ou that the
first picture you saw has come true?"

"I have never given it a thought for weeks," Bathurst said; "certainly
I have not thought of it today. Yes, now you speak of it, it has come
true. How strange! I put it aside as a clever trick--one that I could
not understand any more than I did the others, but, knowing myself,
it seemed beyond the bounds of possibility that it could come true.
Anything but that I would have believed, but, as I told you, whatever
might happen in the future, I should not be found fighting desperately
as I saw myself doing there. It is true that I did so, but it was only a
sort of a frenzy. I did not fire a shot, as Wilson may have told you.
I strove like a man in a nightmare to break the spell that seemed to
render me powerless to move, but when, for a moment, the firing ceased,
a weight seemed to fall off me, and I was seized with a sort of passion
to kill. I have no distinct remembrance of anything until it was all
over. It was still the nightmare, but one of a different kind, and I
was no more myself then than I was when I was lying helpless on the
sandbags. Still, as you say, the picture was complete; at least, if Miss
Hannay was standing up here."

"Yes, she rose to her feet in the excitement of the fight. I believe we
all did so. The picture was true in all its details as you described it
to me. And that being so, I believe that other picture, the one we saw
together, you and I and Isobel Hannay in native disguises, will also
come true."

Bathurst was silent for two or three minutes.

"It may be so, Doctor--Heaven only knows. I trust for your sake and hers
it may be so, though I care but little about myself; but that picture
wasn't a final one, and we don't know what may follow it."

"That is so, Bathurst. But I think that you and I, once fairly away in
disguise, might be trusted to make our way down the country. You see,
we have a complete confirmation of that juggler's powers. He showed me a
scene in the past--a scene which had not been in my mind for years, and
was certainly not in my thoughts at the time. He showed you a scene in
the future, which, unlikely as it appeared, has actually taken place. I
believe he will be equally right in this other picture. You have heard
that Forster is going?"

"Yes; Wilson came down and told me while I was at work. Wilson seemed
rather disgusted at his volunteering. I don't know that I am surprised
myself, for, as I told you, I knew him