craft of Eastern man were equally useless weapons. Perhaps Hassan's
campaign was entering upon a new phase.

Was it a shirking of plain duty on my part that wish--that
ever-present hope--that the murderous company of fanatics who had
pursued the stolen slipper from its ancient resting-place to London,
should succeed in recovering it? I leave you to judge.

The crescent of Islam fades to-day and grows pale, but there are yet
fierce Believers, alust for the blood of the infidel. In such as
these a faith dies the death of an adder, and is more venomous in
its death-throes than in the full pulse of life. The ghastly
indiscretion of Professor Deeping, in rifling a Moslem Sacristy, had
led to the mutilation of many who, unwittingly, had touched the
looted relic, had brought about his own end, had established a league
of fantastic assassins in the heart of the metropolis.

Only once had I seen the venerable Hassan of Aleppo--a stately,
gentle old man; but I knew that the velvet eyes could blaze into a
passionate fury that seemed to scorch whom it fell upon. I knew
that the saintly Hassan was Sheikh of the Hashishin. And
familiarity with that dreadful organization had by no means bred
contempt. I was the holder of the key, and my fear of the fanatics
grew like a magic mango, darkened the sunlight of each day, and
filled the night with indefinable dread.

You, who have not read poor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology", cannot
picture a creature with a huge, distorted head, and a tiny, dwarfed
body--a thing inhuman, yet human--a man stunted and malformed by
the cruel arts of brother men--a thing obnoxious to life, with but