of opium, for which the customs authorities were on
the lookout, was likely about to be smuggled into some port of Puget
Sound. In any event, the business ahead must have been important, for
it is now known that in order to ensure its success Freeman bought an
uncommonly expensive and potent charm from Rabaya.

When Freeman went to buy this charm he failed to notice that the Flying
Devil was slyly following him; neither he nor the half-blind
charm-seller observed the Malay slip into Rabaya's den and witness the
matter that there went forward. The intruder must have heard something
that stirred every evil instinct in him. Rabaya (whom I could hardly be
persuaded to believe under oath) years afterwards told me that the
charm which he sold to Freeman was one of extraordinary virtue. For
many generations it had been in the family of one of India's proudest
rajahs, and until it was stolen the arms of England could not prevail
over that part of the far East. If borne by a person of lofty character
(as he solemnly informed me he believed Freeman to be) it would never
fail to bring the highest good fortune; for, although the amulet was
laden with evil powers as well as good, a worthy person could resist
the evil and employ only the good. Contrariwise, the amulet in the
hands of an evil person would be a most potent and dangerous engine of
harm.

It was a small and very old trinket, made of copper and representing a
serpent twined grotesquely about a human heart; through the heart a
dagger was thrust, and the loop for holding the suspending string was
formed by one of the coils of the snake. The charm had a wonderful
history, which must be reserved for a future story; the sum of it being
that as it had been as often in the hands of bad men as of good, it had
wrought as many calamities as blessings. It was perfectly safe and
useful--so Rabaya soberly told me--in the hands of such a man as
Freeman.

Now, as no one knows the soundings and breadth of his own wickedness,
the Flying Devil (who, Rabaya explained, must have overheard the
conversation attending its transference to Freeman) reflected only that
if he could secure possession of the charm his fortune would be made;
as he could not procure it by other means, he must steal it. Moreover,
he must have seen the price--five thousand dollars in gold--which
Freeman paid for the trinket; and that alone was sufficient to move the
Malay's cupidity. At all events, it is known that h