might be fined or imprisoned."

"Then I wish to goodness you would file a case against the Modern
Sorcery Company! I'd move heaven and earth to get the scoundrels sent
to prison!" And he told his frien