watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy,
for I knew we’d have to fudge the Ritual,
and I didn’t know what the men knew. The
old priest was a stranger come in from beyond
the village of Bashkai. The minute
Dravot puts on the Master’s apron that the
girls had made for him, the priest fetches a
whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the
stone that Dravot was sitting on. ‘It’s all
up now,’ I says. ‘That comes of meddling
with the Craft without warrant!’ Dravot
never winked an eye, not when ten priests
took and tilted over the Grand-Master’s chair
—which was to say the stone of Imbra. The
priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it
to clear away the black dirt, and presently
he shows all the other priests the Master’s
Mark, same as was on Dravot’s apron, cut
into the stone. Not even the priests of
the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The
old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot’s feet
and kisses ’em. ‘Luck again,’ says Dravot,
across the Lodge to me, ‘they say it’s the
missing Mark that no one could understand
the why of. We’re more than safe now.’
Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a
gavel and says:—‘By virtue of the authority
vested in me by my own right hand and
the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand-Master
of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in