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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            Satan's Garden
+
+                         By E. HOFFMANN PRICE
+
+          _The story of a terrific adventure in Bayonne, two
+          ravishingly beautiful girls, occult evil and sudden
+              death in the lair of the hasheesh-eaters._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                    Weird Tales April and May 1934.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+    Since the publication of "The Rajah's Gift" in WEIRD TALES nine
+    years ago, followed by "The Stranger from Kurdistan," E. Hoffmann
+    Price has been acclaimed one of the masters of quality fiction;
+    yet his superb artistry has not interfered in any way with the
+    vividness and thrilling power of his fascinating stories. West
+    Point graduate, expert swordsman, orientalist and former soldier
+    of fortune, his life itself is a thrilling tale of adventure.
+    Endowed with a natural gift for narrative, he possesses also a
+    warm imagination and unsurpassed literary craftsmanship. All these
+    qualities are woven into the strange weird tale presented herewith:
+    "Satan's Garden."
+
+
+
+
+                        _1. Invisible Scourge_
+
+
+It was long past the hour of tinkling glass, and song to the guitar,
+and crowded tables at the Café du Théâtre. The gray-walled city of
+Bayonne slept in the moonlight like an odalisque overcome with wine and
+lying bejewelled in a garden whence the musicians had departed. It is
+thus that Bayonne has slept each night of the full moon for more than
+nineteen centuries at the junction of the Nive and the Adour, guarding
+the road to Spain.
+
+There were two who sat in a room on the second floor of a house
+that faced the street running along the city wall. One was old and
+leathery, with fierce, upturned gray mustaches, and eyes that smoldered
+beneath shaggy brows; the other was not more than half his age, a lean,
+broad-shouldered man whose bronzed features were rugged as the masonry
+of the fortress, and seamed with a saber slash that ran from his
+cheek-bone almost to the chin.
+
+The younger emerged from the depths of his chair like a panther leaving
+his cage. He paced the length of the room and paused at the window to
+stare out into the dazzling moon-brightness that slowly marched from
+the rolling, tree-clustered parkway and invaded the shadows cast by the
+city wall across the dry moat that skirted it. Then, as he retraced his
+steps, he glanced at his watch.
+
+"Later than usual tonight, Pierre," he observed. His voice was weary
+from baffled wrath. "Do you suppose that It may skip a night?"
+
+Pierre d'Artois shook his gray head and sighed.
+
+"Why should It fail to torment her? We sit here like dummies, you and
+I. And to what purpose? Look!" He indicated the seals on the door
+at his left. "It could get through neither door nor window without
+breaking those seals----"
+
+"But It did, by heaven!" exclaimed the younger. And Glenn Farrell
+resumed his pacing the length of the Boukhara rug that carpeted the
+room. He made a gesture of futile rage, then resumed, "But how,
+Pierre--and why?"
+
+Pierre d'Artois twisted his mustache, shook his head again, and struck
+light to a cigarette. Farrell sank into the depths of his chair and
+retrieved the cigar butt he had laid on its arm.
+
+"We couldn't have slept on post without one of us being aware of
+it," resumed Farrell. His voice was monotonous from repetition of a
+statement so often made that he himself had begun to doubt it. "And if
+we had----"
+
+He regarded the waxen seals on the door.
+
+"Those seals couldn't have been duplicated, with your die locked in a
+bank vault each night. And she couldn't have escaped."
+
+"No, she could not," agreed d'Artois. "But some one--some _thing_--got
+in."
+
+"A weasel, a cat, a snake," enumerated Farrell, "might slip through
+those bars. Nothing larger. Certainly nothing large enough to--good
+God! _Listen!_"
+
+Grim and trembling they stood at the sealed door. They heard a moaning
+and a sobbing, then the screams of a woman seeking to stifle her outcry.
+
+"Give me that key!" demanded Farrell.
+
+He unlocked the door and flung it open, shattering the seals and
+breaking the cord that ran from panel to jamb. D'Artois followed him.
+They halted a few paces past the threshold.
+
+"Look, damn it, look!"
+
+As Farrell switched on the lights, he pointed at the woman who lay
+face down on the broad, canopied bed. She was writhing and moaning.
+At regular intervals she flinched as from a blow, then shuddered, and
+relaxed.
+
+"Lord! I can almost hear the whip," muttered Farrell. He leaped forward
+and thrust out his arm as if to ward off blows that flailed the girl's
+bare shoulders. Then he retreated, shaking his head.
+
+"If we can't see it, how can we stop it?" he muttered despairingly.
+
+They stood, fascinated and horrified, watching a lovely girl being
+flayed by an invisible scourge. They saw the red welts rising, crossing
+and recrossing her shoulders, and cropping up under the filmy silken
+folds of her nightgown.
+
+"Look at it! Her gown didn't move a hair's breadth, but the whip raised
+another welt! Pierre, it's impossible! That gown ought to be cut to
+pieces by that flogging. Or else nothing's really hitting her. Or
+else"--Farrell shook his head in bewildered despair--"or else we're
+both crazy as hoot-owls!"
+
+"_Tenez donc_," said the old Frenchman, taking his friend by the arm.
+Though he himself shrank in sympathy with the girl who writhed under
+the invisible lash, his voice was calmer than Farrell's. "Let us study
+this thing. And man or devil, in the end we will have his hide!"
+
+"You take the devils, Pierre, and give me a handful of whatever men you
+think are messed up in it! I'll--eh, what's that?"
+
+He knelt beside the bed, gestured to d'Artois.
+
+"Listen to that, Pierre!" he said in a tense whisper.
+
+"_Junayn' ash-Shaytan_ ..." they heard her say.
+
+"Holy smoke!" gasped Farrell. "_Junayn' ash-Shaytan_ ... and did you
+get what she said after that?" Then, before d'Artois could reply, "It's
+over now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sleeping girl had ceased writhing and tossing. Her cries had
+subsided to a drowsy murmuring. The two watchers stared at each other
+for a moment.
+
+"But yes," said d'Artois finally. "I heard it, though it has been
+several years since I heard any one use such villainous language. It
+would do credit to one of the dancing-girls in Abu Aswad's dive in
+Cairo. But this _junayn' ash-Shaytan_, that puzzles me."
+
+"Simple!" said Farrell. "Satan's garden."
+
+"_Mais oui!_" agreed d'Artois with a touch of impatience. "Only, what
+is the point?"
+
+He frowned fiercely and twisted his mustache.
+
+"_Mon vieux_," he said after a moment's reflection, "in this first
+articulate speech in her sleep we may find a clue to the invisible
+scourge that leaves her back crossed with welts."
+
+Farrell shook his head.
+
+"Crazier and crazier," he muttered. "We're all nutty. I am, you are,
+she is--all of us! Now she's talking Arabic! I'm beginning to wonder
+whether her back is really beaten or whether we're both suffering the
+same delusion she is."
+
+D'Artois led the way to the door. Farrell followed.
+
+"I have been expecting that," he said as he reached for a brief-case
+lying on the table. He opened it and withdrew a photograph. "Look."
+
+Farrell scrutinized the glossy print.
+
+"That proves your point," he admitted. "The camera isn't subject to
+hallucinations or delusions of persecution. Antoinette has been
+beaten. Severely. The old black-and-blue marks photographed darker
+than the new, red welts. No argument. I'm not, she isn't, you're not
+bug-house. That is, _not yet_. But if this doesn't stop soon----"
+
+He bit the tip off a fresh cigar, chewed it for a moment, struck light.
+
+"Let us be impersonal about it for a moment," suggested d'Artois, "and
+consider what we have.
+
+"First, she tells us that her dreams have become so real that she
+is confused and wonders during the day which is dream, and which is
+reality. She dreams that she is in an outlandishly beautiful garden,
+dim as by moonlight, yet warm as the glow of morning sun. The plants
+are strange, and the flowers have an unnatural, poison sweetness.
+
+"And strangest of all, she herself has a different body, brown-skinned,
+with blue-black hair, and very large, dark eyes. The other girls, her
+companions, are also dark," summarized d'Artois. "Now do you see how
+her first speech in this troubled sleep begins to lend a touch of
+rationality?"
+
+Farrell pondered for a moment, then replied.
+
+"Yes. Those few words she spoke in Arabic tonight suggest a dual
+personality, give us a bit more background. But on the other hand,
+didn't she tell us that she couldn't understand the language of the
+other girls, and of the guests: lean, swarthy fellows with staring,
+dilated eyes? If she couldn't understand them, how the devil is she
+talking the fluent, unsavory Arabic of a dancing-girl in a Port Said
+dive?"
+
+"That sudden gift of tongues can be resolved," said d'Artois. "There
+is something else, which is perhaps more relevant: the veiled Master,
+whom the guests of the garden regard with great reverence. Does that
+suggest anything?"
+
+"It does, and it doesn't," replied Farrell, "'Way back in my mind it's
+there, but I can't express it. And you, I fancy, are in about the same
+fix?"
+
+"I am," admitted d'Artois. "But before many days pass, we will pick up
+the trail. We will have this invisible wielder of an unseen scourge.
+Him, or his hide. But now get yourself some sleep, _mon ami_."
+
+Farrell glanced at the door at his left.
+
+"She'll be all right," assured d'Artois. "The ordeal is over. And what
+purpose did we serve, after all?"
+
+"Guess you're right, Pierre," assented Farrell. "Let's go."
+
+
+
+
+                            2. _La Dorada_
+
+
+Glenn Farrell was up at dawn. His carefully tiptoeing down the winding
+stairway of Pierre d'Artois' house, however, was wasted consideration.
+He found that gray-haired _ferrailleur_ hunched over the littered desk
+of his study, fuming and muttering in a thick, foul cloud of smoke
+that momentarily became more dense as the cigarette between d'Artois'
+fingers added its stench of burning rags. The shining brass pot of
+Syrian workmanship, and half a dozen tiny cups, each with a thick
+residue of pulverized coffee grounds and cigarette stumps, indicated
+that the old man had been at work ever since they had left Antoinette
+Delatour some six hours ago.
+
+In the clear space in front of d'Artois was an open book whose pages
+were in illuminated Arabic script. Beside it were a pad of note-paper
+and a half-dozen loose sheets closely scribbled.
+
+"Pierre, why didn't you tell me you were going to carry on?" reproached
+Farrell as he drew up a chair. "This is really more my funeral than
+yours, getting Antoinette out of this terrible mess."
+
+"_Mordieu!_" exclaimed d'Artois. "This is work for a scholar, not a
+towering blockhead like yourself."
+
+"Oh, all right, all right," said Farrell with a smile that for a moment
+cleared his features of the dismay and wrath of the preceding night.
+"Only, I can read that stuff myself, almost as well as you can." He
+scrutinized the book for a moment; then, indicating the title, he said,
+"_Siret al Haken_--how's that for a blockhead?"
+
+"Very good," approved d'Artois. Then, with a wink and a grin, "And
+after all, perhaps I should not call you a blockhead, even though I do
+exceed you in intelligence and in skill with the sword."
+
+He paused a moment after that time-honored raillery in which each
+reviled the other's talents, then continued, "But seriously, I have
+been pursuing some exceedingly roundabout speculations, and before I
+inflicted them on you, I wanted to study them out myself."
+
+"Oh, all right, then," agreed Farrell as he found a clean _demi-tasse_
+and poured some of the lukewarm, sirupy Turkish coffee with which
+d'Artois drugged himself during his midnight studies. "But I see no
+connection with the _Memoirs of Haken_ and Antoinette's terrible
+predicament."
+
+"Listen then, I will enlighten you!" began d'Artois. "Mademoiselle
+Antoinette has been dreaming of a garden rich with roses, and lilies,
+and jasmine. It is alive with strangely colored birds. In fact, she
+described the very garden"--d'Artois indicated the page of Arabic
+script before him--"that Haken has so glowingly described: lovely girls
+playing the _sitar_ and the _oudh_, and entertaining the guests of
+paradise with song and wine. And a veiled master who ruled the garden."
+
+"But what," demanded Farrell, "has that to do with those unmerciful
+beatings? How about it?"
+
+"Did I not say that I was working indirectly?" countered d'Artois. "The
+scourgings, you understand, did not come until later, after the dreams
+had recurred for some time. Therefore they must be but an indication of
+the gradual increase----"
+
+"Of the undoubted insanity of all three of us!" interpolated Farrell.
+
+"Mademoiselle Antoinette," declared d'Artois, ignoring his friend's
+outburst, "is not dreaming. She actually spends her nights in that
+devil's paradise. She awakes and tells us that she had another body;
+but her _self_ retained its identity. I conclude then that her
+personality, her spiritual essence, whatever you will, is wandering,
+driven by some damnable compulsion to inhabit that garden, and a
+strange body."
+
+Farrell sighed wearily and shook his head.
+
+"This scrambling of selves and personalities is enough to drive one
+nutty. It doesn't make any sense."
+
+"Ah, say you so?" murmured d'Artois as he reached for another
+cigarette. "My logic is scrambled, in that I have not attempted to show
+_how_ this can be; but by assuming that it is, I get to the next point.
+
+"Listen somewhat further, yes? We have but to find that place which
+Antoinette's physical body, speaking like a Syrian dancing-girl, so
+graphically damned and called _junayn' ash-Shaytan_, Satan's garden.
+
+"There is such a garden at this moment in physical existence; or
+else there is one which, reaching out of the dimness of nine hundred
+departed years, is _en rapport_ with Antoinette."
+
+"Hell's fire!" muttered Farrell. "The ghost of a garden haunting a
+woman in Bayonne, in 1933!"
+
+D'Artois tapped the cover of _Siret al Haken_.
+
+"The author," he said, "tells of Hassan al Sabbah. _Shaykh al Djibal_,
+the Chief of the Mountains. The lord of the _Hashisheen_----"
+
+"I get it!" exclaimed Farrell. "The garden paradise into which
+hasheesh-drugged devotees were tossed while unconscious, so that when
+they awoke they would believe themselves to be in the Moslem heaven of
+cool water, beautiful women, and forbidden wine?"
+
+"Precisely, my excellent blockhead! I drink to your wit!" said d'Artois
+with a smile that flashed over the edge of his cup of cold coffee.
+"And your Antoinette is bedeviled in some way by a garden like that
+of Hassan al Sabbah, the master of those assassins who terrorized all
+Syria and Persia, centuries ago."
+
+Farrell grimaced.
+
+"Worse and worse yet! Hasn't this old city of Bayonne got enough ghosts
+and devils in its own right, lurking under the blood-soaked foundations
+of the citadel, without importing them from Asia?" His eyes shifted to
+the clustered simitars and yataghans, kreeses and kampilans, darts and
+assegais that adorned the walls of the study. "Now if they were men, we
+might do something about it!"
+
+"Have no fear on that score," assured d'Artois. "We find that every
+phantom as malignantly directed as this ghostly garden has a man
+pulling the strings--a flesh-and-blood man you can neatly riddle with
+bullets, or slice asunder with some of those toys up there on the wall."
+
+Farrell smiled grimly and took heart.
+
+"Reasonable, at that. And now, suppose that we drop in and see what
+Antoinette has to say about her newly acquired gift of Arabic speech.
+It took me several years to learn that fluently."
+
+"Barbarian!" scoffed d'Artois. "It is too early. You with your military
+hours----"
+
+"And you're another," countered Farrell. "Working the clock around. But
+see if you can persuade Félice to scramble some eggs, at least a pound
+of bacon, and perhaps a stack of waffles."
+
+"_Magnifique!_" agreed d'Artois. "Some of those barbarous American
+customs of yours are not utterly vile. And since you so kindly sent me
+an electric waffle-iron, _à l'Américain_--but as a lover, you are most
+unconvincing! At six of the morning, you howl for food--utterly out of
+keeping! Romance is dead, slain by such as you."
+
+"Ghosts," submitted Farrell, "can not be fought on an empty stomach."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Breakfast stemmed Farrell's impatience for a while; but as they
+lingered over the brandy-laden coffee, he proposed again that they set
+out at once to call on Antoinette Delatour.
+
+"Or at least, let's stretch our legs and get the air. I'll be turning
+flip-flops if I don't get going."
+
+"The air, then," agreed d'Artois. "Look! It is but little past eight."
+
+So saying, d'Artois selected one of his collection of canes and led
+the way down the stairs of the restored ruin which served as his town
+house. The circular donjon dated back to the Thirteenth Century; the
+remainder, though not so ancient, was old when Columbus set sail; and
+the narrow street on which it faced was in accord with those far-off
+days, crooked, dingy, and paved with cobblestones. Yet, being in the
+heart of that colorful city which he loved so well, d'Artois was
+content, and with the modernization of the interior, he contrived to be
+comfortable.
+
+They strolled along the _quai_ that follows the Nive to its junction
+with the Adour, then turned to the left toward Place du Théâtre. Before
+crossing the street that skirted the plaza, d'Artois paused a moment
+at the curbing to give the right of way to the glittering, costly
+Italian car which was approaching, presumably from the Biarritz road.
+The chauffeur and footman were in livery; and the crest on the door
+was one that d'Artois recognized as that of the Marquis des Islots.
+Farrell, however, being ignorant of heraldry, had eyes only for the
+passenger in the back seat: a dazzlingly beautiful girl whose costly
+furs and sparkling jewels betokened a background as golden as her hair.
+Her lovely features were drawn and weary, and her eyes haggard and
+blue-ringed.
+
+"Good Lord, Pierre!" he exclaimed as he clutched his friend by the arm.
+"Did you see--for a moment I thought----"
+
+He blinked, passed his hand over his eyes, then sought to catch another
+glimpse of the beauty in the back seat.
+
+"And what did you for a moment think?" wondered d'Artois, as the car
+rolled majestically toward the Mayou bridge. His voice was grave, but
+his blue eyes twinkled.
+
+"I thought it was Antoinette," said Farrell, still perplexed. "Or else
+I'm seeing things!"
+
+"My friend," said d'Artois reprovingly, as they crossed the street,
+"let Antoinette ever hear that you mistook La Dorada for her!" He shook
+his head in solemn warning. "Blasphemy, you understand. _Lèse majesté._"
+
+"But doesn't she----" began Farrell, his gray eyes still narrowed with
+perplexity.
+
+"Truly! She does just that," admitted d'Artois. "Antoinette has often
+been accosted at Biarritz and Santander by admirers of La Dorada.
+But on second glance, their error becomes apparent, unless they are
+strangers. A similarity of coloring, perhaps a likeness of posture or
+mannerism that would deceive one only for a moment, if one knew either
+woman well. Had you been able to look again--anyway, La Dorada is the
+current playmate of _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots. She was in his
+car, and on her way to his château where she is spending the season.
+Doubtless she is returning from a night of baccarat or roulette at
+Biarritz."
+
+"Returning? At this hour?" wondered Farrell.
+
+D'Artois smiled and nodded.
+
+"You do not know La Dorada. She got the name in Madrid, where she was
+discovered by a café proprietor and sponsored by a grandee of Spain. La
+Dorada, the gilded, the golden."
+
+As they passed along the broad plaza, then to the left and up the slope
+of rue Port Neuf, d'Artois held forth at length concerning the colorful
+career of La Dorada who at first glance so strikingly resembled
+Antoinette Delatour.
+
+At the head of rue Port Neuf they turned to the left, past the old
+cathedral whose tall spires tower like silver lance-heads into the
+morning light, and ascended the incline to the broad drive that follows
+the parapet of the Lachepaillet wall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Despite the barbarity of the hour, they found that Antoinette had
+disposed of her morning chocolate and rolls. She wore a negligée of
+jade chiffon whose curled ostrich trimming fluffed up about her ears
+and caressed the copper-golden hair that enhanced her resemblance to La
+Dorada. Her lips smiled, but her dark blue eyes were somber and haunted
+as she greeted Farrell and d'Artois.
+
+"_Hélas!_ It was worse than ever, last night," she replied, with a
+despairing gesture, to Farrell's solicitous inquiry. "But be seated,
+and I will tell you."
+
+She shifted her feet to make room for Farrell at the foot of the
+chaise-longue on which she reclined; then, as d'Artois drew up a chair,
+Antoinette continued, "It was terribly clear! Just fancy: my hair was
+jet-black, and so were my eyes. And my skin was as dark as an Arab's!
+They beat me most unmercifully ... as usual."
+
+She shuddered at the memory of the dream. D'Artois stared at the dainty
+feet and their turquoise and silver mules. As Antoinette was about to
+resume her remarks, he said abruptly, "In your dream, what have you
+been wearing? On your ankles, I mean."
+
+Antoinette closed her eyes for a moment to visualize her dream.
+
+"Heavy golden anklets set with massive uncut stones," she replied.
+"Emeralds, I think. But why?"
+
+"Were they _very_ heavy?" persisted d'Artois.
+
+Farrell regarded him curiously, wondering how adornments could be
+relevant to the case.
+
+"Terribly so!" assured Antoinette. Then, with a wan smile, "Only, I've
+become used to them."
+
+"Look!" commanded d'Artois, indicating the girl's ankles.
+
+"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Farrell, and frowned perplexedly. Then
+he glanced at his left hand and shifted the heavy signet on his finger.
+"Her ankles are marked just as my finger is by this heavy slug of a
+ring!"
+
+"_Voilà!_ That further indicates an interchange of bodies during the
+night!" declared d'Artois. "As a Syrian dancing-girl you are beaten,
+and the welts appear on the body of Antoinette Delatour. And the heavy
+anklets of the Syrian girl mark your daytime body just as they leave
+prints on her.
+
+"Now what else do you remember, _ma petite_? Your impressions become
+more distinct each time, _n'est-ce pas_? Your recollections----"
+
+"Exactly," she assented. "And last night--oh, I know I'm becoming
+utterly mad!--the veiled Master was accompanied by a man who walked
+through the garden with him."
+
+"And how," wondered d'Artois, "is that more peculiar than the rest of
+the dream?"
+
+"The Master's companion," replied Antoinette, "is the Marquis des
+Islots! _Mon Dieu_, is the whole city of Bayonne bound for this devil's
+garden?"
+
+"What?" D'Artois started and glanced sharply at Antoinette, then at
+Farrell. "_Monsieur le Marquis_ has been added to her dream. Do you see
+any connection?"
+
+"I don't," confessed Farrell. "After all this madhouse she's been
+through, might it not be a fancied recognition? Pure imagination?"
+
+"_Cordieu!_" exclaimed d'Artois. "Would she not sooner imagine that she
+saw ibn Saoud, or Saladin? That would be more in keeping. _Diable!_
+Her seeing _Monsieur le Marquis_ is so wide of any fancy that I am now
+convinced that she is not dreaming."
+
+"Eh, what's that?" demanded Farrell, aghast at the wildness of
+d'Artois' implication. "That it wasn't a dream? Good Lord, man----"
+
+The recurrent nightmare had driven Antoinette Delatour to the verge of
+distraction, so that d'Artois' contention did not amaze her as much as
+it did Farrell.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_," she sighed wearily, and took Farrell's hand. "It's all
+become such a terrific confusion ... I don't know who I am. Oh, how my
+poor back aches from that beating!"
+
+"Courage, my dear!" reassured d'Artois. "The enemy has slipped." Then,
+to Farrell, "_Allons!_ Let us get to work at once. I have several of
+those hunches."
+
+"The quicker the better, Pierre," agreed Farrell. And as Antoinette's
+slender arms released him, he followed d'Artois down the stairs to the
+street.
+
+
+
+
+                        _3. The Hand of Hassan_
+
+
+"Your task, my friend," began d'Artois as, back again at his house,
+they sat down to plan their campaign against the phantom garden, "will
+be to watch at the plaza. You will loaf, and drink an occasional
+_apéritif_, and smoke your way into the day. You may see nothing; but
+with time and patience your watch will have results. All of Bayonne
+passes the plaza, sooner or later."
+
+"But what," wondered Farrell, "am I to look for?"
+
+"People who show signs of hasheesh intoxication, particularly Arabs or
+other Orientals," answered d'Artois. "You know the symptoms. You have
+seen enough _hasheeshin_ in Egypt and Syria. I need not describe their
+manner, or peculiar stare. We are in search of addicts who in addition
+are fanatic Moslems. A slender clue at best, but while you pursue that,
+something else may happen.
+
+"And I, in the meanwhile, will be doing some private snooping
+of my own. This _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots is due for an
+investigation. That one has an open reputation for dabbling in obscure
+arts, and not such a savory reputation either."
+
+"But," protested Farrell, "how do hasheesh addicts come into this?"
+
+"Listen, I will enlighten you," began d'Artois. "We mentioned the
+Assassins, the followers of Hassan al Sabbah, the terrible Chief of
+the Mountains, _n'est-ce pas_? Those Assassins were of the fanatic
+Ismailian sect of Moslems. Those guests of the garden mentioned in
+this book"--d'Artois indicated _Siret al Haken_, lying open on the
+desk--"actually believed that their master had the power of admitting
+them to paradise for brief visits, at the end of which they were
+drugged, and dragged forth to awaken once more on earth, and ready for
+any infamy that might be demanded as the price of returning to the
+garden."
+
+"I have all that," admitted Farrell. "All right, then?"
+
+"The sect of the Ismailians," continued d'Artois, "was more than
+religious. It was political. Its members did not content themselves
+with theory. And if, as Antoinette's strange dreams indicate, we have a
+nest of Ismailians--that is, _hasheeshin_--to contend with, sooner or
+later one or more of them will be noted about town.
+
+"As for Antoinette, it is quite possible that she is, without being
+aware of it, _clairvoyante_. And thus _Monsieur le Marquis_ will bear
+investigation. Do you therefore stand watch as I directed, while I
+pursue some private snooping. _À bientôt!_"
+
+Whereat d'Artois turned to his desk, leaving Farrell to go to the plaza
+and seek a table under the striped awning of the café.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farrell was none too optimistic, but upon his arrival at Café du
+Théâtre he assumed an indolence that in any place but southern France
+would have seemed a pose. But in Bayonne the enjoyment of placid
+idleness is an ancient art: and thus it was eminently suitable for him
+to sit and watch the smoke spiralling from the cigarette that smoldered
+between his fingers.
+
+All of the Bayonnais, and all visitors, eventually pass the plaza:
+Portuguese and Spanish and Italian sailors, Arabs from Algiers and
+Morocco, Basques from the hills; English tourists on their way to the
+arcades of rue Port Neuf, where they found the only _épiceries_ in
+Bayonne where they could buy Scotch whisky; peasants, loafers, soldiers
+on leave; quietly dressed and unpainted girls who had left behind them,
+in their rooms beyond the Nive, all the gauds and garniture of their
+profession. Costly imported cars flashed by, to cross Pont Mayou and
+Pont de Saint Esprit; ox-carts lumbered past, the drivers, arrayed in
+dingy smocks, trudging along and reviling their placid beasts. Bayonne
+marched by in review; and Farrell watched the parade.
+
+But despite his apparent idleness, Farrell's gray eyes were occupied
+with more than wisps of smoke, and the tall glass of _anis del oso_
+that sat on the marble-topped table before him. Without in the least
+shifting his slightly bowed head, he was peering between his drooping
+eye-lashes at the passers-by, and at the boulevardiers who like himself
+sat sipping the meridional _apéritif_.
+
+He was particularly interested in the trio that sat two tables to
+his right, where they could command a view of rue Port Neuf as well
+as the street that led to the Mayou bridge. They were swarthy and
+aquiline-featured. Two were Syrian Arabs; but the third, despite his
+dark skin and foreign air, was no Semite, but an Aryan: a Kurd from
+Kurdistan, one of those fierce mountaineers who in their native land
+are the terror of Turk and Persian alike. Yet the trio had kinship in
+at least one feature: the dilated pupils and the staring glassiness of
+their eyes.
+
+As Farrell raised his glass and sniffed the odor of the cloudy drink,
+he smelled trouble as well as _anis del oso_. D'Artois' somber hints
+were having substantial realization. Farrell's first reaction was
+to loosen the pistol in his shoulder holster. The peculiar stare of
+their eyes convinced Farrell that he had picked up the trail of that
+which d'Artois felt would lead to the source of the bedevilment of
+Antoinette's nights.
+
+Farrell continued his apparent enjoyment of idleness. His broad
+shoulders slumped. He languidly passed his fingers through his sandy
+hair; but for all his efforts to maintain his poise, his long, lean
+frame was tense, and chills raced up and down his spine, despite the
+warmth of the day.
+
+He summoned the waiter and called for brandy.
+
+Then he noted that an exotic, imported car was coming to a smooth
+halt at the curbing. A footman in livery opened the door and stood at
+attention as a woman emerged from the rich upholstery and silver and
+cut glass of the town car that bore the crest of the Marquis des Islots.
+
+Farrell recognized the woman as La Dorada. He wondered, as he saw her
+step to the curbing, why a carpet had not been unrolled to keep her
+feet from the contamination of the paving. The scarcely perceptible
+breeze wafted a breath of perfume whose cost rumor had for once fallen
+short of exaggerating.
+
+La Dorada was passing the table of the trio from Asia. The one facing
+the Mayou bridge made a gesture. His lips moved. At that distance,
+Farrell could not hear what he said. La Dorada apparently paid no
+attention to the murmur. She was accustomed to whispered admiration.
+
+Farrell ignored the warning of his intuition: it was too unbelievable
+and outrageous.
+
+Then it happened. The Kurd, who faced Farrell, leaped cat-like to his
+feet. A knife flashed in his hand. La Dorada started at Farrell's
+warning cry, and added her own note of dismay as she saw his hand with
+an incredibly swift gesture seek his armpit.
+
+"Smack-smack-smack!" roared the heavy automatic.
+
+The Kurd pitched backward to the paving, groaning and clutching his
+stomach.
+
+But even as Farrell drew and fired, the Syrian whose back had been
+turned to Farrell leaped from his place. And the knife he held found
+its mark, full in the breast of La Dorada.
+
+The pistol spoke, but too late. Even as the impact of the heavy slug
+bowled the Syrian over in a heap, his blade sank home.
+
+La Dorada screamed, reeled, and collapsed, clutching the dagger whose
+hilt projected beyond the blood-splashed fur collar of her coat.
+
+As he leaped forward, pistol in hand, Farrell knew that she would be
+beyond assistance. A shot at the survivor of the trio was impossible,
+and pursuit was futile. Waiters, patrons of the café, and passers-by
+clustered about the dying beauty. In the confusion Farrell heard the
+clash of gears and caught a glimpse of a car tearing madly down toward
+the road leading to Maracq.
+
+La Dorada moaned, and shuddered.
+
+"Hassan----" she articulated with an effort. Then she coughed, and
+gasped. A red foam flecked her red lips.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The arrival of a pair of gendarmes, and, a few minutes later, a passing
+doctor, scattered the dense cluster of frantically gesticulating
+citizens.
+
+"_Monsieur_," said one of the gendarmes, who had seen Farrell holster
+his automatic, "be pleased to accompany us. Purely as a matter of form,
+you understand. It is plainly evident that that one----"
+
+He indicated the second of the assassins that Farrell's pistol fire
+had bowled over.
+
+Farrell shrugged. It would be awkward for a stranger in town to be
+dragged into the formalities of a police investigation; and doubly
+annoying in view of his having a serious problem of his own to handle.
+
+"Very well, _monsieur_," agreed Farrell with a wry grimace.
+
+Then he saw d'Artois emerge from the fringe of the crowd that still
+persisted, at a distance of several paces. He whispered in the ear of
+the gendarme--only a few words, but they sufficed.
+
+The gendarme turned from d'Artois to Farrell.
+
+"Your pardon, _monsieur_. You may call on us at your leisure. It was
+routine, you comprehend."
+
+Farrell in his turn bowed, and followed d'Artois to his car, eager to
+be clear of the plaza. And as they drove past the parkway that lies
+between the road to Maracq and the wall of Lachepaillet, Farrell gave
+his companion an account of the assassination.
+
+"_Sacré nom d'un nom!_" swore d'Artois at the conclusion of the
+narrative. "That is the technique of the Fifth Order of the Ismailians.
+They worked in threes, so that if the first and second were cut down,
+the third would nevertheless slay the victim.
+
+"They hunted Saladin seven hundred years ago. They slew Nizam ul Mulk.
+The Sultan of Cairo, Baibars the Panther, barely escaped them. They
+terrorized the Near East until Tamerlane in his wrath took by assault
+their almost impregnable castle of Alamut, tore it down stone by stone,
+and put to the sword 12,000 Ismailians. But the order persisted, though
+its power has been broken for these past five centuries, thanks to the
+savage efficiency of Tamerlane.
+
+"And I am thoroughly convinced," continued d'Artois, "that you
+witnessed a recrudescence of that plague which ate at the heart of
+the Moslem world for several centuries. They seem to be branching
+out again. Even as during the Crusades they assassinated Conrad of
+Montferrat, so are they again carrying secret war against the infidel."
+
+"But why," demanded Farrell, "did they strike La Dorada in the public
+square? They could have killed her stealthily. Even though they could
+not foresee that I would shoot two of them down in their tracks, the
+other spectators or the police might have killed or captured them."
+
+"You miss the point," declared d'Artois, "which is pardonable, since
+even your extensive travels in the Orient would not of necessity bring
+you into contact with the Ismailians. They killed her in public as an
+example to instill terror in others. It is a matter of history that
+Ismailian assassins were often ordered to slay a dignitary and to make
+no attempt at escape. In one case the slayer struck, then sat down and
+began eating his travel rations of bread and dates, calmly awaiting
+the guard that would drag him to the executioner and impalement on a
+sharpened stake. The besotted _hasheeshin_ faced a horrible doom for
+the sake of re-entrance to the paradise with which their master duped
+them. The utter fearlessness and indifference to death and torture
+aroused more terror than the assassinations they perpetrated.
+
+"So much for the _fedawi_, or Devoted Ones, Ismailians of the Fifth
+Order. The first four orders were the Grand Master, the Grand Priors,
+and simple priors, or initiates; and then a grade known as _rafiqs_,
+or associates. These upper grades were intelligent persons who after
+sufficient study in the free-thinking, heretical doctrines of the
+Ismailians would be eligible for the highest offices in the Order.
+
+"The Ismailians became a state within a state; they undermined Persia
+and Syria, and for several centuries exacted tribute from sultans
+and emirs, with summary vengeance as the penalty of non-payment,
+very much," concluded d'Artois, with a malicious grin, "like those
+racketeers they have in your United States. That should make it clear!"
+
+"But how," wondered Farrell, "does Antoinette fit into all this?"
+
+"The companions and initiates of the Ismailians," replied d'Artois,
+"were adepts in alchemy, magic, conjuring, and occult arts. They used
+Islam as a mask for all manner of forbidden heresies and as bait to
+attract the pious oafs and religious fanatics who did the actual
+slaying and--how does one say it, _à l'Américain_?--and took the rap!
+
+"Maymun the Persian founded the order. A free-thinker, heretic, and
+magician, he fled from the wrath of the Khalif Mansur, with his son
+Abdallah, to whom he imparted all his vast knowledge of medicine,
+conjuring, and occultism. And Abdallah built up on this start by
+promising the return of the vanished Seventh Imam, who had never
+died, but who was waiting for the day to return and rule all Islam.
+They still wait for the return of Ismail, the Seventh Imam. And in
+the meanwhile, behold the deviltry with which they amuse themselves,
+bewitching Antoinette, slaying La Dorada--_le bon Dieu_ can only say
+what will come next."
+
+They drew up at d'Artois' house as he concluded his refreshing of
+Farrell's memory on the origin of the menace that had taken root in
+Bayonne.
+
+"How about my watching the plaza?" wondered Farrell as Raoul admitted
+them.
+
+"You have watched enough," declared d'Artois. "In fact, you have made
+yourself so painfully conspicuous that from now on I will have to
+watch you more closely than Mademoiselle Antoinette, or you will be
+found full of daggers yourself."
+
+"Nuts, Pierre!" protested Farrell. "I've been away from home before,
+and I'm used to being hunted."
+
+"Nevertheless, be on your guard," cautioned the old man.
+
+
+
+
+                       _4. Shirkuh Makes Magic_
+
+
+That evening, after dinner, d'Artois' man, Raoul, entered the study
+with a large envelope that had just been delivered by a messenger.
+
+D'Artois glanced at the large waxen seal that secured the flap.
+
+"The crest of _Monsieur le Marquis_," he observed. Then, with a wink
+and a grin at Farrell, he continued, "Like Satan in the first lines
+of the Book of Job, I wandered up and down the world, and in it,
+particularly at Biarritz, and somewhat about the estate of our good
+Marquis. But need I assure you that if my presence was noted, it was
+also amply accounted for? _Mais oui_, of a verity!"
+
+He slit the envelope and withdrew an engraved invitation.
+
+"Hmmm ... _Monsieur le Marquis_ requests the honor of my presence at a
+_soirée_ at his château. The Thaumaturgical Order of Thoth is meeting
+in open conclave."
+
+"Wait a minute," interrupted Farrell. "There's something fishy about
+this. La Dorada, his sweetheart, is murdered around noon. And now
+he sends you an invitation to--what was it?--some kind of juggler's
+convention. Anyway, it's utterly out of keeping. Not only inhumanly
+callous, but damned poor form; no matter what his private morals may
+be, a man of his station would have better manners!"
+
+"Granted," acquiesced d'Artois. "But consider: this thaumaturgical
+society may be depending upon the meeting-place designated, and can
+not postpone it for the sake of one man's grief. That there is such
+an order has been for some time an open secret. Then, he himself may
+be absent from the conclave, even though it assembled in his name. Or
+again," continued d'Artois, "it is even possible that Monsieur the
+Marquis does not know of La Dorada's death."
+
+"Absurd!" objected Farrell. "In a town this small----"
+
+"Wait!" interrupted d'Artois. "Remember Antoinette's dream: the Marquis
+walked through the garden with the veiled Master. He may still be in
+that garden, not to emerge until the hour of the _soirée_."
+
+"By the rod, that's possible," agreed Farrell. "Since La Dorada was
+presumably killed by the Ismailians, the Marquis may be in their hands,
+dead, or a prisoner."
+
+"Now, as to this invitation," continued d'Artois, "it may be a device
+to exact vengeance for your excellent pistol practise. Their espionage
+would inform them that you, my friend and guest, would surely accompany
+me to the _soirée_.
+
+"But mark you this: they can scarcely know that your Antoinette could
+tell you of seeing the Marquis in the garden. That, you comprehend, is
+the information that ties the scattered ends together, and makes their
+otherwise subtle trap seem obvious to us.
+
+"My friend, do we go and defy them, or shall we stay at home?"
+
+Farrell laughed.
+
+"Pierre, you're comical at times! We'll go, and be damned to them and
+their trap. We can shoot our way out of any handful of knife-artists
+they throw at us, what?"
+
+"Ha! Is it that you are informing me?" scoffed d'Artois with a fierce
+gleam in his steel-blue eyes. "_Voilà_--have your choice of my
+arsenal," he said, gesturing at his collection of pistols, ranging
+from flintlocks and cap-and-ball antiques to heavy Colt revolvers and
+automatics. "And perhaps, since we shall be outnumbered, we might slip
+into those shirts of Persian chain-mail. They are not much heavier than
+a sweater, and so exquisitely forged as to be proof against knives and
+any but the heaviest pistols. _Parbleu_, we will attend that conclave!"
+
+After arraying themselves as d'Artois had suggested, they dressed for a
+formal evening affair.
+
+"Thaumaturgy ... thaumaturgy ..." muttered Farrell as they stepped into
+the Renault and d'Artois took the wheel. "Wonder, or miracle workers,
+what?"
+
+"Precisely," agreed d'Artois. "Jugglery, sleight of hand, trickery, but
+withal, an underlying substratum of fact that can not be dismissed.
+I myself have seen unbelievable things done by the adepts of Tibet.
+A corpse, _par exemple_, animated and made to dance by some devilish
+magic. The fact of my having been admitted to their inner circles in
+Tibet has in time leaked out; and it is to this that they would expect
+us to attribute my receiving tonight's invitation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The château of the Marquis was out in the hills beyond the Mousserole
+Gate. It was perched on a knoll that commanded the surrounding country.
+Several cars were parked in a level space near the entrance.
+
+"It seems," observed Farrell, "that there are other guests, although
+that may or may not mean anything."
+
+D'Artois presented his invitation to the butler.
+
+"_Monsieur le Chevalier_ Pierre d'Artois," he intoned in impressive
+but oddly accented French. Then he glanced at Farrell.
+
+D'Artois interposed and instructed the butler, who then announced
+Farrell.
+
+They advanced through the vestibule and thence into the salon, a
+vast, high-ceiled chamber illuminated by a pulsing bluish glow. The
+walls were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict with
+unsavory realism the grotesque imagery of Asian mysteries. At the
+far end of the salon was a dais flanked by tall tripod-censers whose
+pungent, resinous fumes made the air thick.
+
+The assembled guests were in formal evening dress. There were Spaniards
+with black mustaches, and Frenchmen with spade-shaped beards; and here
+and there Farrell saw lean, hawk-faced Arabs, and several distinctly
+Mongolian faces.
+
+"More guests than the number of cars would indicate," muttered Farrell,
+nudging d'Artois. "This is all very flossy, but I smell trouble."
+
+"And no Marquis," added d'Artois with a quick glance about the salon.
+Then he advanced to meet the man who seemed to be acting as host. After
+the exchange of a few words, d'Artois presented Farrell.
+
+In the course of the conventional courtesies, Farrell appraised the
+master of the show. He was lean as a beast of prey, and as sleek.
+His moves and gestures had a cat-like grace, and his speech had the
+indefinable blur of accent that marks one who speaks many languages
+with equal ease.
+
+"And thus I have the honor," concluded the host, "of offering in the
+name of _Monsieur le Marquis_ his regrets and the hospitality of his
+house."
+
+He paused for a moment, regarding them with his intent, deep-set eyes;
+then with a gesture toward a row of chairs arranged before the dais,
+"Be pleased to seat yourselves, _messieurs_."
+
+Farrell watched the broad shoulders and tall figure pass among the
+guests like a cat stalking through a jungle.
+
+"Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi," muttered Farrell. "Ought to be an
+honest fighting-man, but----"
+
+"'But' is correct," interrupted d'Artois. "There is nothing honest
+about that playmate of Satan. Mark my words, we shall see more of that
+gentleman, if we live long enough."
+
+As they seated themselves there was a clang of bronze, and the faint,
+muffled wailing of pipes and the whine of single-stringed _kemenjahs_
+from an alcove behind the arras. As the guests took seats, an attendant
+passed up and down the rows of chairs, offering small glasses of wine,
+and triangular pastries iced in curious designs.
+
+"On your life, don't eat it!" muttered d'Artois as he palmed a
+confection he had selected from the tray. "Drugged, there is no telling
+what may happen to your good sense. This is all damnably familiar."
+
+Another peal of bronze; then, as Shirkuh sprang effortlessly to the
+dais, the music dimmed to a sighing whisper, a sinister murmuring from
+outer darkness.
+
+Six lean, brown men, nude save for loin-cloths that glowed like golden
+flames in the spectral bluish light, emerged from an entrance concealed
+by the silver-embroidered arras, and filed across the hall toward the
+dais. Following them came four others, likewise arrayed, but blacker
+than any negroes Farrell had ever seen. They bore a litter on which lay
+a form whose gracious feminine curves were not entirely concealed by
+the silken, metallically glistening shroud.
+
+"Good Lord!" muttered Farrell. "A woman!"
+
+The brown-skinned sextet ascended the dais. The blacks followed with
+their burden. As they halted, two others emerged from the back-drapes
+of the dais, bringing with them wrought bronze trestles on which the
+litter was placed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shirkuh took his post behind the litter as the sextet of adepts from
+High Asia seated themselves cross-legged in front of it.
+
+"Fellow thaumaturges," he began, "I, the least of your servants, beg
+leave to present a feat that has never been accomplished save in
+far-off Lhasa."
+
+He paused, smiled, and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured toward
+the shrouded form on the litter. An attendant gathered the silken folds
+and drew them aside.
+
+Farrell barely suppressed a gasp of horrified amazement.
+
+The woman on the bier was La Dorada. Her copper-golden hair flamed
+like living fire in the bluish-purple, pulsing light of the room. The
+hands, folded across her breast, sparkled with jewels. She had no other
+adornment or dress. La Dorada, the Golden, dead not over ten hours,
+and stripped of all but her exquisite beauty, lay exposed to the gaze
+of that assemblage of devil-mongers. For one terrible instant Farrell
+had thought that Antoinette lay on that bier; then he remembered her
+resemblance to the dead actress, and assured himself that Antoinette
+was and must be in her apartment on rue Lachepaillet, awaiting another
+night of fantastic dreams of an assassin's paradise, and the lashing of
+an invisible scourge.
+
+"_Monsieur le Marquis_," continued Shirkuh with a smile that flashed
+satanic mockery, "is unable to be with us. But I trust that that which
+I offer will be worthy of your presence."
+
+"Lord!" muttered Farrell. "I don't know the Marquis, but exhibiting her
+dead body here in his house--I've half a notion to start the show right
+here!"
+
+D'Artois' fingers closed about Farrell's right wrist.
+
+"_Imbécile!_ This infamy is none of your business. Tend to your own
+sheep."
+
+Shirkuh nodded and made a gesture. The faint, whimpering music became
+louder. Among the plucked strings of _sitar_ and _oudh_ Farrell could
+distinguish the notes of a wind instrument that was a mockery of a
+woman's voice. The drums muttered and purred in complex rhythm.
+
+The adepts were swaying from their hips, and making statuesque passes
+and gestures that resembled an animation of the figures of Egyptian
+sculpture. Their glassily staring eyes shifted in regular cadence to
+follow their darting finger tips. They were as revivified corpses that
+had not yet gained full control of their bodies.
+
+Then they lifted their voices in a chant like the wailing of ghouls
+imprisoned in a looted tomb; dead brazen faces chanting to the dead.
+And Shirkuh, arms extended, made antiphonal responses in a voice that
+surged and thundered like a distant surf.
+
+The notes of that diabolical wind instrument behind the arras became
+more and more like the voice of a woman: a mellow sweetness against a
+background of sepulchral wailing and the solemn intonation of Shirkuh.
+
+"Good Lord, Pierre, that's awful!" muttered Farrell.
+
+"Wait until it fairly starts," countered d'Artois in a whisper. "This
+is primitive magic. Very primitive, but deadly. They are imitating that
+which they design to accomplish.
+
+"_Pardieu_, hear that damnable pipe--_her_ very voice, now. They
+imitate in music and symbolize in their chant the triumph of the dead
+as they return from Beyond."
+
+That satanically sweet voice was now almost articulate. Farrell
+strained his ears as he leaned forward, clutching the arms of his
+chair. He sought to distinguish the words that it spoke. And then
+another instrument came into play: a hoarse, reverberant roaring like
+the lustful bellowing of pre-Adamite monsters. The hall trembled with
+that terrific bestial blast.
+
+The fumes of the censers were swirling and twining like fantasmal
+serpents in the ghastly blueness, weaving arabesques, spiralling
+in vortices, gathering about that hellish sextet and its leader
+like shapes from beyond the border clamoring at the periphery of a
+necromancer's pentacle.
+
+A luminous haze was gathering and drawing to itself the censer fumes.
+The nebulous iridescence pulsed and quivered like a sentient thing.
+It throbbed with the slow, persistent beat of a turtle's heart after
+it has been removed from the body. It elongated; then as it slowly
+settled, that amorphous luminescence took shape: the graceful form of
+La Dorada.
+
+The pipe that mimicked a woman's voice was articulating now in unison,
+joining the necromancer's antiphonal answer to the chanting adepts and
+the minotaurean bellowing of that monstrous horn.
+
+The master had called her, and she was there.
+
+The phantom presence slowly merged with the nacreous body of La
+Dorada. The dead woman shivered for a moment, extended her shapely
+arms, sat erect on the bier. Her cry was a mingling of exultation and
+bewilderment; then she accepted the hand that Shirkuh offered her, and
+splendid in her unclad beauty, sprang gracefully to the dais.
+
+[Illustration: "_The dead woman shivered for a moment, then sat erect
+on the bier._"]
+
+The music and the chanting and the bestial roaring of that terrific
+horn had ceased. The assembled thaumaturges sat fixed and staring as
+though their life and their spiritual essence had been torn from them
+and given to the dead who saluted them with a gesture and a bow.
+
+Shirkuh smiled triumphantly.
+
+"You have seen, Brethren. I called her and she came. And I am but
+Shirkuh, the least of the slaves. See, she is alive, with the warmth
+and beauty that at noon of this very day was a coldness, and a sister
+of the dust."
+
+The red-gold head inclined in affirmation, and her smile was a slow,
+curved sorcery.
+
+"Good God, that's the awfulest blasphemy!" muttered Farrell. "Or is it
+an illusion?"
+
+"It is all too real," whispered d'Artois.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And then she spoke: "I have come back from the shadows and from the
+blackness of death. I have come to greet you and to say that there is
+a Garden to which I must soon return. And those who meet me there need
+not ever think of farewell.
+
+"I came from across the narrow bridge, and back across it I must go.
+Yet not this time to any blackness, but to the Garden, to be the Bride
+and the reward and the welcome of those who believe. Oh, _Fedawi_ ...
+Devoted Ones...."
+
+La Dorada, lovely in death, and more alluring than ever in life: yet a
+cold horror clutched Farrell as he heard that dead woman's caressing
+voice entrance the thaumaturges with promises that no human woman
+could fulfill or even imagine. Her voice was a poison sweetness, a
+full-throated richness that pronounced the beguilements of Lilith
+chanting to the Morning Star.
+
+"Death so loved me that he has allowed me to leave," she said in that
+wondrous voice that had made her the darling of Paris. And then her
+exultant tones became a poignant sorrow as she continued, "But the
+beloved of death must return...."
+
+"_Cordieu!_ That is a foulness beyond mention!" growled d'Artois. Then:
+
+"Let's go! Before we go utterly mad----"
+
+He leaped to his feet and thrust back his chair. And as Farrell
+followed, he expected at any instant a fanatical outburst, the flash
+of blades, the crackle of pistols. But the thaumaturges sat like the
+ancient dead awaiting the newly died.
+
+La Dorada was ascending the bier. Her motions were graceful, but very
+slow, as though the animation was being drained from her body. She was
+dying a second time.
+
+This as they paused at the threshold for a backward glance; then,
+advancing, Farrell and d'Artois sighed deeply, and strode to the
+Renault. The hideous life-like unreality had dazed them.
+
+"_Dieu de Dieu!_" muttered d'Artois as he glanced at Farrell's lean,
+drawn features, and shoulders drooping as though from the weight of the
+Persian mail they had so needlessly worn. "What did that blasphemous
+monster want with us? Did he hope to drive us to madness?"
+
+"No," said Farrell wearily. "He was mocking us. Certainly he didn't
+withhold his cutthroats because he was afraid to try."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long beam of the headlights swept the château, then picked up the
+winding road as the car headed back toward the city. D'Artois sat
+hunched behind the wheel. Farrell shivered at the memory of that
+ghastly loveliness that had greeted them from the grave.
+
+"I know she was dead," reiterated Farrell. "She couldn't have been
+alive. Not with that dagger I saw jammed into her breast this
+afternoon. But why did he invite you? What everlastingly damned
+mummery--there's something behind all this--she's going to greet them
+in the Garden and there will be no farewell--was that all illusion,
+or----"
+
+Farrell slumped back against the cushions and made a gesture of
+bewilderment and futility.
+
+They left the river road, passed through the Mousserole Gate, and
+threaded their way through the unsavory quarters between there and the
+Nive. As they crossed the first of the seven bridges that span the
+river, d'Artois suddenly jerked back from his crouch behind the wheel.
+
+"_Nom de Dieu!_" he exclaimed.
+
+Farrell, aroused by the note of alarm, glanced at his companion and saw
+that the horror on his face was in keeping with the consternation in
+his voice.
+
+The car leaped forward as d'Artois stepped on the accelerator.
+
+"Death and damnation!" he shouted above the full-throated roar of the
+motor. "We sat there like dummies. _That_ is what he wanted!"
+
+"What?" demanded Farrell, tense, and alarmed by d'Artois' contagious
+excitement. A sudden fear seized him.
+
+"A trap. Not for your worthless head nor mine, but for her!
+Thaumaturgy! If there is but one greater damn fool than Glenn Farrell,
+it is Pierre d'Artois!"
+
+They passed the plaza, and with a screech of brakes slowed down enough
+to make the turn at rue Port Neuf. Then up rue d'Espagne, around the
+hairpin turn, and thence down the street along the city wall. Again the
+brake linings smoked their wrath and squealed their protest. Fuming
+and cursing in a high rage, d'Artois leaped to the curbing, dashed up
+the steps, and pounded Antoinette Delatour's door with the butt of his
+pistol.
+
+"_Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?_" cried the terrified, bewildered maid.
+
+"Flames and damnation! Open, quick!" demanded d'Artois. "_C'est moi!_"
+
+"But she is sleeping," protested the maid, still half asleep.
+
+"Hasten, then. If she sleeps, wake her--is she indeed----"
+
+And as the door yielded, d'Artois, pistol in hand, charged up the
+stairs, taking them three at a time. Farrell was but a jump behind him.
+
+They pounded on Antoinette's door. No response.
+
+"The key----" began d'Artois.
+
+But Farrell stepped back, gathered himself, and charged the door. It
+resisted the shock; but a second assault burst it open, tearing the
+lock from its socket.
+
+The floor of Antoinette's room was covered with fallen plaster. Her bed
+was empty. A hole two feet square yawned in the ceiling. The turquoise
+and silver slippers mocked them.
+
+"Gone!" muttered Farrell.
+
+"While we sat there ready for an ambush that didn't materialize," added
+d'Artois.
+
+Farrell turned to the door. D'Artois seized him by the arm.
+
+"_Tenez!_ If you are going to tear the château to pieces," he said,
+"spare yourself the trouble. They have taken her elsewhere. No effort
+was made to detain us when we left because none was necessary. And they
+will not be at the château, not any of them."
+
+Farrell's eyes were cold as sword-points as they flashed back again to
+the empty, canopied bed. Then the slaying rage left him.
+
+"Right, Pierre," he admitted. "It's your move. With some head-work."
+
+"Head-work, indeed!" retorted d'Artois with a bitter, mordant laugh.
+"It was my head-work that led to this. We should have watched her."
+
+
+
+
+                           _5. Ibrahim Khan_
+
+
+"Now, where do we start?" demanded Farrell the following morning, as
+he tasted the strong coffee that was to banish the remains of the
+nightmarish sleep from which sunrise had awakened them. "You've got the
+_Sûreté_--that's what you call your detective bureau, isn't it?--on
+the trail. But there's a lot of this that no honest policeman could
+swallow."
+
+"It is indeed a madhouse," admitted d'Artois. "But let us sum up for
+a moment: Antoinette is evidently _en rapport_ with some one in that
+Garden; some one with whom she identifies herself, and whose savage
+beatings in some way leave marks on Antoinette's body.
+
+"By means of clairvoyance or other unusual perception, she recognized
+the Marquis in her dream garden, her description of which tallies
+closely with the traditional paradise devised by the higher Ismailians
+for the deluding of their fanatical assassins.
+
+"Assassins operating very much like the _fedawi_ of five centuries ago
+murdered La Dorada, the sweetheart of the Marquis. La Dorada bears a
+marked resemblance to Antoinette, though far from enough to make her a
+double, except under the most favorable conditions.
+
+"The terribly resurrected La Dorada last night spoke of a Garden. And
+the dying La Dorada pronounced the name Hassan just before she expired
+in the plaza. Through the whole chain of horror and deviltry, we see a
+continuous linkage of the Ismailians and the _hasheeshin_ of accursed
+memory.
+
+"Antoinette," continued d'Artois, "must in some way be involved in a
+mesh of necromancy and murder that hinges on her resemblance to La
+Dorada. It is not impossible that she was kidnapped to double for La
+Dorada in that accursed Garden.
+
+"And finally," concluded d'Artois, "this society of thaumaturges, which
+has made such overgrown fools of us, is obviously allied to or even
+an integral part of the society of Ismailians and its higher orders,
+adepts, occultists, necromancers, and devil-mongers of all degrees."
+
+"Now that you've summed it up, what are we going to do?" reiterated
+Farrell.
+
+"You will take the trail at once," replied d'Artois.
+
+Farrell brightened perceptibly at the hint of direct action.
+
+"Shoot," he said bruskly.
+
+"_Mais non_," countered d'Artois, "it is you who will shoot if my plan
+is right. You are deft at disguise, and you speak several Oriental
+languages like a native."
+
+D'Artois paused, intently studied the lean, bronzed features of his
+friend, and his cold gray eyes.
+
+"An Arab," he muttered. "Possible, but not so good. A Kurd ... yes,
+that would be better."
+
+"Wrong!" contradicted Farrell. "There were some Kurds at the château
+last night, notably that hell-hound of a Shirkuh. And the first of the
+assassins I shot down in the plaza was a Kurd. Too many of them in the
+picture. I might be tripped on their dialect."
+
+"An Afghan, then," compromised d'Artois. "They are Aryans, and our
+blood brothers, those Afghans. You will loiter around the waterfront. I
+will warn the _Sûreté_ to arrest you at times, but to release you for
+lack of evidence; so be careful not to be too brazen in building up a
+local background of feuds and slayings to substantiate your supposed
+reason for having left your native hills.
+
+"It is a slim chance; but it is possible that you will stumble across
+some Ismailian who will favorably mark your possibilities. In the
+meanwhile, I will keep in touch with you as much as possible.
+
+"But remember, one false move will betray your mission. And the first
+warning you will receive will be a dagger jammed very deeply into your
+back. You are flirting with sudden death the moment you leave this
+house."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon Farrell lurched from a doorway that the most vivid
+imagination could not have associated with the house of Pierre
+d'Artois. The shape of his eyebrows had been changed by judicious
+plucking. His hair had been dyed, and the cut of his mustaches altered.
+Tenacious, finely powdered pigments had been rubbed into his eyelids
+and about his eyes so as to change their expression: all trifles,
+yet the total effect, aided by the drunken swagger, the gestures,
+the reek of _'araki_ and foreign tobacco, was that Glenn Farrell had
+disappeared, and that a hard, haggard, quarrelsome Afghan sobering
+up from a spree strode muttering down rue Saint Augustin, and thence
+toward the _quai_ along the Adour.
+
+He found fishing-vessels, tramps from Algiers, and a _zaroug_ that had
+sailed all the way from the Red Sea with its crew of stout Danakils.
+Husayn, its _nakhoda_, was a lean, grizzled Arab whose manner suggested
+pearl-poaching, smuggling, or slave-running from the Somali Coast to
+Arabia, with piracy thrown in for good measure.... Husayn spoke of his
+health, which forbade further traffic on the Red Sea....
+
+There was a Levantin, oily and cringing, who peddled narcotics....
+
+There were brawls along the waterfront. No true Afghan would or could
+abstain. A fight was a fight.
+
+Very soon the waterfront boasted a new character, a quarrelsome Afghan,
+drunken, bawdy, stranded, swearing loudly by the honor of the Durani
+clan, and ready for any skulduggery. Ibrahim Khan, they called him.
+
+Once in a while some whining cadger of drinks would mutter as Ibrahim
+Khan reviled him and tossed him a franc. That was a member of the
+_Sûreté_ giving, and receiving, the lack of news that is falsely said
+to be good news. Sometimes it was warning, but never encouragement.
+
+The quarter of the city that lies between the Nive and the Mousserole
+Wall is so disreputable that during the war it was out of bounds for
+soldiers. It is a district of narrow, dingy streets, dirty cafés,
+bawdy-houses of the lowest order; it abounds in cheap wine, cheaper
+women, and all the scum and riffraff of a polyglot border-and-seaport
+town.
+
+While the upper stratum of the enemy was doubtless of high degree, the
+foundation layer would be in the mire. The underworld of France would
+furnish its quota for the lower order of assassins. The master mind
+needed dirty tools for dirty work; and here, among the thieves, pimps,
+cutthroats of beyond the river, the trail might be picked up.
+
+Ibrahim Khan sat in one of the dingiest of those unsavory resorts,
+muttering in Pushtu and Arabic and broken French, alternately gross
+and poetic as he courted the attention of Marcelle, the barmaid whose
+coarse, buxom loveliness drew trade for all departments of the house.
+
+    "Tie your husband to a rope, Bimbar,
+    Tie the rope to a tree;
+    Throw the tree in the river, Bimbar,
+    And come to your lover."
+
+Thus he chanted in amorous, wine-muddled accents, the whole stanza
+in one breath, and, in the Afghan fashion, ending in a high-pitched,
+gasping cry, a full octave higher.
+
+The girl did not understand the words; but there was one sitting in the
+corner who did.
+
+"Oh, my brother," he murmured, and spat contemptuously, "are such as
+that sister of pigs fit for the pride of the Durani clan?"
+
+Ibrahim Khan's hand flashed to the hilt of one of the knives that
+bristled in his belt. But before he could draw, the thin-faced man
+smiled.
+
+"Put that knife away, brother," he said. "I have news for you."
+
+"Well?" interrogated Ibrahim Khan a little less belligerently. "Out
+with it."
+
+"Softly, softly," murmured the stranger. Ibrahim Khan had never seen
+him along the waterfront, or in the Mousserole quarter. "I am Nureddin.
+I have been interested in your handiness in certain matters ... and
+Husayn, the _nakhoda_, speaks well of you----"
+
+"He should, Allah blacken him!" admitted Ibrahim Khan, who under his
+layer of grime was Glenn Farrell, trembling with eagerness to follow
+up what he sensed was the first open move to take the bait he had so
+patiently and thus far vainly offered the enemy.
+
+"There are women," continued Nureddin, "lovelier than the brides of
+paradise."
+
+Farrell laughed contemptuously, and made an insulting remark that left
+little doubt as to his opinion of Nureddin's profession: but that was
+to play his part as a truculent Afghan.
+
+"Nay, by Allah!" protested Nureddin with a good-humored laugh. "It is
+not what you think. Follow me, if you have courage."
+
+Farrell scrutinized Nureddin for an instant. Whatever game Nureddin
+might be playing, it would certainly not be for small counters. Then
+Farrell, still feigning skepticism, drew from the pocket of his grimy,
+ill-fitting suit a small pouch, hefted it so that the gold it contained
+clinked softly. He tossed the money to Marcelle.
+
+"_Ya_ Nureddin, I will fight as eagerly for my naked hide as for a
+pouch of gold. Now if you still want me to meet your friends, I will
+entertain them royally, _inshallah_!"
+
+Nureddin smiled and stroked his chin.
+
+"By Allah, O Afghan, you are suspicious. Follow me."
+
+"Lead on," agreed Farrell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He followed Nureddin to the street and thence to an alley so narrow
+that with his outstretched arms he could at the same time touch the
+buildings on both sides: and the narrowness was exceeded only by the
+stench. Nureddin halted at the end of the alley. A heavy, iron-bound
+door barred further progress.
+
+"From here you must go blindfolded," said Nureddin.
+
+"By your beard!" mocked Farrell as his hand flashed into view with a
+pistol whose cavernous muzzle gaped ominously. "Perhaps you would like
+to bind my hands also? Now, forward! Or I will blow thy teeth right and
+left ... if it so please Allah," he concluded piously.
+
+"Fire!" retorted Nureddin. "The Master would give me a less pleasant
+death for disobeying his orders."
+
+In the moonlight Farrell could see the perspiration that glittered on
+Nureddin's forehead; but he did not flinch.
+
+"_La, billahi!_" ejaculated Farrell after a moment. "Were there a blood
+feud between us, I would. But as it is----" He shrugged, holstered his
+pistol, and turned, to stalk down the narrow alley.
+
+Farrell was certain, now, that he was on the right trail. But since
+spies are notoriously eager to agree to anything and everything to gain
+admittance to forbidden doors, Farrell had to play the blustering,
+alternately suspicious and fool-hardy Afghan. He swaggered away in his
+lordly fashion, presenting his back as a fair target for hurled knife,
+or pistol fire.
+
+"_Ya_ Ibrahim!" protested Nureddin. "Be reasonable. _He_ ordered. It is
+on my head----"
+
+"_He_, whoever he is," retorted Farrell, "may then seek me himself and
+I will induce him to change his rules. _Wallah!_ And your head, that is
+no more than a ball to play with!"
+
+"Oh, well, have it your own way," agreed Nureddin resignedly as Farrell
+again turned. Then he clapped his hands sharply.
+
+Farrell sensed his danger; but before he could whirl and draw,
+something soft and clinging enveloped him. It was a net whose fine,
+stout silken cords bound his limbs and entangled him.
+
+"God, by the Very God, by the One True God!" he swore, struggling
+with the soft, relentless thing that enmeshed him like a monstrous
+spider-web, and seeking to draw a knife. "Pig and father of pigs!"
+
+Something emerged from the shadow of the pilaster that buttressed the
+wall. Farrell dropped flat, still striving to extricate himself and
+tackle his enemy. He secured a footing and leaped up, butting his
+shoulder with a terrific jolt into his enemy's stomach.
+
+A grunt and a gasped curse. A warning cry from Nureddin. The knife in
+Farrell's hand slashed a dozen meshes in the net. Then, before he could
+follow up and extricate himself, a form dropped from a window directly
+above, driving him flat against the paving. His knife dug vainly
+between the cobblestones. He recovered, thrust upward....
+
+Smack! Something hard and heavy and swiftly moving swept his senses
+away as he felt his blade bite home.
+
+
+
+
+                          _6. Satan's Garden_
+
+
+The slow, steady drip-drip-drip of water dropping against stones crept
+into Farrell's consciousness and finally became an impression distinct
+from the trip-hammer throbbing of his battered head. He stirred, and
+found that he was not bound. The holster under his left arm was empty.
+One of his knives, however, remained.
+
+"If they wanted my hide, they could have taken it in the alley," he
+reflected as he pieced together his recollections of the encounter. "So
+far, it looks as if I've got 'em fooled."
+
+Then, in Arabic, "_Aie_ ... my head! O dogs and sons of dogs, come out
+and fight! _Ya_ Nureddin, thou son of a strumpet, thou uncle of camels!
+Thou eater of unclean food!"
+
+The cell echoed with his bellowing. As he paused for breath, he reeled,
+clutched at the wall from whose base he had arisen, and supported
+himself. A torch flared smokily in the distance, from its sconce in the
+wall of the passage that opened into his cell.
+
+"Father of many pigs!" he stormed as he kicked the iron grillework that
+barred his advance, and rattled the chain and lock that secured the
+door.
+
+The clattering and jangling finally drew a protest from beyond
+Farrell's field of vision. Then a fat, white-bearded fellow with bleary
+eyes and a bloated, sottish face emerged from a cross passage.
+
+"Silence a moment!" he croaked as he took the torch from its sconce and
+advanced toward the grille.
+
+"Bring me that dog of a Nureddin!" raged Farrell.
+
+"One thing at a time," replied the warden. "Calm down and I'll promise
+you action."
+
+"Oh, very well, then," agreed Farrell. "Lead on, Uncle."
+
+Uncle drew a pistol and, keeping Farrell covered, unlocked the door.
+
+"Now, wild man, forward!" he ordered. "And no false moves."
+
+The slimy, glistening sides of the passage indicated that they were far
+beneath the surface of the city; perhaps in that labyrinth of vaults
+and connecting tunnels of which local tradition has murmured darkly and
+vaguely. Although his head ached from contact with material weapons
+wielded by physical enemies, Farrell shuddered at the evil that brooded
+about that archaic masonry and muttered of that which had emerged to
+defile the dead with obscene necromancies, and torment the living with
+monstrous hallucinations that came in the guise of dreams. The aura of
+age-old menace overpowered the terror of the Ismailian assassins.
+
+"To your left," commanded the warden.
+
+As Farrell rounded the turn, he saw ahead of him a glow of light and
+smelled the heavy, lingering fumes of incense. An Arab, and a bearded
+man whose race he could not determine, stood watch at the farther
+archway. Their hands rested on their belts, ready to draw knife or
+pistol. Their eyes stared fixedly from immobile features. They were
+drugged, or entranced: and Farrell shivered at the necessity of
+convincing himself that they were not dead.
+
+"Pass on," commanded the warden as Farrell hesitated at the threshold.
+"The Master, our lord Hassan, will receive you."
+
+The lord Hassan--the one whose name the dying La Dorada had with her
+last breath pronounced. She had known who had ordered her death.
+
+A thrill of exultation was mingled with the flash of dread that
+assailed Farrell as he stepped into the reception hall of Hassan, that
+slayer of women and master of necromancers.
+
+The room was long and narrow, and sweltering in a red glow of light. A
+Persian carpet ran down the center toward the divan in an arched alcove
+at the farther end. A man wearing a silken kaftan sat cross-legged
+among heaped cushions. His face was veiled, but his fierce eyes,
+smoldering in their deep sockets, were more menacing for being all that
+was visible.
+
+Farrell halted midway between the alcove and the entrance. From the
+corner of his eye he saw a row of men, dressed in European clothes,
+sitting cross-legged along the wall on either side of him. Their arms
+were crossed on their breasts, and their eyes stared as glassily as
+those of the guards at the entrance. They were drugged, or deep in a
+hypnotic trance.
+
+Farrell offered the peace.
+
+"No peace and no protection, ya Ibrahim," responded Hassan, "until we
+have made a test of you."
+
+"_Tawil ul 'Umr_," demanded Farrell with a touch of respect such as
+even a blustering Afghan would concede an old man; "Prolonged of Life,
+how am I to be tested?"
+
+The old man reflected for a moment. His glittering eyes narrowed to
+slits.
+
+"Tell me, can you obey as well as slay?"
+
+"How should I know, Prolonged of Life?" proposed Farrell. "By your
+beard, I have never tried obedience. I am of the Durani clan."
+
+"You will learn," said Hassan. "I will set you an example." He glanced
+to his left and clapped his hands. "Asad!" he called sharply.
+
+One of the staring figures rose from his place along the wall. He moved
+as one receiving will and animation from some external source.
+
+"Harkening and obedience, _ya sidi_!" he acknowledged as he halted
+before the dais.
+
+"Your canjiar," murmured Hassan.
+
+The curved blade flashed from its sheath.
+
+"That knife is your gate to Paradise, _ya_ Asad," said Hassan in his
+gentle, purring voice. Yet beneath its suggestion Farrell sensed a
+relentless command.
+
+Asad inclined his head as he touched his fingertips to his forehead,
+his lips, and his breast. A pause--the blade flashed again as Asad
+thrust it full into his own chest. He stood for a moment fingering the
+hilt; then he tottered and sank to the tiles, to relax and lie sprawled
+face down in the dark pool that slowly spread across the paving.
+
+Farrell knew that beneath his grimy skin his cheeks were bloodless. It
+was horrible to see even a _hasheeshin_ spill his life carelessly as
+a glass of wine to humor that old man who peered over the edge of his
+veil.
+
+"There, _ya_ Ibrahim, is obedience."
+
+Farrell collected his courage and demanded boldly, "And why should any
+man yield such obedience?"
+
+"Because," came the reply, "I am the keeper of the gateway. He is even
+now in Paradise, and exempt from any recall."
+
+Farrell grimaced.
+
+"No more than any true believer gains for slaying an infidel," he
+retorted.
+
+"You will enter the Garden, _ya_ Ibrahim," murmured Hassan, "and see
+for yourself. Then you may accept or reject."
+
+To the Garden! There, unless all d'Artois' deductions were wrong, he
+would find Antoinette. But Farrell restrained his eagerness, and
+pondered a moment, as became the rôle he played.
+
+"I am ready, Prolonged of Life," he finally replied, as he advanced a
+pace.
+
+"Softly, softly," said Hassan. "Are you armed?"
+
+"_Ay, wallah!_" replied Farrell, drawing his remaining knife.
+
+Hassan again clapped his hands.
+
+"_Ya_ Suleiman! Yusuf!"
+
+Two rose from the ranks and approached.
+
+"Harkening and obedience, my lord," they said as they bowed.
+
+"This one claims to be a man of valor, O Devoted Ones!" said Hassan.
+"Draw!"
+
+Their blades were drawn as one. The slayers stood like panthers poised
+and ready to close in on their prey. Their eyes glowed in the red
+glare like beasts lurking in the shadows beyond a fire. Slaves to the
+mesmeric power of Hassan, and to the hypnotic hasheesh, they were men
+in form only.
+
+Hassan glanced at Farrell.
+
+"You may decline without penalty or dishonor," said the old man. "You
+are free, and owe us no obedience."
+
+"They are your men, _ya sidi_," replied Farrell with a shrug. "If you
+can spare them."
+
+The old man chuckled, and his eyes for a moment smiled.
+
+"Strike!" he commanded.
+
+They paused for an instant before closing in. One of them, Farrell was
+certain, would go down before his first thrust, but the other would
+slay him. Farrell's success depended upon finesse. He shifted his feet
+as if to test the footing. He glanced over his shoulder as if to assure
+himself that he had room to retreat. All in a flash: and then they
+sprang, blades thirsty and a-glitter.
+
+Farrell's leap took him to the left instead of to the rear. He dropped
+his knife and snatched the wrist of the nearest enemy, who, missing
+his quarry, plunged forward abreast of his comrade.
+
+His own momentum was his ruin. There was the snap of a breaking bone,
+and Yusuf pitched in a heap before the dais. And Farrell, picking his
+knife from the tiles, confronted Suleiman, who despite his fanatic
+frenzy was profiting by Yusuf's mishap.
+
+They circled, feinting and thrusting, seeking to shake each other's
+guard. Suleiman avoided Farrell's efforts to close in to make it a test
+of strength. Nor would rushing in to exchange thrusts suffice: for
+if they slew each other, the Master would still not have the test he
+ordered. They wove in and out, shifting and side-stepping, each seeking
+an opening in the other's defense.
+
+Then Farrell made a desperate feint at his enemy's throat. As
+Suleiman's blade rose to parry, Farrell evaded, and stretched out in
+a full lunge, point forward and arm extended as with a rapier. The
+unexpected play caught Suleiman off guard. His downward thrust came
+an instant too late: Farrell's knife sank to the hilt in the enemy's
+stomach, ripping upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farrell, bleeding from the cut on his shoulder, emerged from the
+engagement empty-handed as Suleiman collapsed.
+
+"Well done, _ya_ Ibrahim!" approved Hassan. Then he smote a gong beside
+the dais.
+
+"_Ya_ Musa! Abbas! Khalil!" he shouted.
+
+A panel opened at right of the dais, and three tall negroes entered.
+They made no expressions of obedience; only the inarticulate gurglings
+of those whose tongues have been removed.
+
+Hassan indicated the two dead, and the one whose arm was snapped.
+
+"To the black pool with them. All three!" Then, as two stepped forward
+to execute the command, Hassan spoke to the third: "Take our new
+aspirant, Ibrahim, to the Garden."
+
+Musa bowed, and at the Master's gesture of dismissal, led Farrell
+into a dimly lighted room which was arranged after the fashion of a
+_majlis_, or reception hall of an Arabian house.
+
+A narrow divan extended the full length of the wall. At the end
+farthest from the entrance were the customary coffee hearth and
+polished brass pots. And save for those, and the cushions and rugs with
+which the divan was covered, there were no furnishings.
+
+Farrell noted that he was not alone. Those who lay sprawled on the
+divan were, apparently, likewise to visit the Garden.
+
+"Dead-drunk ... drugged ... or spies to watch me," reflected Farrell.
+
+Musa, who after indicating that Farrell was to seat himself, had left,
+presently returned with a tray on which was a goblet and flagon. These
+he set on a small tabouret, bowed, and left Farrell to refresh himself.
+
+The proof of hand-to-hand fighting had been severe enough; but the
+flagon of wine, fragrant but reeking of hasheesh, represented a more
+subtle and dangerous test. If under the influence of the drug Farrell
+made one remark or gesture that would betray his imposture, the
+awakening would be death, either swift, or else by torture administered
+to find out how much the outside world knew of the Ismailians.
+Nevertheless, Farrell dared not abstain from the drugged wine. He knew
+not what eyes might be regarding him through loopholes in the wall.
+
+"_Bismillahi!_" he ejaculated, and seized the flagon, draining it
+at a draft. He hoped that despite the insidious drug, his years of
+wandering in the forbidden places of Asia had impressed upon him enough
+of his assumed character to insure him against a fatal slip.
+
+Farrell wondered at the suicide ordered by Hassan. The value of Ibrahim
+Khan as a _fedawi_ could scarcely balance the self-slain and the two
+killed in action. He reconciled this point, however, when he considered
+the probability of the slain being offenders against the discipline of
+the order....
+
+The intoxication of hasheesh was gripping him. Then an artifice
+occurred to Farrell. He might still save the day and avoid complete
+intoxication.
+
+"_Ya_ Musa! _Shewayya' khamr!_" he bawled drunkenly. "More wine!"
+
+The slave came hurrying with a full flagon. Farrell's chance was to
+drink so much of the drugged liquor that his stomach would rebel, and
+expel it; and such sottishness would be quite in character. He seized
+the flagon with unfeigned eagerness.
+
+But the saving thought had come too late.
+
+His heart-beat became terrifyingly slow. His arm seemed so long that
+the weight of the flagon, already the size of a cask, and momentarily
+becoming larger, would exert a leverage that would upset him. The room
+was expanding to allow for the abnormal length of the arm that sought
+to raise the wine to his lips.
+
+Farrell became aware of a duality of identity. Half of him was
+struggling fiercely to assert itself and overcome the confusion of his
+senses; the other half was yielding to a languorous drowsiness, and a
+soporific humming which pervaded the room.
+
+There came finally a rustling of wings, and a piping, haunting music
+that sighed amorously. All sense of time had ceased. Farrell did not
+know whether he was being carried through an archway into a vast domed
+vault, or whether he had floated in on clouds of overwhelming sweetness.
+
+A fountain was bubbling, and splashing him with its spray. He stared
+up at the ceiling. Its luminous blue was dusted with stars that were
+arranged in unfamiliar constellations.
+
+Drums muttered somewhere in the shifting, warm fragrance. He heard the
+silvery clink-clinking of anklets. He rolled over on his side, and as
+he glanced along the rose-hued tiles, he saw dainty feet with hennaed
+nails stepping in cadence to the whining notes of a _kemenjah_, and the
+moan of pipes.
+
+As he made an effort to sit erect, a warm, soft arm supported his
+head, and slender, golden-brown hands offered him a bowl of cold,
+aromatic liquid. He drank it, and found that his reeling senses became
+more stable. The girl who smiled at him had great dark eyes with
+kohl-blackened lids.
+
+Another heaped cushions behind him.
+
+Paradise indeed; _al jannat_, temporarily offered as the reward of
+whatever infamy the lord Hassan demanded, and promised for all eternity
+to the fanatic _fedawi_ who died executing his commands.
+
+There were other guests scattered about the jasmine and rose clustered
+garden, and the brides of _al jannat_ were reviving them with flagons,
+cold drinks, and warm caresses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farrell made an effort to fight the illusion of distorted time and
+distance, and the sensuous allure of the music and hasheesh. He rose,
+and ignoring his amorous companions, set about exploring the garden.
+Strange birds flitted about among the orange and pomegranate trees and
+mocked him with their almost articulate cries. A parrot mimicked in a
+loud voice the endearments that a Malay girl murmured in the ear of one
+of the Devoted Ones.
+
+"Where is the Golden One?" he heard a swarthy Kurd demand as he thrust
+aside his slant-eyed Eurasian companion.
+
+The last of Farrell's intoxication left him. The Golden One--Antoinette!
+
+The girl laughed.
+
+"She'll scratch your eyes out! Let her alone!"
+
+"But the Master, our Lord Hassan, promised she'd greet us in Paradise,"
+protested the Kurd.
+
+Farrell knew now beyond any doubt that Antoinette had been kidnapped
+to double in this satanic garden for the murdered La Dorada, to prove
+to the _hasheeshin_ that the Lord Hassan indeed held the keys to the
+garden of resurrection.
+
+"_Al Asfarani_, the Golden One----" Farrell seconded the Kurd's inquiry.
+
+"Snarling and spitting in her alcove, O Strong Man!" smiled the girl.
+
+Farrell left her to entertain the Kurd, and wandered past the rows of
+potted trees that paralleled the walls of the garden. The walls were
+pierced with deep niches that formed small rooms whose arched entrances
+were scarcely shoulder-high. As he glanced into each in succession, he
+noted the trinkets and cosmetics and perfumes, and articles of feminine
+apparel. Each bride of _al jannat_ seemed to have her own lupanar; but
+they apparently preferred to lounge among the fountains and arbors.
+
+Finally, however, Farrell found an occupied alcove. A woman lay face
+down among a heap of cushions. Her hair was copper-golden, and her bare
+shoulders were latticed with long, bluish stripes.
+
+Farrell knelt at her side.
+
+"Antoinette!" he whispered.
+
+At the touch of his fingers on her shoulder, she started and with a
+quick motion drew away. Her hand emerged from the cushions clutching a
+long sharp steel skewer used in Syria for grilling meat.
+
+It was Antoinette, wide-eyed with terror. She cried out, and stabbed
+at Farrell with the skewer. The point raked his cheek as he seized her
+wrist.
+
+"'Toinette! Don't you recognize me?" he whispered hoarsely.
+
+She regarded him for a moment, puzzled and incredulous. The skewer
+dropped from her fingers. But before she could cry out in amazement,
+Farrell continued, "Not a word! If any one passes by, start raising the
+devil! Don't seem to recognize me ... understand?"
+
+She nodded, but he saw that she did not grasp the point that might make
+the difference between life and death. She was still bewildered.
+
+"Oh, Glenn...." She stroked his cheek and regarded him, still
+incredulously. "Are you--isn't this--my dear, this is that awful garden
+I dreamed of. Only, now I have my own body, and I don't wake up----"
+
+"Pipe down!" he commanded in a low, tense voice. "I'm supposed to be
+one of these devils! You're not dreaming. Pull yourself together----"
+
+He heard footsteps approaching. They were steady, not the jerky
+lurchings of wine and hasheesh intoxication. Whoever it was, was for
+Farrell a death sentence if Antoinette in her hysteria spoke one false
+word.
+
+"Scream! Claw me! As you treated the others!"
+
+Then he seized her in his arms and murmured drunken endearments in her
+ear.
+
+But Antoinette was too dazed by the meeting to play her part. She
+clung to Farrell as the one fragment of reality in all that unending
+nightmare of hasheesh-drugged assassins who courted her favor, and
+pawed her, and abandoned their advances only at the suggestion of more
+amiable brides of _al jannat_. Instead of clawing and defying Farrell,
+she clung to him, sobbing hysterically.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That deliberate tread of doom, soft slipper shod, drew nearer, paused.
+
+Farrell trembled like a trapped animal. He sought with his own feigned
+drunken, amorous approaches to drown her betraying sobs and murmurs.
+
+The swish-slap of slippers ... another halt. Farrell felt the
+intentness of the gaze at his back.
+
+He broke from Antoinette's embrace and turned. Standing just within
+the entrance of the tiny room was Shirkuh the necromancer. He had seen
+Farrell at the château, face to face. And he had heard. He knew.
+
+"Ah ... La Dorada has lured you to the Garden?" he murmured with deadly
+emphasis on the dead woman's name.
+
+The smile was slow and mocking; the relentless eyes burned with a
+fanatical hatred. For a moment Farrell was paralyzed with terror, and
+horror at the doom from which Antoinette had no further chance of
+escape.
+
+Shirkuh relished the encounter, and gloated--but just an instant too
+long.
+
+Farrell sprang from his crouched position in one swift, fluent motion.
+Shirkuh, taken cold-footed, could not draw his knife. They crashed to
+the floor. But once Shirkuh recovered from the surprize of the assault,
+he was more than a match for Farrell, who was battered, weary from
+combat, and shaken by the drugged wine. The iron fingers of the Kurd
+sank into his throat and throttled him. Shirkuh whipped his lithe body
+aside, avoiding Farrell's frenzied efforts to drive home with his knee.
+As Farrell's struggles subsided to a futile gasping for breath, the
+Kurd's hand flashed to his belt and drew a knife----
+
+But before the stroke descended, there was a crash and a splintering
+of glass. Shirkuh toppled over, felled by a decanter that Antoinette
+had broken across his head. Farrell gasped, and caught his breath, then
+slowly dragged himself clear of his enemy.
+
+Antoinette, still clutching the neck of the broken decanter, regarded
+him with terror-widened eyes. Then she gestured toward Shirkuh, who
+muttered and stirred.
+
+Farrell's fingers closed about the hilt of the knife the Kurd had
+dropped.
+
+"Me or him," muttered Farrell. "If you don't want to see it, look the
+other way."
+
+The blade flashed thrice.
+
+Farrell wiped the red steel and slipped it into his empty scabbard.
+Then he sighed wearily and despairingly.
+
+"Finish anyway ... they'll miss him ... and no place we can hide him."
+
+Antoinette stared at the dark pool that spread across the silken rug.
+
+"Can't cut my way out," muttered Farrell. "But you have a chance.
+Pierre and the _Sûreté_ are on the job--is there any place we could
+hide that fellow?"
+
+Antoinette shook her head.
+
+"Nowhere. The pool of the fountain isn't deep enough----"
+
+"Never mind the fountain!" interrupted Farrell, as he leaped to his
+feet. "I have a hunch. We're not quite ready to hang old man Farrell's
+youngest son!"
+
+At the entrance Farrell turned, reassured Antoinette with a gesture,
+then stalked out into the Garden, chanting a bawdy song in Turki.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beside the fountain he found the object of his search: a bemuddled
+Kurd, and the Eurasian girl who had finally convinced him that the
+Golden One was best left to the blustering Afghan.
+
+"Get us more wine, O Moon of Loveliness," said Farrell with his most
+engaging smile. He nudged the Kurd.
+
+The girl laughed softly.
+
+"You look as though she gave you your fill of clawing!"
+
+"_Ay, wallah!_" agreed Farrell with a broad grin. Then, as the girl
+picked up an empty flagon, he said in a low voice to the Kurd,
+"Brother, you fellows didn't approach _al Asfarani_ the right way."
+
+He winked and beckoned.
+
+The Kurd clambered to his feet and followed Farrell. They paused at the
+arched entrance of Antoinette's alcove.
+
+"She's in there now," whispered Farrell. "She'll not claw you."
+
+Thus encouraged, the Kurd stepped in, Farrell following.
+
+"_Ya sitti_," he began, addressing Antoinette. Then he started, seeing
+the body of Shirkuh.
+
+Farrell slipped past, and toward Antoinette's divan.
+
+"Out of my way, O shamelessly Besotted!" growled the Kurd, pausing to
+nudge the body with his toe.
+
+During that instant Farrell found what he sought; and as the Kurd
+decided to ignore the supposed sot, the steel skewer drove home, its
+point projecting beyond his shoulders.
+
+"Sorry, old man," muttered Farrell as he regarded the Kurd twitching
+and coughing his life out in a bloody foam. Then he rapidly searched
+the body.
+
+He found no weapons.
+
+"Disarm 'em when they come in here ... leaves me handicapped...."
+
+He thrust Shirkuh's knife into the hand of the dying Kurd and closed
+the fingers about it. Then he guided the hand of Shirkuh and clenched
+it about the blunt end of the skewer.
+
+"This may save the day," he explained to Antoinette. "Remember, they
+fought and killed each other. That may give me a long enough lease on
+life to come back and get you out of this hell's hole, or get word
+to Pierre. Now I've got to go out into the Garden and do some quick
+thinking. Something else may turn up ... no, I can't stay here with
+you ... and I've got to leave the bodies where they are."
+
+Then, as he kissed her, "Hang on. There's still a chance for you. Maybe
+for us."
+
+He strode out into the Garden, and washed his blood-stained hands
+at the fountain. The Eurasian girl had not yet returned with the
+replenished flagon. And as Farrell glanced about, looking for her, and
+preparing to divert her from any thought of her former companion, Musa
+the mute negro approached with a jar on his shoulder and a cup in his
+hand.
+
+This, Farrell surmised, would be the end of the visit to Paradise.
+The negro would administer a sleeping-potion; the devoted ones would
+drink, and upon awakening would find themselves lying in the _majlis_,
+mysteriously translated from the empyrean realm of the Lord Hassan, and
+ready for whatever butcheries he could assign them.
+
+As Musa offered him the cup, Farrell extended his own flagon, saying,
+"Fill this one, Father of Blackness. That cup of yours is too small."
+
+The negro grinned, emptied the cup into the larger vessel, and went his
+way to minister to the other guests.
+
+The Eurasian beauty, who returned at that moment, was easily diverted,
+so that Farrell contrived to spill most of the drugged wine over his
+shirt-front and into the fountain. Then, as he saw the _fedawi_ succumb
+to the effects of the drug, he himself lurched forward, feigning
+unconsciousness.
+
+"No chance to look around ... no chance of cutting my way out," he
+reflected as he thought of Antoinette and her ghastly companions. "And
+maybe the Shirkuh versus drunken Kurd formation will hold water long
+enough to give me time to qualify as an assassin and be sent out to do
+a bit of slaying!"
+
+The negro was making the rounds, taking the _fedawi_ one by one from
+the Garden. He picked Farrell from the paving as though he were a
+bag of meal, shouldered him, and deposited him on the divan in the
+anteroom, beside his drugged companions.
+
+And from sheer weariness and the futility of further thought, Farrell
+fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+                        _7. A Left-Handed Kurd_
+
+
+When a cold sponge on his forehead and the rim of a copper bowl pressed
+to his lips awoke Farrell, he had no idea as to the length of his sleep.
+
+Musa helped him to his feet and led the way down a narrow passage
+whose floor sloped perceptibly upward. The negro halted before a panel
+and tapped thrice. As the panel slid aside, he gestured and flattened
+himself against the wall so that Farrell could pass him and enter the
+chamber ahead.
+
+Farrell stepped into a circular vault fully twenty yards in diameter.
+In its center was a pool, likewise circular, and surrounded by a coping
+about a foot high. A dark splash on the tiles near the pool convinced
+Farrell that this must be the place into which the bodies of the
+victims of his test before Hassan had been tossed.
+
+Farrell wondered if as a matter of convenience he had been conducted
+to the vault before the master cut him down. One slip would suffice....
+
+Directly opposite Farrell was an arched niche in which sat an old man
+whose head was bowed in contemplation. Suspended from the crown of the
+arch was a cluster of crystalline prisms that slowly rotated, giving
+the effect of a glowing, coruscating ball of light.
+
+As Farrell advanced, the door behind him slid silently into place. He
+skirted the edge of the pool in the center, and wondered from what
+abyss its black, untroubled waters emerged; what creatures lurked in
+its darkness to devour the bodies tossed into their pit. Then, leaving
+the pool, Farrell continued toward the bearded sage who still ignored
+his approach.
+
+"At thy command, _ya shaykh_!" said Farrell as he halted some five
+paces from the Presence.
+
+"Step forward," directed the ancient one, looking up and indicating a
+small hearth-rug that lay at the foot of the steps that ascended to the
+niche. "Look, _ya_ Ibrahim: hast thou seen me before?"
+
+As the smoldering eyes narrowed, Farrell recognized Hassan, now
+unveiled. He returned the old man's unblinking stare, and strove to
+remain unperturbed by its intent concentration; but his effort was
+vain. He felt a sense of futility and weakness creeping over him.
+
+The rotating cluster of prisms now flamed and flashed with an
+adamantine fire that expanded and contracted and pulsed like a living
+thing. It seemed now to be glowing between the eyes of Hassan. An
+overwhelming weariness assailed Farrell.
+
+The old man's voice intoned sonorously, and as from a great distance.
+
+"I am the keeper of the gateway ... even in the hollow of my hand I
+hold _al jannat_ and its coolness to the eyes.... Yea, behold my
+hand...."
+
+Farrell regarded the outstretched hand of Hassan.
+
+"In the hollow of my hand, even in this hand I hold _al jannat_...."
+
+A mistiness was gathering about Hassan, and his features became
+obscured so that only his glittering eyes peered through. The
+outstretched hand was expanding; and strangely enough, it seemed
+fitting to Farrell that this should be so, and that there should be
+hazy figures, and clots of greenness appearing in the blankness above
+the hand. Trees were taking root. Their outlines were hazy, and through
+their immaterial substance he could just distinguish the jambs of the
+niche, and the swirling mists that veiled Hassan.
+
+The voice was now murmuring softly and compellingly.
+
+"Even in this hand I hold the Garden.... I am the keeper and the
+warden.... I accept and I reject...."
+
+Then that which in the back of his brain had kept Farrell from utterly
+succumbing to the sorcery of that murmuring voice and those burning
+eyes asserted itself, and he knew that it was illusion. As he sought to
+resist and deny, he felt a terrific impact as of a physical substance.
+A mighty, implacable will bludgeoned him as with hammer blows. He knew
+that if he continued assenting he would be for ever enslaved.
+
+"There is no Garden. It is illusion," he asserted to himself, and
+forced his lips to move and silently enunciate the negation. He
+trembled with an all-compelling fear, the awful fear of losing his very
+identity. That devastating will behind the cloud-veil was crushing him.
+How easy to assent, and end the agony!
+
+Great beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was drawn and
+haggard with the torment of his battered will. But to surrender would
+betray Antoinette into the hands of the enemy.
+
+"There is no Garden," he persisted. "His hand is _empty_. EMPTY. EMPTY!"
+
+He forced his last vestige of strength into that final declaration. The
+trees dwindled to pin-heads of green, and with them vanished the gray
+mists. The hand _was_ empty!
+
+Farrell sighed from mortal weariness and relief. Then he smiled
+triumphantly. He had withstood the terrific psychic assault that would
+have made him a slave, and a vassal of that old man and the murderous
+heritage of Asia.
+
+Hassan smiled as at an ancient jest.
+
+"You have withstood my will as no man before you," he said. "There was
+one who resisted to the uttermost, but he dropped dead."
+
+Hassan, the heir of Maymun the magician, the sorcerer, the heretic,
+took his defeat gracefully. Then his smile became ominous and mocking.
+
+"Who but you would have had the wit to slay Shirkuh, the chief of my
+servants, then so arrange the body of another you slew, that it would
+seem that they had died quarrelling over _Al Asfarani_? Subtle serpent,
+you erred in putting the dagger in the right hand. That Kurd was
+left-handed."
+
+As those words hammered home, Farrell wondered if his heart would ever
+again start beating. He was lost, and with him, Antoinette. Doomed by
+his own cunning.
+
+But thus far, no word about his imposture; therefore Farrell laughed
+full in Hassan's face, as became the honor of the Durani clan.
+
+"_Wallah_, you put a premium on slayers! Now what award do you give me,
+seeing that I was unarmed when I slew Shirkuh?"
+
+Hassan regarded him admiringly for a moment.
+
+"_Billahi_, but you do belong to us! Not as a hasheesh-besotted fool to
+slay and be slain, but as an Associate, and finally, an Initiate. It is
+such as you that we seek, and seek in vain."
+
+A fierce light flamed in Hassan's eyes.
+
+"Yet your victory over my will is your doom. In the fullness of your
+effort to deny the illusion, you finally spoke your negation aloud.
+_And you spoke in English!_"
+
+For an instant Farrell was dazed by the horror that had been heaped
+on the soul-racking triumph he had just won. Doom was at hand--doom
+inescapable, else that old man would not dare confront him alone.
+
+With a cry of rage, Farrell sprang to throttle Hassan despite what
+unseen allies he might have. But the floor sank beneath his feet as
+Hassan, smiling and unmoved, fingered a knob near the jamb of the
+arch. Farrell clutched at the edge of the opening through which he was
+dropping. His fingers sustained him for a moment, but the momentum of
+his body swinging free into vacancy broke his slender hold. He fell
+into the impenetrable blackness below.
+
+
+
+
+                       _8. Monsters of the Pool_
+
+Instead of an interminable drop to the bottom of an abyss, Farrell
+landed in less than a second, and feet foremost, on slippery flags.
+He noted that the air was not as stagnant as one would expect in an
+oubliette.
+
+"Plenty of circulation ... just put me in temporary storage until
+they get around to organizing a committee to finish me with pomp and
+ceremony," he muttered as he struck a match.
+
+Farrell saw that the walls of the dungeon were curved. He strode toward
+the center, and by the light of a second match saw a massive column of
+masonry which rose from floor to ceiling. He remembered the pool he had
+seen on the floor above, and concluded that the pillar before him was a
+hollow shaft which led to some subterranean spring in the heart of the
+knoll on which Bayonne was built.
+
+"All in one piece, unhurt, and no enemy in sight--yet!" he reflected as
+he skirted the column.
+
+Among the inevitable rubbish with which the dungeon would be littered
+Farrell hoped to find some fragment of rock, scrap of wood, anything,
+in fact, which would give him the means of meeting the enemy with more
+than bare hands. But before he could strike his next match, Farrell saw
+a glow of light at a considerable distance to his right. It faintly
+outlined a low archway, and suggested possible escape from the dungeon
+into which he had been dropped by Hassan. That same light, however,
+betokened the immediate presence of the enemy, and perhaps an armed
+sentry. Farrell therefore crept on in darkness until he was well out
+of line with the source of light, then left the column and progressed
+toward the wall.
+
+His knee came into contact with something hard and metallic. He struck
+a match, and saw that he had found a chain, one end of which was
+attached to a massive leg-iron, and the other secured to an eye-bolt
+sunk into the wall. The shank of the eye-bolt was badly corroded where
+it entered the masonry. A few minutes of wrenching and tugging sufficed
+to separate the chain from its anchorage. The result was a crude flail
+which in a strong hand could shatter whatever skull it struck.
+
+Farrell was armed again, and his spirits rose accordingly.
+
+He retraced his course and crept down the passageway toward the light.
+As he halted in the shelter of a jamb he saw that the vault ahead of
+him was illuminated by a glowing brazier; and the scene gave him a
+foretaste of what his own fate might be.
+
+The black, oily form of a muscular negro crouched beside the brazier.
+The bellows in his hands wheezed from his vigorous efforts to fan the
+charcoal fire to a white heat. Tongs or other long-handled implements
+projected from the incandescent mass.
+
+Limned in harsh highlight and black shadows Farrell saw two white-robed
+Ismailians whose predatory, Semitic features were stern from the
+contemplation of their task. Both were armed with simitars and pistols.
+The object of their scrutiny was a man who sat crouched by a pilaster.
+Farrell could distinguish no features beyond the aquiline curve of his
+nose, and the black, spade-shaped beard. The hands, clasped about the
+knees, were fettered at the wrists.
+
+"God!" muttered Farrell as the red glow became a dazzling whiteness.
+"That lad sitting there looks for all the world like an innocent
+bystander. Either that party isn't for him, or he has more guts than
+any ten men I've ever seen.... I've not been here long enough for that
+to be my reception committee...."
+
+Farrell appraised the situation, and gaged the distance between his
+lurking-place and the group at the brazier.
+
+"Too far! They'd get wise before I got within striking distance ...
+now if this piece of chain were only a solid bar so that I could slug,
+swat, and parry instead of having to use it like a whip ... now what?"
+
+The taller of the Ismailians glanced up, and with a gesture indicated
+the ceiling. Farrell could not distinguish his words, but it was
+evident that he had addressed the negro, who set aside his bellows,
+picked up a length of thin rope, and rose.
+
+Then Farrell understood. They were going to slip the cord through a
+ring in the low ceiling, lash the prisoner's ankles, and suspend him so
+that the white-hot irons could be applied without interference from the
+victim's agonized writhing.
+
+"Missed my chance!" growled Farrell. "They were all off guard, and I
+could have cold-calked them! Too late, now."
+
+The Ismailian on the right addressed the prisoner; but the other
+was looking in Farrell's direction, though not directly at his
+lurking-place. The negro was shifting the implements that projected
+from the bed of coals.
+
+Then Farrell tested the idea that came to him an instant after his
+expression of disgust. He reached into his pocket and found a large
+silver coin the size of an American dollar. He sent it spinning across
+the vault. It struck the opposite wall and tinkled to the floor.
+
+As the Ismailian at the left of the group started, caught the gleam of
+silver, and stooped to pick it up, Farrell, whirling his flail, leaped
+from cover and charged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The startled cry of the crouching negro was simultaneous with the
+impact of the swinging fetter against the skull of the stooping enemy.
+The massive circlet of iron crunched home as the other white-robed
+enemy whirled from confronting his prisoner and drew a pistol. Farrell
+knew that he could not lash out with a second blow of his flail. He
+ducked as the pistol flashed, gripped the Ismailian's wrist as the
+pistol cracked again, and back-heeled him. They crashed to the flags,
+Farrell striving to keep the pistol out of effective action and to
+disable his enemy before the giant negro recovered his wits enough to
+overwhelm him.
+
+With a fierce wrench, Farrell disarmed the Ismailian and sent the
+pistol flying against the wall. And then the negro took a hand.
+They pounded and crushed Farrell as they sought to drive home with
+knife-thrusts which he evaded in his struggles to drive in with boot or
+knee. He finally, thrashing about, seized the shackle end of his flail;
+and as the Ismailian's knife darted in, Farrell jabbed the ponderous
+iron to the enemy's jaw with a crushing blow.
+
+Then the negro crushed Farrell to the paving. Farrell's struggles
+were futile; the cumulative effect of previous combats was telling.
+In another moment his breath would be completely cut off by those
+relentless black hands....
+
+Then an agonized yell, and the stench of burning hair and flesh. The
+pressure relaxed as a shower of white-hot charcoal rained from the
+frenzied enemy and seared Farrell's hands and face. But the respite,
+though brief, sufficed. Farrell's boot laid the enemy out flat.
+
+Then he rose, recovered the pistol that lay against the wall, and
+turned to confront the fettered prisoner.
+
+"Fortunately," said the prisoner, "I was able to reach the tongs and
+flip that brazier into the party."
+
+The mutual benefactors regarded each other a moment.
+
+"_Monsieur_," began Farrell, recognizing the prisoner as a Frenchman,
+"I am more interested in getting out of here than exchanging
+compliments. Judging from the preparations I interrupted, you were in
+for a pleasant evening, morning, or whatever it may be."
+
+"Unfortunately," came the reply, "these fetters are rivetted, and none
+of the tools they brought----"
+
+"I'll tend to that," assured Farrell. He turned and set the brazier
+right side up, then with the tongs collected the still glowing
+charcoal, and fanned it once more to a white heat. "Get your chains hot
+enough," he explained, "and we can break them by hand."
+
+"_Magnifique!_" Then, regarding Farrell more intently, "But I
+don't recognize you as any of the Brethren who might be kindly
+disposed--though those fellows lying on the floor prove the case."
+
+"I'm not quite what I seem," admitted Farrell as he arranged the chains
+so that they could get the full heat of the brazier. Then, staring for
+an instant at the prisoner and at the device engraved on the emerald
+set in his massive ring, Farrell hazarded a guess that seemed warranted
+by the absence of the host who had issued the invitations to the
+_soirée_ at the château.
+
+"Are you by any chance the Marquis----"
+
+"_C'est moi!_ Des Islots, and everlastingly at your service!" The
+saturnine features brightened for a moment.
+
+As Farrell pumped the bellows, he wondered at the fortuitous meeting.
+
+"Did Hassan put you in here?"
+
+"No. Shirkuh, his second in command, arranged this. Hassan is too busy
+to bother with details----"
+
+"He had plenty of time for me," countered Farrell.
+
+"Hmmm ... then Shirkuh must be occupied with some important mission,"
+began the Marquis.
+
+"The _late_ Shirkuh," corrected Farrell with a grim smile.
+
+"_Sacré bleu!_" ejaculated the Marquis. "Did you----"
+
+"I have the honor--and pleasure," admitted Farrell.
+
+"Thank God! He was my evil genius. Years ago, in Syria, I joined
+the Ismailians as an Associate. I was a student of the occult, you
+understand. Their aim at the time was harmless enough: the overthrow of
+Islam, and the pursuit of mystic speculations. For centuries the order
+has had no secular significance, you comprehend.
+
+"I advanced to the rank of Initiate, then returned to France and
+organized a thaumaturgical society which was to carry on with the
+researches I had made in Syria, and in High Asia. And this was all
+well until fellow Ismailians came to Bayonne, one by one, and ended by
+converting the thaumaturgical society into a chapter of Ismailians.
+
+"Shirkuh was the chief of these, a prior. And then they reverted to
+the tactics of the Twelfth Century. To augment the _hasheeshin_ that
+they sent over, they recruited cutthroats from the underworld of Paris.
+Various actresses and women of the _demi-monde_ were led to believe
+that they had been admitted as Associates, and were set to work as
+spies.
+
+"There is a plot even now under way which, if successful, will upset
+the French colonial empire and end in a _jihad_ that will stir up the
+entire Moslem world.
+
+"Another chapter has been organized in Lyons, with a prior in charge;
+and Hassan is Grand Prior of France, acknowledging only the supreme
+chief in Damascus.
+
+"At all events, when I saw the political aspect of the Ismailians
+who had gained their foothold through my thaumaturgical society, I
+protested to Shirkuh--and here I am. Hot irons and other pleasant
+devices were to make my end most colorful."
+
+"Where," wondered Farrell, "does La Dorada fit into the picture?"
+
+"Eh? La Dorada? Why, a sort of chief female spy--she is friendly with
+many high officers and civilian dignitaries, you comprehend. She is----"
+
+"_Was_," interrupted Farrell. "Three assassins finished her."
+
+"_Diable!_" exclaimed the Marquis. He was amazed rather than grieved.
+
+"You take it calmly, for a lover," remarked Farrell.
+
+"Lover?" The Marquis laughed sourly. "I, her lover? Camouflage, to
+account for her presence down here, and along the Riviera. As to her
+being assassinated, that is easily explained: her mission must have
+been completed. So she was killed to insure her continued secrecy, and
+also to warn her dupes that they would follow suit if they relented or
+weakened in the course dictated by Hassan. And that move makes it all
+the more conclusive that France is due for an explosion."
+
+The confusion was being untangled. Farrell wondered at Antoinette
+Delatour's connection, and the source of the dreams that had haunted
+her; but the chains that bound the Marquis were white-hot and ready to
+break, so that conversation would have to wait.
+
+"All right, heave!" directed Farrell.
+
+The chains parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They stripped the bodies of the white-robed Ismailians, and armed
+themselves with their simitars and pistols, as well as taking the
+extra cartridges that studded one of the belts. And the keys that had
+admitted the executioners completed the equipment. As the hot ends of
+the chain cooled, the Marquis bound them to his limbs so that they
+would not clank.
+
+"I wonder," said Farrell as they turned toward the iron-bound door, "if
+those lads are completely out."
+
+"_Cordieu!_ But I am absent-minded!" growled the Marquis. He drew the
+simitar at his side.
+
+As Farrell unlocked the door, he heard the sword-strokes that assured
+beyond all doubt that three more had entered _al jannat_.
+
+"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Farrell as the door closed behind them. "We
+may run into a detachment on the way down here to finish me. Do you
+know of any other way except the passage used by your executioners?"
+
+The Marquis reflected for a moment as he wiped and sheathed his blade.
+
+"I do," he replied. "But we'd stand a good chance of getting lost
+and perishing in a labyrinth. This network is older than the Roman
+occupation. We have reclaimed but a fraction of it. It is the sanctuary
+of some awful, prehistoric past. And there were living proofs...." The
+Marquis shuddered at the recollection of what he had seen. "We killed
+most of them. But--as for me, I prefer to face men like ourselves!
+Anyway, if Shirkuh is dead, Hassan will be busy until another Prior is
+appointed. Shirkuh was an adept who studied in Tibet. A necromancer----"
+
+Farrell shivered, and as they advanced up the passageway, told the
+Marquis what he had seen at the château.
+
+"_Canaille!_" muttered the Marquis. "The night I was imprisoned! Just
+like him. And as you suspect, enough assassins in the crowd to spread
+the rumor of his miracle.
+
+"Our best chance," he resumed, "is to go to the vault where you saw
+Hassan unveiled, thence to the assembly hall of the assassins. Then cut
+our way out--if we can! The chances are slender----"
+
+"How about passing by the Garden?" wondered Farrell.
+
+"Out of our way," protested the Marquis. "But why?"
+
+"A ... friend," replied Farrell. "Mademoiselle Delatour----"
+
+"What?" exclaimed the Marquis with a start. "_Dieu de Dieu!_ How----"
+
+Then he controlled his agitation, beckoned for silence.
+
+They emerged from the darkness and turned into an upward-sloping branch
+passage illuminated by torches thrust into sconces on the wall. Ahead
+of them they heard the measured tread of a sentry walking his post.
+
+"Hang back," whispered the Marquis as he fingered the hilt of the
+broad-bladed knife that kept his simitar company. "I know the
+passwords. And he may not know I'm a prisoner--but be ready for trouble
+if he does!"
+
+The sentry challenged the Marquis. There was an exchange of sign and
+countersign. Then as the sentry saluted, the Marquis' right hand
+flashed to the right; his body jerked forward. As Farrell advanced, he
+saw the sentry collapse and sprawl across the tiles in a grotesque heap.
+
+"So far, so good," muttered the Marquis as he wiped his blade, and led
+the way.
+
+A barred door yielded to the Marquis' touch on a concealed lever. They
+continued on their upward march. They halted finally before a door
+whose panels were of heavy and elaborately carved woodwork.
+
+"_Diable!_" growled the Marquis as he tried the door. "Barred from the
+other side. The release this side does not help us."
+
+The mutter of drums and the plucked strings of a _sitar_ were plainly
+audible.
+
+"Better wait until the place is vacant," whispered the Marquis. "And in
+the meanwhile, let's cut a loophole and see what's happening."
+
+They drew their knives and set to work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peering through the loophole, Farrell could see the arched niche from
+whose foot he had been precipitated into the dungeon below. Hassan was
+again, or perhaps still, at his post. He was veiled, but there was no
+mistaking the posture and the expression of the eyes.
+
+Sitting cross-legged along the curved wall of the vault were a score of
+Ismailians in white ceremonial robes. They wore white turbans, scarlet
+slippers, and belts of the same color: and all were armed with the
+richly adorned simitars suitable to a formal assembly.
+
+A group of musicians squatted on the floor, along the coping of the
+circular pool, whose dark water reflected the spectral glow that
+pervaded the vault. The wind instruments joined the music with a
+demoniac sobbing and moaning, and a brazen gong clanged.
+
+Four litter-bearers emerged from an entrance. Attendants followed them,
+bearing tripods of bronze. Farrell shuddered at the similarity of that
+scene to the horrible beauty of the resurrection of La Dorada. Then he
+noted that the figure on the litter was that of a man.
+
+As the shroud was lifted, he recognized Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi.
+The Prior of the Ismailians was to receive the final homage of his
+subordinates. The pipes wailed mournfully in honor of that desecrator
+of the dead. Farrell sighed with relief, and glanced at the Marquis.
+
+He peered once more through the loophole.
+
+"Good God!" he gasped in dismay.
+
+Four more litter-bearers were filing into the vault, and after them
+came attendants with tripods. The tiny feet and the feminine curves
+that the shroud revealed unmistakably betokened a woman's body.
+
+Farrell's cheeks whitened beneath their stain as he caught the glint of
+red-gold hair.
+
+An attendant stripped the brocaded shroud from the body.
+
+Antoinette Delatour, sleeping--or dead.
+
+With an inarticulate growl of rage, Farrell gathered himself to charge
+the door with his shoulder. But the hand of the Marquis gripping his
+arm restrained him.
+
+"Wait!" whispered the Marquis. "It is hopeless, now. But later--stand
+fast. I will tell you--you see, I am acquainted----"
+
+Farrell stared somberly at his companion. He saw that the Marquis' face
+was white and that his eyes flamed with wrath. The hand on Farrell's
+arm trembled.
+
+"All right," he conceded. He wondered at the Marquis' incoherence
+and agitation in excess of what he would expect of a right-minded
+gentleman. He gained assurance from the Marquis' apparent knowledge of
+what was to be; but with it came the dread of some new peak of horror.
+
+"Great God!" muttered Farrell, remembering once more the necromantic
+ritual at the château. "Is she----" Then, in a flare of rage and grief,
+"I'm going through!"
+
+"Restrain yourself!" commanded the Marquis. "I know."
+
+Farrell shook his head, and turned to the loophole.
+
+The attendants and the litter-bearers were filing out of the vault.
+
+The Grand Prior, Hassan, rose from his cushions.
+
+"Brethren and servants of the Seventh Imam," he began, "your Prior, the
+learned Shirkuh, has crossed the Border. He who could raise the dead
+can not resurrect himself. But we, _inshallah_, can send a courier to
+lead him back to us."
+
+As his upraised hand dropped to his side, a monstrous peal of bronze
+echoed and reverberated through the vault. The assembled Ismailians
+stirred, and corrected their posture, so that their feet and hands were
+placed with ritual precision. Even their features assumed a oneness of
+expression: an intent, solemn stare. The silence became absolute. The
+musicians sat motionless, awaiting the signal to sound off.
+
+The Grand Prior nodded.
+
+The single-stringed violins, the moaning pipes and the purring drums
+wove a harmony that sighed and sobbed like a fallen angel bewailing his
+lost estate. The great gong pealed with mighty, brazen reverberations.
+Acolytes filed into the vault, and paced in cadence to the music, and
+rhythmically swung fuming censers as they passed thrice in procession
+about the dead, and the exquisite unclad beauty of the living woman.
+And as the acolytes retreated, Hassan descended from his dais.
+
+He drew on the floor with a piece of chalk a circle several paces in
+diameter, and within it a pentacle. Each of the five points he marked
+with cabalistical symbols. Then with a ceremonious gesture he summoned
+three Initiates from among those who sat waiting beside the dais. Each
+Initiate took his post at his assigned station; then all four bowed to
+the fifth vertex and the Presence that was to be summoned.
+
+Hassan intoned a sentence; and the Initiates, beginning at his left,
+each in turn chanted a line of the invocation. Those without the circle
+solemnly pronounced a fifth sonorous phrase.
+
+"For the vacant corner," whispered the Marquis to Farrell. "They are
+representing the One they are calling to occupy the fifth angle."
+
+And thus they continued their prodigious utterances, four verses
+riming in succession, with the surge and thunder of the unrimed,
+antiphonal response from without. Each time the circle was completed,
+the riming syllable changed; and from the Arabic with which they had
+started, they shifted to Himyaric, and then to obscure, antique tongues
+whose sound was an elemental roar of deep gutturals. Then finally came
+a primal, bestial murmuring and muttering, a chirping and clucking of
+the tongues that were spoken by those who wandered through the Void
+before the first man walked the earth. And recurring through the entire
+progression was a portentous name that is seldom pronounced above a
+whisper.
+
+The very features of the Initiates changed as they pronounced those
+rustling, shivering syllables. They were achieving a unity with that
+which crept and crawled and loathsomely slunk through chaos and reviled
+the unborn stars, and mocked the light that was to be....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farrell, staring now with a dread that obliterated every other emotion,
+saw that a Presence was materializing at the fifth vertex. A vibrant
+glow like the luminous vapor of a mercury arc was momentarily becoming
+more dense and substantial. Lambent flames played about the brows of
+the Initiates in the pentacle. A terrific tension pervaded the vault.
+The bluish glow became deeper, and was shot with flashes of crimson
+and yellowish green. Each drawn face was now a ghastly slate-gray: the
+Presence at the fifth vertex was drawing the living essence from the
+swaying, gesturing bodies of Hassan and his trio of Initiates.
+
+The Presence took human form: a lordly, satanic visage and a
+magnificently muscled body that quivered and throbbed to the droning
+chant. Then, rich and clear as a god calling across the wastes of
+space, the Presence began declaiming:
+
+"_Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani!_ I come from the realm of fire
+to command you! I have come out of the depths! Harken! Harken! Harken!
+_Al Asfarani!_ Golden One! Step forth from your body and walk into the
+darkness among those whose bread is dust! Walk among the lonely dead
+and seek Shirkuh! Call him by his name and take him by the hand! Guide
+him from the shadows and into the morning!"
+
+[Illustration: "_A terrific tension pervaded the tumult. The Presence
+took human form!_"]
+
+The unconscious woman shuddered at the sound of that mighty voice. She
+made a despairing gesture as if to resist the command that came from
+the fifth vertex. Then she relaxed.
+
+The Presence continued his prodigious chant. Even the brazen
+reverberation of the gongs was drowned by his awful utterance.
+
+A thin streamer, like the thread of smoke rising from an
+almost-quenched altar flame, rose from Antoinette Delatour's
+half-parted lips.
+
+"_Cordieu!_" shouted the Marquis in Farrell's ear. "They're doing it!"
+
+His gestures rather than his voice stirred Farrell to action. They
+retreated, then charged crashing against the door. It resisted the
+shock. Farrell drew his simitar and hacked at the tropical hardwood. A
+carven panel splintered.
+
+"Good God! Look!" he yelled in despair.
+
+The Presence was now towering toward the ceiling. It was bending over
+like a monstrous serpent in human form, arching and writhing, reaching
+as though over some invisible wall, making passes and gestures over the
+silver-white body of Antoinette.
+
+The Initiates in the pentacle were paper-white. They swayed to the
+cadence of that great voice whose concussion was now making the very
+vault tremble.
+
+The train of smoke-like vapor that emerged from Antoinette's lips was
+becoming more dense, and hovered over her body like a veil.
+
+"Quick!" shouted the Marquis, as they frantically hacked the stout
+wood. "Hold them, while I exorcise the Presence!"
+
+The door was reinforced with iron rods that bound it together. Their
+blades were nicked and saw-toothed from the fierce assault.
+
+"Again!" cried the Marquis as his simitar flashed home.
+
+A chunk of the hardwood tore loose from its severed reinforcement. They
+shouldered through, torn and cut by the splinters and the ragged ends
+of the rods they had hacked.
+
+A musician cried out and sprang to his feet. And then one of the
+Initiates who sat beside the dais saw Farrell and the Marquis as they
+dashed across the circular vault. He aroused his comrades from their
+fascinated contemplation of the invocation of which they were now
+accessories rather than principals. They started as from a deep sleep,
+stared for an instant, then drew their simitars and charged to meet
+the intruders, and to protect the left flank of the pentacle, from
+which the Presence still leaned over the unconscious girl, intoning the
+mighty commands that would send her across the Border.
+
+Shoulder to shoulder, Farrell and the Marquis met the assault with
+deliberate, deadly pistol fire. The attack was checked; but the enemy
+stood fast and firm, protecting the pentacle. And despite the hail of
+lead they had poured into the ranks of the Ismailians, Farrell and his
+ally were still outnumbered ten to one.
+
+The musicians were salvaging weapons.
+
+There was not enough time to reload the pistols. The Ismailians had
+recovered from the shock of their murderous reception, and seeing their
+advantage, leaped forward, blades ready.
+
+Then a clash of steel, and a red mill of slaughter. The Marquis
+fought with vengeful desperation. He wove in and out, side-stepping
+and parrying, shearing and slaying. And Farrell, keeping at his side,
+carved a gory path into the enemy. He fought with a blind, unreasoning
+fury, seeking to hack his way through the press and clear a road for
+the Marquis who could cope with that monstrous Presence that was in
+thunderous tones chanting the life and vital essence from Antoinette.
+
+The enemy, sensing that the Marquis was the keystone of the arch,
+concentrated their attack on him; and despite his exquisite
+swordsmanship, he was being slashed to pieces by a desperation and
+force that discounted his skill.
+
+He sank once beneath a whirlwind of blades, and recovered under the
+shelter of Farrell's blade; but he was coughing blood from a deep wound.
+
+And Hassan and his trio had left the pentacle. The Presence, now
+endowed with the power borrowed from all that the Initiates had
+conjured from across the Border, was self-sustaining and no longer
+needed its portion of human vitality.
+
+Hassan, behind the line of the assault, directed his Initiates in the
+attack.
+
+"Cut him down, O sons of flat-nosed mothers!" he cried, as he saw the
+Marquis recover and press forward.
+
+But that magnificent last effort burned out. With a cry of mortal rage,
+the Marquis lashed out with a final, devastating stroke, then collapsed
+on a heap of slain.
+
+"Finish!" despaired Farrell. He was doomed, and Antoinette also--even
+though he could cut his way out. An adept was required to exorcise
+that terrific Presence that was drawing her from her body.
+
+But the enemy, instead of closing in to hew him to pieces, gaped
+stupidly, then yelled in terror. They were staring at something at his
+right, and to the rear. He glanced over his shoulder, compelled by the
+consternation that stopped them where they stood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farrell lowered his own point, himself struck with awe. He recalled
+what the Marquis had said about the denizens of that labyrinth of
+passages.
+
+A monstrous, amorphous thing had emerged from the circular pool
+into which Hassan had ordered the dead _fedawi_ to be flung. It was
+misshapen, and grotesque in its vague semblance to humanity. Its
+bulbous head had a single, circular eye the size of a saucer. It
+glittered glassily in the bluish, spectral light. The limbs were
+shapeless and ponderous, and it lumbered, dripping wet, across the
+tiles. Its feet fell with a metallic clank, and its breath hissed and
+wheezed.
+
+A second and similar creature was emerging from the water, even as the
+first advanced with slow, laborious pace. The hand clutched a short
+iron bar.
+
+The bar rose in a sweeping arc and crunched down on the skull of an
+Ismailian, spattering blood and brain in a shower. The second monster
+clambered over the coping, unlimbered a bludgeon, and with gruesome
+deliberation picked a victim and struck.
+
+There was a moment of silence unbroken save for the wheezing breath
+of the creatures from the pit. Then the Ismailians yelled in mortal
+terror. They forgot Farrell with his dripping blade and bewildered
+eyes; they forgot the Marquis, who stirred, and strove to lash out
+once more with his red scimitar; they forgot the golden-haired girl,
+and the malevolent Presence that, now silent, throbbed and pulsed, an
+aggregate of quivering, electric-bluish cold fire.
+
+They broke and fled toward the splintered door.
+
+At the height of their panic, Farrell understood. The monsters were men
+in diving-suits.
+
+The Marquis was down. Farrell could not himself thwart that monster
+that was drinking Antoinette's vital essence and taking her across
+the Border beyond recall; but he could slay until he dropped from
+wounds, or from weariness of slaughter. He hurdled the hedge of fallen
+Ismailians and with a cry of rage and grief joined his allies to exact
+vengeance.
+
+A third diver was at that moment emerging from the pool and joining the
+assault against the frenzied enemy, striking them down with remorseless
+precision as they struggled to crowd through the splintered panel of
+the door that had given Farrell admittance.
+
+Farrell, however, was not the only one whose wits had recovered from
+the terror inspired by the apparitions from the black pool.
+
+"Back and face them, _ya mumineen_!" shouted Hassan. "They are men like
+ourselves!"
+
+But his attempt to rally his men was vain. Those who abandoned their
+efforts to crowd through the jammed door, and circled around to escape
+by way of the opposite entrance, were blocked by the arrival of a file
+of _fedawi_ who, knives drawn, had come running from the assembly hall.
+
+The dripping revolvers that the divers drew as they discarded their
+grappling-irons crackled and flamed, pouring a deadly fire into the new
+center of action.
+
+Then Farrell conceived the desperate device of capturing Hassan
+and forcing him to recall the elemental monster that was drinking
+Antoinette's life. He leaped forward, cutting and slashing his way
+through the few who interposed.
+
+"We meet in Paradise, _ya mumineen_!" Hassan shouted, seeing that the
+day was lost. And before Farrell could seize him, Hassan released the
+trap-door before the dais and dropped into the vault below.
+
+The last hope was gone. Pursuit through those subterranean mazes would
+be futile. As Farrell turned from the yawning trap that had allowed the
+arch-enemy to escape, the rage of slaughter left him. The crackle of
+pistols died out. He saw that the circular chamber was cleared of all
+but the dead and wounded Ismailians. The divers, handicapped by their
+heavy suits, could not carry out an effective pursuit of the survivors
+of their deadly fire.
+
+Weary and despairing, Farrell nerved himself to confront the diabolical
+creature that was drawing Antoinette across the border. He turned----
+
+The Marquis des Islots was raising his hacked, bleeding body from a
+heap of slain. He tottered, swayed, then advanced toward the lambent
+flame-presence. Farrell stared in fascination as that gory wreck of
+a man advanced, making ritual gestures with his faltering hands, and
+muttering in a low voice.
+
+The Presence was shrinking and dimming, and that shimmering exhalation
+from Antoinette's lips was being retracted. The Marquis sustained
+himself with will alone. He staggered, sank--Farrell's heart sank with
+him--he recovered, stepped forward again, still gesticulating and
+murmuring. The Presence leaned forward to confront him, and menaced him
+with its remaining energy, seeking to outlive the dying adept.
+
+The Marquis' bleeding, gashed face was drawn and white; his eyes
+were fixed and staring. He achieved another pass; then he collected
+himself, paused, and instead of murmuring, thundered a final phrase of
+command.
+
+The Presence vanished; and the last vestige of grayish, luminous haze
+disappeared between Antoinette's lips.
+
+Farrell leaped forward in time to catch the Marquis as he collapsed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The divers, returning from the farther entrance at which the Ismailians
+had made their last stand, lifted one another's domed helmets. Then,
+grimy and exultant, Pierre d'Artois and the two members of the _Sûreté_
+gathered about Farrell and the Marquis, who was regaining a little of
+his strength.
+
+"_Messieurs_," he said, as he gestured toward Antoinette, "she is safe.
+She will presently awaken. It can not return. _Jamais!_... It was my
+fault ... in the beginning ... but this infamy was not my intent.... I
+loved her, but she rejected me ... persistently. And for revenge ...
+and to break her spirit ... I administered without her knowledge a
+compound ... of hypnotic drugs ... so that she and that Syrian girl
+would each night exchange bodies ... then Hassan took a hand...."
+
+He regarded d'Artois for a moment.
+
+"You, _monsieur_, doubtless understand----" Then, to Farrell, "But this
+last infamy ... was not mine--Shirkuh and Hassan--I tried to make ...
+amends----"
+
+For an instant Farrell regarded the dying man with revulsion. Then he
+saw the remorse on the drawn, blood-splashed features, and thought
+of the Marquis' last gallant stand, confronting and exorcising that
+diabolical presence from beyond the Border.
+
+"Stout fellow," he muttered, as he grasped the Marquis' hand.
+
+"_C'est fini_," murmured d'Artois a moment later. "Magnificent in his
+death as he was misguided in his life ... dying on his feet, he had the
+will to conquer, and make restitution."
+
+Then d'Artois rose and glanced about him.
+
+"Do you know the way out of here?"
+
+"Through that door," directed Farrell. "He told me, before we made our
+rush."
+
+"_Messieurs_," suggested d'Artois, "be ready with your pistols, should
+any of these assassins be lingering. I will take charge of the young
+lady, and you, my friend, lead the way. _Monsieur le Marquis_ perhaps
+deserves greater courtesy, but we can not carry his body and take the
+risk of being caught without weapons drawn and ready."
+
+Farrell led the way. Without much difficulty, he found the passage
+that opened into the vault where he had lain while regaining his
+consciousness preliminary to submitting to Hassan's tests. And from
+there they finally emerged in the heart of the citadel. A few moments
+later Farrell and d'Artois, carrying Antoinette, met Raoul where he was
+waiting at the wheel of the Renault.
+
+
+
+
+                       _9. D'Artois Is Envious_
+
+
+Antoinette, an hour later, was entirely herself.
+
+"Oh, it's wonderful to be out of that awful garden," she said, and
+curled herself up in the depth of a large, upholstered chair. "And now
+that _Monsieur le Médicin_ admits that I'm as good as new, you might
+satisfy my curiosity on a few points. How did you ever----"
+
+She glanced up at Farrell, who had seated himself on the arm of her
+chair. He was not yet through convincing himself that Satan's Garden
+was a thing of the past, and insisted on keeping Antoinette within
+arm's reach.
+
+"Suppose you ask Pierre," he said.
+
+D'Artois laughed.
+
+"After all, _mon vieux_, you were responsible. We found two bodies
+floating down the Nive. One of them wore--oh, very becomingly, I assure
+you!--a knife in his stomach. The _Sûreté_ informed me. I identified
+the knife. It was one of mine, which you had taken from my collection
+to wear while disguised as Ibrahim the Afghan ruffian.
+
+"'_Alors_,' said I, 'Ibrahim Khan has given good account of himself.
+Perhaps, but God forbid, his own body will follow. I assure you that we
+watched with anxiety. But no further signs. At low tide, however--you
+know, the Nive rises and falls with the tide, since we're so close to
+the sea--we found another body, mainly as the result of our continued
+close watch for yours. This one was wedged near the central of the
+seven bridges. We investigated, and found an uncharted drain of
+considerable diameter.
+
+"'_Mordieu_,' said I to _Monsieur_ the Prefect, 'if bodies came out,
+bodies can also go in.' We got diving-suits. The tide in the meanwhile
+rose, but we had the location well marked. We advanced up the drain
+until we came to a dead end. Even before we left the water we heard the
+clash and crackle of your skirmish----"
+
+"Massacre, you mean," interpolated Farrell, grinning as much as his
+bandages permitted. "Not a second too soon."
+
+"_Eh bien_, we shut our exhaust air-valves and thus rose to the
+surface. Our grappling-irons snagged to the coping helped us unaided
+over the top. Then we sliced our airlines and lifelines, opened our
+exhausts and----"
+
+"Scared them out of a week's growth!" added Farrell as d'Artois paused
+to light a cigarette. "But that damnable thing all of quivering
+fire--good Lord!"
+
+"That," submitted d'Artois, "is something that I can explain but
+vaguely, if at all. I called it some more mummery, and decided, rather
+hastily, perhaps, that you and the Marquis needed help first of all.
+On reflection, and in view of some of your remarks since we left, I am
+of the opinion that it was either an elemental conjured up by those
+devil-mongering adepts, or else a wandering and malignant astral that
+was energized by the vital essence of the adepts, or perhaps by the
+vibration concentration of their ritual. _Monsieur le Marquis_, God
+rest his erring soul, could doubtless explain what it was, since he
+used his last spark of will to combat it and thwart its attempt to
+convert Mademoiselle Antoinette into--what did you tell me?--a courier
+to call Shirkuh from the hell in which he now must be roasting.
+
+"I would very much relish," continued d'Artois, "questioning Hassan,
+who devised all that deviltry. But alas! he escaped. And while you,
+both of you, were causing the good doctor a certain amount of concern,
+I heard that the _Sûreté_ and a handful of _gendarmes_ cleaned out the
+entire nest. Unhappily, two were taken alive of that crew of assassins.
+And of course, those lovely ladies of the garden."
+
+Farrell sighed from weariness and contentment, then grimaced from the
+ache of his wounds.
+
+"The Marquis," he observed, "didn't have time to explain how that
+hypnotic drug enabled him to project Antoinette's _self_ into the
+body of the Syrian bride of the garden--Lord, it's impossible to
+imagine how a brave fellow like him could have let his resentment and
+disappointment carry him to such lengths! Having her scourged by proxy,
+so to speak."
+
+"Too much occultism and devil-mongering upset his brilliant mind,"
+replied d'Artois. "Somber, gloomy, and drunk with his talents. And
+translating Antoinette into the body of a bride of the garden, whom he
+could flog at will, was his warped expression of denied affection. As
+to just how he accomplished it, we can but surmise. Strange drugs are
+compounded in the Orient. When I complete the analysis of the pastries
+they offered us that night at the château, I may further enlighten you."
+
+"But the stripes and welts that appeared on Antoinette's body?"
+wondered Farrell.
+
+"For once you ask me something simple," retorted d'Artois. "Did you
+know that if a hypnotic is touched with a pencil, for example, and
+offered the suggestion that it is a red-hot iron, he will develop a
+blister, and all the symptoms of a burn at the spot touched? Moll and
+others concede that point with very little argument. It has often been
+experimentally demonstrated.
+
+"_Alors_, the body of the Syrian girl was scourged. Antoinette's
+_self_, though in a borrowed body, retained what we can roughly call
+an astral connection with her own body; otherwise she could not have
+returned to it at the end of each ordeal. And through this connection,
+the body of Antoinette developed the same welts that were raised on
+the skin of the Syrian girl; just as, by rough analogy, the hypnotic
+subject through suggestion shows all outward signs of a burn. And the
+marks of the heavy anklets the Syrian bride of the garden wore were
+similarly branded on Antoinette's ankles.
+
+"The Marquis during his unsuccessful courtship of Antoinette had ample
+opportunities to administer the hypnotic drug at which he hinted, so
+that his influence could have been gained without her knowledge. This,
+together with the objective symptoms, convinces me that if it was not
+the conventional hypnosis we know, it was at least a quasi-hypnosis.
+And as you know, there are vegetable compounds which, if properly
+administered, will effect a partial release of the astral counterpart
+of a body, or its spiritual essence. To pursue it to its origin would
+lead you to a study of Egyptian magic, and the nine traditional
+elements of every living human body.
+
+"I will leave all this to you, _mon vieux_, to study, this matter of
+stigmata resulting from suggestion and other psychic influences. Me, I
+am no lecturer.
+
+"And as to Antoinette's Arabic remarks in her sleep: the bride of the
+garden, dispossessed of her body for the time, sought Antoinette's. And
+by that astral connection which she retained with her own, she felt the
+scourgings administered in the garden, and expressed herself, through
+Antoinette's lips, as you heard."
+
+D'Artois emerged from his chair and bowed with formal precision.
+
+"I will therefore leave you here, my blundering Afghan, to have your
+wounds properly nursed while I go about doing all that an old man
+can do under the circumstances: envy you, and write a monograph on
+_Messieurs les Assassins_, and Satan's Garden, from which you so
+happily emerged."
+
+With a peremptory gesture, he cut short Antoinette's insistence upon
+his pausing for at least a moment. Then, halting at the door, he
+concluded as he glanced at Farrell, "_Mordieu_, and to think that you
+enjoyed all that fine sword-play, while I, Pierre d'Artois, had to
+wear a diving-suit to find a fight, and then had to use a crowbar! In
+_several_ ways I envy you."
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop">
+  <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt="">
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>Satan's Garden</h1>
+
+<p class="ph1">By E. HOFFMANN PRICE</p>
+
+<p><i>The story of a terrific adventure in Bayonne, two<br>
+ravishingly beautiful girls, occult evil and sudden<br>
+death in the lair of the hasheesh-eaters.</i></p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br>
+Weird Tales April and May 1934.<br>
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br>
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Since the publication of "The Rajah's Gift" in WEIRD TALES nine years
+ago, followed by "The Stranger from Kurdistan," E. Hoffmann Price
+has been acclaimed one of the masters of quality fiction; yet his
+superb artistry has not interfered in any way with the vividness and
+thrilling power of his fascinating stories. West Point graduate,
+expert swordsman, orientalist and former soldier of fortune, his life
+itself is a thrilling tale of adventure. Endowed with a natural gift
+for narrative, he possesses also a warm imagination and unsurpassed
+literary craftsmanship. All these qualities are woven into the strange
+weird tale presented herewith: "Satan's Garden."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#1_Invisible_Scourge"><i>1. Invisible Scourge</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#2_La_Dorada">2. <i>La Dorada</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#3_The_Hand_of_Hassan"><i>3. The Hand of Hassan</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#4_Shirkuh_Makes_Magic"><i>4. Shirkuh Makes Magic</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#5_Ibrahim_Khan"><i>5. Ibrahim Khan</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#6_Satans_Garden"><i>6. Satan's Garden</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#7_A_Left-Handed_Kurd"><i>7. A Left-Handed Kurd</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#8_Monsters_of_the_Pool"><i>8. Monsters of the Pool</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#9_DArtois_Is_Envious"><i>9. D'Artois Is Envious</i></a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="1_Invisible_Scourge"><i>1. Invisible Scourge</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>It was long past the hour of tinkling glass, and song to the guitar,
+and crowded tables at the Café du Théâtre. The gray-walled city of
+Bayonne slept in the moonlight like an odalisque overcome with wine and
+lying bejewelled in a garden whence the musicians had departed. It is
+thus that Bayonne has slept each night of the full moon for more than
+nineteen centuries at the junction of the Nive and the Adour, guarding
+the road to Spain.</p>
+
+<p>There were two who sat in a room on the second floor of a house
+that faced the street running along the city wall. One was old and
+leathery, with fierce, upturned gray mustaches, and eyes that smoldered
+beneath shaggy brows; the other was not more than half his age, a lean,
+broad-shouldered man whose bronzed features were rugged as the masonry
+of the fortress, and seamed with a saber slash that ran from his
+cheek-bone almost to the chin.</p>
+
+<p>The younger emerged from the depths of his chair like a panther leaving
+his cage. He paced the length of the room and paused at the window to
+stare out into the dazzling moon-brightness that slowly marched from
+the rolling, tree-clustered parkway and invaded the shadows cast by the
+city wall across the dry moat that skirted it. Then, as he retraced his
+steps, he glanced at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Later than usual tonight, Pierre," he observed. His voice was weary
+from baffled wrath. "Do you suppose that It may skip a night?"</p>
+
+<p>Pierre d'Artois shook his gray head and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should It fail to torment her? We sit here like dummies, you and
+I. And to what purpose? Look!" He indicated the seals on the door
+at his left. "It could get through neither door nor window without
+breaking those seals——"</p>
+
+<p>"But It did, by heaven!" exclaimed the younger. And Glenn Farrell
+resumed his pacing the length of the Boukhara rug that carpeted the
+room. He made a gesture of futile rage, then resumed, "But how,
+Pierre—and why?"</p>
+
+<p>Pierre d'Artois twisted his mustache, shook his head again, and struck
+light to a cigarette. Farrell sank into the depths of his chair and
+retrieved the cigar butt he had laid on its arm.</p>
+
+<p>"We couldn't have slept on post without one of us being aware of
+it," resumed Farrell. His voice was monotonous from repetition of a
+statement so often made that he himself had begun to doubt it. "And if
+we had——"</p>
+
+<p>He regarded the waxen seals on the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Those seals couldn't have been duplicated, with your die locked in a
+bank vault each night. And she couldn't have escaped."</p>
+
+<p>"No, she could not," agreed d'Artois. "But some one—some <i>thing</i>—got
+in."</p>
+
+<p>"A weasel, a cat, a snake," enumerated Farrell, "might slip through
+those bars. Nothing larger. Certainly nothing large enough to—good
+God! <i>Listen!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Grim and trembling they stood at the sealed door. They heard a moaning
+and a sobbing, then the screams of a woman seeking to stifle her outcry.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me that key!" demanded Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>He unlocked the door and flung it open, shattering the seals and
+breaking the cord that ran from panel to jamb. D'Artois followed him.
+They halted a few paces past the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, damn it, look!"</p>
+
+<p>As Farrell switched on the lights, he pointed at the woman who lay
+face down on the broad, canopied bed. She was writhing and moaning.
+At regular intervals she flinched as from a blow, then shuddered, and
+relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! I can almost hear the whip," muttered Farrell. He leaped forward
+and thrust out his arm as if to ward off blows that flailed the girl's
+bare shoulders. Then he retreated, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>"If we can't see it, how can we stop it?" he muttered despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>They stood, fascinated and horrified, watching a lovely girl being
+flayed by an invisible scourge. They saw the red welts rising, crossing
+and recrossing her shoulders, and cropping up under the filmy silken
+folds of her nightgown.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at it! Her gown didn't move a hair's breadth, but the whip raised
+another welt! Pierre, it's impossible! That gown ought to be cut to
+pieces by that flogging. Or else nothing's really hitting her. Or
+else"—Farrell shook his head in bewildered despair—"or else we're
+both crazy as hoot-owls!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tenez donc</i>," said the old Frenchman, taking his friend by the arm.
+Though he himself shrank in sympathy with the girl who writhed under
+the invisible lash, his voice was calmer than Farrell's. "Let us study
+this thing. And man or devil, in the end we will have his hide!"</p>
+
+<p>"You take the devils, Pierre, and give me a handful of whatever men you
+think are messed up in it! I'll—eh, what's that?"</p>
+
+<p>He knelt beside the bed, gestured to d'Artois.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to that, Pierre!" he said in a tense whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Junayn' ash-Shaytan</i> ..." they heard her say.</p>
+
+<p>"Holy smoke!" gasped Farrell. "<i>Junayn' ash-Shaytan</i> ... and did you
+get what she said after that?" Then, before d'Artois could reply, "It's
+over now."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The sleeping girl had ceased writhing and tossing. Her cries had
+subsided to a drowsy murmuring. The two watchers stared at each other
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"But yes," said d'Artois finally. "I heard it, though it has been
+several years since I heard any one use such villainous language. It
+would do credit to one of the dancing-girls in Abu Aswad's dive in
+Cairo. But this <i>junayn' ash-Shaytan</i>, that puzzles me."</p>
+
+<p>"Simple!" said Farrell. "Satan's garden."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mais oui!</i>" agreed d'Artois with a touch of impatience. "Only, what
+is the point?"</p>
+
+<p>He frowned fiercely and twisted his mustache.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mon vieux</i>," he said after a moment's reflection, "in this first
+articulate speech in her sleep we may find a clue to the invisible
+scourge that leaves her back crossed with welts."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Crazier and crazier," he muttered. "We're all nutty. I am, you are,
+she is—all of us! Now she's talking Arabic! I'm beginning to wonder
+whether her back is really beaten or whether we're both suffering the
+same delusion she is."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois led the way to the door. Farrell followed.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been expecting that," he said as he reached for a brief-case
+lying on the table. He opened it and withdrew a photograph. "Look."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell scrutinized the glossy print.</p>
+
+<p>"That proves your point," he admitted. "The camera isn't subject to
+hallucinations or delusions of persecution. Antoinette has been
+beaten. Severely. The old black-and-blue marks photographed darker
+than the new, red welts. No argument. I'm not, she isn't, you're not
+bug-house. That is, <i>not yet</i>. But if this doesn't stop soon——"</p>
+
+<p>He bit the tip off a fresh cigar, chewed it for a moment, struck light.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us be impersonal about it for a moment," suggested d'Artois, "and
+consider what we have.</p>
+
+<p>"First, she tells us that her dreams have become so real that she
+is confused and wonders during the day which is dream, and which is
+reality. She dreams that she is in an outlandishly beautiful garden,
+dim as by moonlight, yet warm as the glow of morning sun. The plants
+are strange, and the flowers have an unnatural, poison sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>"And strangest of all, she herself has a different body, brown-skinned,
+with blue-black hair, and very large, dark eyes. The other girls, her
+companions, are also dark," summarized d'Artois. "Now do you see how
+her first speech in this troubled sleep begins to lend a touch of
+rationality?"</p>
+
+<p>Farrell pondered for a moment, then replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Those few words she spoke in Arabic tonight suggest a dual
+personality, give us a bit more background. But on the other hand,
+didn't she tell us that she couldn't understand the language of the
+other girls, and of the guests: lean, swarthy fellows with staring,
+dilated eyes? If she couldn't understand them, how the devil is she
+talking the fluent, unsavory Arabic of a dancing-girl in a Port Said
+dive?"</p>
+
+<p>"That sudden gift of tongues can be resolved," said d'Artois. "There
+is something else, which is perhaps more relevant: the veiled Master,
+whom the guests of the garden regard with great reverence. Does that
+suggest anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does, and it doesn't," replied Farrell, "'Way back in my mind it's
+there, but I can't express it. And you, I fancy, are in about the same
+fix?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am," admitted d'Artois. "But before many days pass, we will pick up
+the trail. We will have this invisible wielder of an unseen scourge.
+Him, or his hide. But now get yourself some sleep, <i>mon ami</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell glanced at the door at his left.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right," assured d'Artois. "The ordeal is over. And what
+purpose did we serve, after all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Guess you're right, Pierre," assented Farrell. "Let's go."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="2_La_Dorada">2. <i>La Dorada</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Glenn Farrell was up at dawn. His carefully tiptoeing down the winding
+stairway of Pierre d'Artois' house, however, was wasted consideration.
+He found that gray-haired <i>ferrailleur</i> hunched over the littered desk
+of his study, fuming and muttering in a thick, foul cloud of smoke
+that momentarily became more dense as the cigarette between d'Artois'
+fingers added its stench of burning rags. The shining brass pot of
+Syrian workmanship, and half a dozen tiny cups, each with a thick
+residue of pulverized coffee grounds and cigarette stumps, indicated
+that the old man had been at work ever since they had left Antoinette
+Delatour some six hours ago.</p>
+
+<p>In the clear space in front of d'Artois was an open book whose pages
+were in illuminated Arabic script. Beside it were a pad of note-paper
+and a half-dozen loose sheets closely scribbled.</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre, why didn't you tell me you were going to carry on?" reproached
+Farrell as he drew up a chair. "This is really more my funeral than
+yours, getting Antoinette out of this terrible mess."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mordieu!</i>" exclaimed d'Artois. "This is work for a scholar, not a
+towering blockhead like yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all right, all right," said Farrell with a smile that for a moment
+cleared his features of the dismay and wrath of the preceding night.
+"Only, I can read that stuff myself, almost as well as you can." He
+scrutinized the book for a moment; then, indicating the title, he said,
+"<i>Siret al Haken</i>—how's that for a blockhead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," approved d'Artois. Then, with a wink and a grin, "And
+after all, perhaps I should not call you a blockhead, even though I do
+exceed you in intelligence and in skill with the sword."</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment after that time-honored raillery in which each
+reviled the other's talents, then continued, "But seriously, I have
+been pursuing some exceedingly roundabout speculations, and before I
+inflicted them on you, I wanted to study them out myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all right, then," agreed Farrell as he found a clean <i>demi-tasse</i>
+and poured some of the lukewarm, sirupy Turkish coffee with which
+d'Artois drugged himself during his midnight studies. "But I see no
+connection with the <i>Memoirs of Haken</i> and Antoinette's terrible
+predicament."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen then, I will enlighten you!" began d'Artois. "Mademoiselle
+Antoinette has been dreaming of a garden rich with roses, and lilies,
+and jasmine. It is alive with strangely colored birds. In fact, she
+described the very garden"—d'Artois indicated the page of Arabic
+script before him—"that Haken has so glowingly described: lovely girls
+playing the <i>sitar</i> and the <i>oudh</i>, and entertaining the guests of
+paradise with song and wine. And a veiled master who ruled the garden."</p>
+
+<p>"But what," demanded Farrell, "has that to do with those unmerciful
+beatings? How about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not say that I was working indirectly?" countered d'Artois. "The
+scourgings, you understand, did not come until later, after the dreams
+had recurred for some time. Therefore they must be but an indication of
+the gradual increase——"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the undoubted insanity of all three of us!" interpolated Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle Antoinette," declared d'Artois, ignoring his friend's
+outburst, "is not dreaming. She actually spends her nights in that
+devil's paradise. She awakes and tells us that she had another body;
+but her <i>self</i> retained its identity. I conclude then that her
+personality, her spiritual essence, whatever you will, is wandering,
+driven by some damnable compulsion to inhabit that garden, and a
+strange body."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell sighed wearily and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"This scrambling of selves and personalities is enough to drive one
+nutty. It doesn't make any sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, say you so?" murmured d'Artois as he reached for another
+cigarette. "My logic is scrambled, in that I have not attempted to show
+<i>how</i> this can be; but by assuming that it is, I get to the next point.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen somewhat further, yes? We have but to find that place which
+Antoinette's physical body, speaking like a Syrian dancing-girl, so
+graphically damned and called <i>junayn' ash-Shaytan</i>, Satan's garden.</p>
+
+<p>"There is such a garden at this moment in physical existence; or
+else there is one which, reaching out of the dimness of nine hundred
+departed years, is <i>en rapport</i> with Antoinette."</p>
+
+<p>"Hell's fire!" muttered Farrell. "The ghost of a garden haunting a
+woman in Bayonne, in 1933!"</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois tapped the cover of <i>Siret al Haken</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The author," he said, "tells of Hassan al Sabbah. <i>Shaykh al Djibal</i>,
+the Chief of the Mountains. The lord of the <i>Hashisheen</i>——"</p>
+
+<p>"I get it!" exclaimed Farrell. "The garden paradise into which
+hasheesh-drugged devotees were tossed while unconscious, so that when
+they awoke they would believe themselves to be in the Moslem heaven of
+cool water, beautiful women, and forbidden wine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely, my excellent blockhead! I drink to your wit!" said d'Artois
+with a smile that flashed over the edge of his cup of cold coffee.
+"And your Antoinette is bedeviled in some way by a garden like that
+of Hassan al Sabbah, the master of those assassins who terrorized all
+Syria and Persia, centuries ago."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell grimaced.</p>
+
+<p>"Worse and worse yet! Hasn't this old city of Bayonne got enough ghosts
+and devils in its own right, lurking under the blood-soaked foundations
+of the citadel, without importing them from Asia?" His eyes shifted to
+the clustered simitars and yataghans, kreeses and kampilans, darts and
+assegais that adorned the walls of the study. "Now if they were men, we
+might do something about it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have no fear on that score," assured d'Artois. "We find that every
+phantom as malignantly directed as this ghostly garden has a man
+pulling the strings—a flesh-and-blood man you can neatly riddle with
+bullets, or slice asunder with some of those toys up there on the wall."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell smiled grimly and took heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Reasonable, at that. And now, suppose that we drop in and see what
+Antoinette has to say about her newly acquired gift of Arabic speech.
+It took me several years to learn that fluently."</p>
+
+<p>"Barbarian!" scoffed d'Artois. "It is too early. You with your military
+hours——"</p>
+
+<p>"And you're another," countered Farrell. "Working the clock around. But
+see if you can persuade Félice to scramble some eggs, at least a pound
+of bacon, and perhaps a stack of waffles."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Magnifique!</i>" agreed d'Artois. "Some of those barbarous American
+customs of yours are not utterly vile. And since you so kindly sent me
+an electric waffle-iron, <i>à l'Américain</i>—but as a lover, you are most
+unconvincing! At six of the morning, you howl for food—utterly out of
+keeping! Romance is dead, slain by such as you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ghosts," submitted Farrell, "can not be fought on an empty stomach."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Breakfast stemmed Farrell's impatience for a while; but as they
+lingered over the brandy-laden coffee, he proposed again that they set
+out at once to call on Antoinette Delatour.</p>
+
+<p>"Or at least, let's stretch our legs and get the air. I'll be turning
+flip-flops if I don't get going."</p>
+
+<p>"The air, then," agreed d'Artois. "Look! It is but little past eight."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, d'Artois selected one of his collection of canes and led
+the way down the stairs of the restored ruin which served as his town
+house. The circular donjon dated back to the Thirteenth Century; the
+remainder, though not so ancient, was old when Columbus set sail; and
+the narrow street on which it faced was in accord with those far-off
+days, crooked, dingy, and paved with cobblestones. Yet, being in the
+heart of that colorful city which he loved so well, d'Artois was
+content, and with the modernization of the interior, he contrived to be
+comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>They strolled along the <i>quai</i> that follows the Nive to its junction
+with the Adour, then turned to the left toward Place du Théâtre. Before
+crossing the street that skirted the plaza, d'Artois paused a moment
+at the curbing to give the right of way to the glittering, costly
+Italian car which was approaching, presumably from the Biarritz road.
+The chauffeur and footman were in livery; and the crest on the door
+was one that d'Artois recognized as that of the Marquis des Islots.
+Farrell, however, being ignorant of heraldry, had eyes only for the
+passenger in the back seat: a dazzlingly beautiful girl whose costly
+furs and sparkling jewels betokened a background as golden as her hair.
+Her lovely features were drawn and weary, and her eyes haggard and
+blue-ringed.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, Pierre!" he exclaimed as he clutched his friend by the arm.
+"Did you see—for a moment I thought——"</p>
+
+<p>He blinked, passed his hand over his eyes, then sought to catch another
+glimpse of the beauty in the back seat.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you for a moment think?" wondered d'Artois, as the car
+rolled majestically toward the Mayou bridge. His voice was grave, but
+his blue eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was Antoinette," said Farrell, still perplexed. "Or else
+I'm seeing things!"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," said d'Artois reprovingly, as they crossed the street,
+"let Antoinette ever hear that you mistook La Dorada for her!" He shook
+his head in solemn warning. "Blasphemy, you understand. <i>Lèse majesté.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"But doesn't she——" began Farrell, his gray eyes still narrowed with
+perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly! She does just that," admitted d'Artois. "Antoinette has often
+been accosted at Biarritz and Santander by admirers of La Dorada.
+But on second glance, their error becomes apparent, unless they are
+strangers. A similarity of coloring, perhaps a likeness of posture or
+mannerism that would deceive one only for a moment, if one knew either
+woman well. Had you been able to look again—anyway, La Dorada is the
+current playmate of <i>Monsieur</i> the Marquis des Islots. She was in his
+car, and on her way to his château where she is spending the season.
+Doubtless she is returning from a night of baccarat or roulette at
+Biarritz."</p>
+
+<p>"Returning? At this hour?" wondered Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois smiled and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know La Dorada. She got the name in Madrid, where she was
+discovered by a café proprietor and sponsored by a grandee of Spain. La
+Dorada, the gilded, the golden."</p>
+
+<p>As they passed along the broad plaza, then to the left and up the slope
+of rue Port Neuf, d'Artois held forth at length concerning the colorful
+career of La Dorada who at first glance so strikingly resembled
+Antoinette Delatour.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of rue Port Neuf they turned to the left, past the old
+cathedral whose tall spires tower like silver lance-heads into the
+morning light, and ascended the incline to the broad drive that follows
+the parapet of the Lachepaillet wall.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Despite the barbarity of the hour, they found that Antoinette had
+disposed of her morning chocolate and rolls. She wore a negligée of
+jade chiffon whose curled ostrich trimming fluffed up about her ears
+and caressed the copper-golden hair that enhanced her resemblance to La
+Dorada. Her lips smiled, but her dark blue eyes were somber and haunted
+as she greeted Farrell and d'Artois.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Hélas!</i> It was worse than ever, last night," she replied, with a
+despairing gesture, to Farrell's solicitous inquiry. "But be seated,
+and I will tell you."</p>
+
+<p>She shifted her feet to make room for Farrell at the foot of the
+chaise-longue on which she reclined; then, as d'Artois drew up a chair,
+Antoinette continued, "It was terribly clear! Just fancy: my hair was
+jet-black, and so were my eyes. And my skin was as dark as an Arab's!
+They beat me most unmercifully ... as usual."</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered at the memory of the dream. D'Artois stared at the dainty
+feet and their turquoise and silver mules. As Antoinette was about to
+resume her remarks, he said abruptly, "In your dream, what have you
+been wearing? On your ankles, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>Antoinette closed her eyes for a moment to visualize her dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavy golden anklets set with massive uncut stones," she replied.
+"Emeralds, I think. But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Were they <i>very</i> heavy?" persisted d'Artois.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell regarded him curiously, wondering how adornments could be
+relevant to the case.</p>
+
+<p>"Terribly so!" assured Antoinette. Then, with a wan smile, "Only, I've
+become used to them."</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" commanded d'Artois, indicating the girl's ankles.</p>
+
+<p>"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Farrell, and frowned perplexedly. Then
+he glanced at his left hand and shifted the heavy signet on his finger.
+"Her ankles are marked just as my finger is by this heavy slug of a
+ring!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Voilà!</i> That further indicates an interchange of bodies during the
+night!" declared d'Artois. "As a Syrian dancing-girl you are beaten,
+and the welts appear on the body of Antoinette Delatour. And the heavy
+anklets of the Syrian girl mark your daytime body just as they leave
+prints on her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what else do you remember, <i>ma petite</i>? Your impressions become
+more distinct each time, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>? Your recollections——"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," she assented. "And last night—oh, I know I'm becoming
+utterly mad!—the veiled Master was accompanied by a man who walked
+through the garden with him."</p>
+
+<p>"And how," wondered d'Artois, "is that more peculiar than the rest of
+the dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Master's companion," replied Antoinette, "is the Marquis des
+Islots! <i>Mon Dieu</i>, is the whole city of Bayonne bound for this devil's
+garden?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" D'Artois started and glanced sharply at Antoinette, then at
+Farrell. "<i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> has been added to her dream. Do you see
+any connection?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," confessed Farrell. "After all this madhouse she's been
+through, might it not be a fancied recognition? Pure imagination?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i>" exclaimed d'Artois. "Would she not sooner imagine that she
+saw ibn Saoud, or Saladin? That would be more in keeping. <i>Diable!</i>
+Her seeing <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> is so wide of any fancy that I am now
+convinced that she is not dreaming."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, what's that?" demanded Farrell, aghast at the wildness of
+d'Artois' implication. "That it wasn't a dream? Good Lord, man——"</p>
+
+<p>The recurrent nightmare had driven Antoinette Delatour to the verge of
+distraction, so that d'Artois' contention did not amaze her as much as
+it did Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>," she sighed wearily, and took Farrell's hand. "It's all
+become such a terrific confusion ... I don't know who I am. Oh, how my
+poor back aches from that beating!"</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, my dear!" reassured d'Artois. "The enemy has slipped." Then,
+to Farrell, "<i>Allons!</i> Let us get to work at once. I have several of
+those hunches."</p>
+
+<p>"The quicker the better, Pierre," agreed Farrell. And as Antoinette's
+slender arms released him, he followed d'Artois down the stairs to the
+street.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="3_The_Hand_of_Hassan"><i>3. The Hand of Hassan</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Your task, my friend," began d'Artois as, back again at his house,
+they sat down to plan their campaign against the phantom garden, "will
+be to watch at the plaza. You will loaf, and drink an occasional
+<i>apéritif</i>, and smoke your way into the day. You may see nothing; but
+with time and patience your watch will have results. All of Bayonne
+passes the plaza, sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>"But what," wondered Farrell, "am I to look for?"</p>
+
+<p>"People who show signs of hasheesh intoxication, particularly Arabs or
+other Orientals," answered d'Artois. "You know the symptoms. You have
+seen enough <i>hasheeshin</i> in Egypt and Syria. I need not describe their
+manner, or peculiar stare. We are in search of addicts who in addition
+are fanatic Moslems. A slender clue at best, but while you pursue that,
+something else may happen.</p>
+
+<p>"And I, in the meanwhile, will be doing some private snooping
+of my own. This <i>Monsieur</i> the Marquis des Islots is due for an
+investigation. That one has an open reputation for dabbling in obscure
+arts, and not such a savory reputation either."</p>
+
+<p>"But," protested Farrell, "how do hasheesh addicts come into this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, I will enlighten you," began d'Artois. "We mentioned the
+Assassins, the followers of Hassan al Sabbah, the terrible Chief of
+the Mountains, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>? Those Assassins were of the fanatic
+Ismailian sect of Moslems. Those guests of the garden mentioned in
+this book"—d'Artois indicated <i>Siret al Haken</i>, lying open on the
+desk—"actually believed that their master had the power of admitting
+them to paradise for brief visits, at the end of which they were
+drugged, and dragged forth to awaken once more on earth, and ready for
+any infamy that might be demanded as the price of returning to the
+garden."</p>
+
+<p>"I have all that," admitted Farrell. "All right, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"The sect of the Ismailians," continued d'Artois, "was more than
+religious. It was political. Its members did not content themselves
+with theory. And if, as Antoinette's strange dreams indicate, we have a
+nest of Ismailians—that is, <i>hasheeshin</i>—to contend with, sooner or
+later one or more of them will be noted about town.</p>
+
+<p>"As for Antoinette, it is quite possible that she is, without being
+aware of it, <i>clairvoyante</i>. And thus <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> will bear
+investigation. Do you therefore stand watch as I directed, while I
+pursue some private snooping. <i>À bientôt!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Whereat d'Artois turned to his desk, leaving Farrell to go to the plaza
+and seek a table under the striped awning of the café.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Farrell was none too optimistic, but upon his arrival at Café du
+Théâtre he assumed an indolence that in any place but southern France
+would have seemed a pose. But in Bayonne the enjoyment of placid
+idleness is an ancient art: and thus it was eminently suitable for him
+to sit and watch the smoke spiralling from the cigarette that smoldered
+between his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>All of the Bayonnais, and all visitors, eventually pass the plaza:
+Portuguese and Spanish and Italian sailors, Arabs from Algiers and
+Morocco, Basques from the hills; English tourists on their way to the
+arcades of rue Port Neuf, where they found the only <i>épiceries</i> in
+Bayonne where they could buy Scotch whisky; peasants, loafers, soldiers
+on leave; quietly dressed and unpainted girls who had left behind them,
+in their rooms beyond the Nive, all the gauds and garniture of their
+profession. Costly imported cars flashed by, to cross Pont Mayou and
+Pont de Saint Esprit; ox-carts lumbered past, the drivers, arrayed in
+dingy smocks, trudging along and reviling their placid beasts. Bayonne
+marched by in review; and Farrell watched the parade.</p>
+
+<p>But despite his apparent idleness, Farrell's gray eyes were occupied
+with more than wisps of smoke, and the tall glass of <i>anis del oso</i>
+that sat on the marble-topped table before him. Without in the least
+shifting his slightly bowed head, he was peering between his drooping
+eye-lashes at the passers-by, and at the boulevardiers who like himself
+sat sipping the meridional <i>apéritif</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He was particularly interested in the trio that sat two tables to
+his right, where they could command a view of rue Port Neuf as well
+as the street that led to the Mayou bridge. They were swarthy and
+aquiline-featured. Two were Syrian Arabs; but the third, despite his
+dark skin and foreign air, was no Semite, but an Aryan: a Kurd from
+Kurdistan, one of those fierce mountaineers who in their native land
+are the terror of Turk and Persian alike. Yet the trio had kinship in
+at least one feature: the dilated pupils and the staring glassiness of
+their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As Farrell raised his glass and sniffed the odor of the cloudy drink,
+he smelled trouble as well as <i>anis del oso</i>. D'Artois' somber hints
+were having substantial realization. Farrell's first reaction was
+to loosen the pistol in his shoulder holster. The peculiar stare of
+their eyes convinced Farrell that he had picked up the trail of that
+which d'Artois felt would lead to the source of the bedevilment of
+Antoinette's nights.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell continued his apparent enjoyment of idleness. His broad
+shoulders slumped. He languidly passed his fingers through his sandy
+hair; but for all his efforts to maintain his poise, his long, lean
+frame was tense, and chills raced up and down his spine, despite the
+warmth of the day.</p>
+
+<p>He summoned the waiter and called for brandy.</p>
+
+<p>Then he noted that an exotic, imported car was coming to a smooth
+halt at the curbing. A footman in livery opened the door and stood at
+attention as a woman emerged from the rich upholstery and silver and
+cut glass of the town car that bore the crest of the Marquis des Islots.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell recognized the woman as La Dorada. He wondered, as he saw her
+step to the curbing, why a carpet had not been unrolled to keep her
+feet from the contamination of the paving. The scarcely perceptible
+breeze wafted a breath of perfume whose cost rumor had for once fallen
+short of exaggerating.</p>
+
+<p>La Dorada was passing the table of the trio from Asia. The one facing
+the Mayou bridge made a gesture. His lips moved. At that distance,
+Farrell could not hear what he said. La Dorada apparently paid no
+attention to the murmur. She was accustomed to whispered admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell ignored the warning of his intuition: it was too unbelievable
+and outrageous.</p>
+
+<p>Then it happened. The Kurd, who faced Farrell, leaped cat-like to his
+feet. A knife flashed in his hand. La Dorada started at Farrell's
+warning cry, and added her own note of dismay as she saw his hand with
+an incredibly swift gesture seek his armpit.</p>
+
+<p>"Smack-smack-smack!" roared the heavy automatic.</p>
+
+<p>The Kurd pitched backward to the paving, groaning and clutching his
+stomach.</p>
+
+<p>But even as Farrell drew and fired, the Syrian whose back had been
+turned to Farrell leaped from his place. And the knife he held found
+its mark, full in the breast of La Dorada.</p>
+
+<p>The pistol spoke, but too late. Even as the impact of the heavy slug
+bowled the Syrian over in a heap, his blade sank home.</p>
+
+<p>La Dorada screamed, reeled, and collapsed, clutching the dagger whose
+hilt projected beyond the blood-splashed fur collar of her coat.</p>
+
+<p>As he leaped forward, pistol in hand, Farrell knew that she would be
+beyond assistance. A shot at the survivor of the trio was impossible,
+and pursuit was futile. Waiters, patrons of the café, and passers-by
+clustered about the dying beauty. In the confusion Farrell heard the
+clash of gears and caught a glimpse of a car tearing madly down toward
+the road leading to Maracq.</p>
+
+<p>La Dorada moaned, and shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"Hassan——" she articulated with an effort. Then she coughed, and
+gasped. A red foam flecked her red lips.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The arrival of a pair of gendarmes, and, a few minutes later, a passing
+doctor, scattered the dense cluster of frantically gesticulating
+citizens.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monsieur</i>," said one of the gendarmes, who had seen Farrell holster
+his automatic, "be pleased to accompany us. Purely as a matter of form,
+you understand. It is plainly evident that that one——"</p>
+
+<p>He indicated the second of the assassins that Farrell's pistol fire
+had bowled over.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell shrugged. It would be awkward for a stranger in town to be
+dragged into the formalities of a police investigation; and doubly
+annoying in view of his having a serious problem of his own to handle.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, <i>monsieur</i>," agreed Farrell with a wry grimace.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw d'Artois emerge from the fringe of the crowd that still
+persisted, at a distance of several paces. He whispered in the ear of
+the gendarme—only a few words, but they sufficed.</p>
+
+<p>The gendarme turned from d'Artois to Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Your pardon, <i>monsieur</i>. You may call on us at your leisure. It was
+routine, you comprehend."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell in his turn bowed, and followed d'Artois to his car, eager to
+be clear of the plaza. And as they drove past the parkway that lies
+between the road to Maracq and the wall of Lachepaillet, Farrell gave
+his companion an account of the assassination.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sacré nom d'un nom!</i>" swore d'Artois at the conclusion of the
+narrative. "That is the technique of the Fifth Order of the Ismailians.
+They worked in threes, so that if the first and second were cut down,
+the third would nevertheless slay the victim.</p>
+
+<p>"They hunted Saladin seven hundred years ago. They slew Nizam ul Mulk.
+The Sultan of Cairo, Baibars the Panther, barely escaped them. They
+terrorized the Near East until Tamerlane in his wrath took by assault
+their almost impregnable castle of Alamut, tore it down stone by stone,
+and put to the sword 12,000 Ismailians. But the order persisted, though
+its power has been broken for these past five centuries, thanks to the
+savage efficiency of Tamerlane.</p>
+
+<p>"And I am thoroughly convinced," continued d'Artois, "that you
+witnessed a recrudescence of that plague which ate at the heart of
+the Moslem world for several centuries. They seem to be branching
+out again. Even as during the Crusades they assassinated Conrad of
+Montferrat, so are they again carrying secret war against the infidel."</p>
+
+<p>"But why," demanded Farrell, "did they strike La Dorada in the public
+square? They could have killed her stealthily. Even though they could
+not foresee that I would shoot two of them down in their tracks, the
+other spectators or the police might have killed or captured them."</p>
+
+<p>"You miss the point," declared d'Artois, "which is pardonable, since
+even your extensive travels in the Orient would not of necessity bring
+you into contact with the Ismailians. They killed her in public as an
+example to instill terror in others. It is a matter of history that
+Ismailian assassins were often ordered to slay a dignitary and to make
+no attempt at escape. In one case the slayer struck, then sat down and
+began eating his travel rations of bread and dates, calmly awaiting
+the guard that would drag him to the executioner and impalement on a
+sharpened stake. The besotted <i>hasheeshin</i> faced a horrible doom for
+the sake of re-entrance to the paradise with which their master duped
+them. The utter fearlessness and indifference to death and torture
+aroused more terror than the assassinations they perpetrated.</p>
+
+<p>"So much for the <i>fedawi</i>, or Devoted Ones, Ismailians of the Fifth
+Order. The first four orders were the Grand Master, the Grand Priors,
+and simple priors, or initiates; and then a grade known as <i>rafiqs</i>,
+or associates. These upper grades were intelligent persons who after
+sufficient study in the free-thinking, heretical doctrines of the
+Ismailians would be eligible for the highest offices in the Order.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ismailians became a state within a state; they undermined Persia
+and Syria, and for several centuries exacted tribute from sultans
+and emirs, with summary vengeance as the penalty of non-payment,
+very much," concluded d'Artois, with a malicious grin, "like those
+racketeers they have in your United States. That should make it clear!"</p>
+
+<p>"But how," wondered Farrell, "does Antoinette fit into all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"The companions and initiates of the Ismailians," replied d'Artois,
+"were adepts in alchemy, magic, conjuring, and occult arts. They used
+Islam as a mask for all manner of forbidden heresies and as bait to
+attract the pious oafs and religious fanatics who did the actual
+slaying and—how does one say it, <i>à l'Américain</i>?—and took the rap!</p>
+
+<p>"Maymun the Persian founded the order. A free-thinker, heretic, and
+magician, he fled from the wrath of the Khalif Mansur, with his son
+Abdallah, to whom he imparted all his vast knowledge of medicine,
+conjuring, and occultism. And Abdallah built up on this start by
+promising the return of the vanished Seventh Imam, who had never
+died, but who was waiting for the day to return and rule all Islam.
+They still wait for the return of Ismail, the Seventh Imam. And in
+the meanwhile, behold the deviltry with which they amuse themselves,
+bewitching Antoinette, slaying La Dorada—<i>le bon Dieu</i> can only say
+what will come next."</p>
+
+<p>They drew up at d'Artois' house as he concluded his refreshing of
+Farrell's memory on the origin of the menace that had taken root in
+Bayonne.</p>
+
+<p>"How about my watching the plaza?" wondered Farrell as Raoul admitted
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"You have watched enough," declared d'Artois. "In fact, you have made
+yourself so painfully conspicuous that from now on I will have to
+watch you more closely than Mademoiselle Antoinette, or you will be
+found full of daggers yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Nuts, Pierre!" protested Farrell. "I've been away from home before,
+and I'm used to being hunted."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, be on your guard," cautioned the old man.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="4_Shirkuh_Makes_Magic"><i>4. Shirkuh Makes Magic</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>That evening, after dinner, d'Artois' man, Raoul, entered the study
+with a large envelope that had just been delivered by a messenger.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois glanced at the large waxen seal that secured the flap.</p>
+
+<p>"The crest of <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i>," he observed. Then, with a wink
+and a grin at Farrell, he continued, "Like Satan in the first lines
+of the Book of Job, I wandered up and down the world, and in it,
+particularly at Biarritz, and somewhat about the estate of our good
+Marquis. But need I assure you that if my presence was noted, it was
+also amply accounted for? <i>Mais oui</i>, of a verity!"</p>
+
+<p>He slit the envelope and withdrew an engraved invitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Hmmm ... <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> requests the honor of my presence at a
+<i>soirée</i> at his château. The Thaumaturgical Order of Thoth is meeting
+in open conclave."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute," interrupted Farrell. "There's something fishy about
+this. La Dorada, his sweetheart, is murdered around noon. And now
+he sends you an invitation to—what was it?—some kind of juggler's
+convention. Anyway, it's utterly out of keeping. Not only inhumanly
+callous, but damned poor form; no matter what his private morals may
+be, a man of his station would have better manners!"</p>
+
+<p>"Granted," acquiesced d'Artois. "But consider: this thaumaturgical
+society may be depending upon the meeting-place designated, and can
+not postpone it for the sake of one man's grief. That there is such
+an order has been for some time an open secret. Then, he himself may
+be absent from the conclave, even though it assembled in his name. Or
+again," continued d'Artois, "it is even possible that Monsieur the
+Marquis does not know of La Dorada's death."</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd!" objected Farrell. "In a town this small——"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!" interrupted d'Artois. "Remember Antoinette's dream: the Marquis
+walked through the garden with the veiled Master. He may still be in
+that garden, not to emerge until the hour of the <i>soirée</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"By the rod, that's possible," agreed Farrell. "Since La Dorada was
+presumably killed by the Ismailians, the Marquis may be in their hands,
+dead, or a prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, as to this invitation," continued d'Artois, "it may be a device
+to exact vengeance for your excellent pistol practise. Their espionage
+would inform them that you, my friend and guest, would surely accompany
+me to the <i>soirée</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"But mark you this: they can scarcely know that your Antoinette could
+tell you of seeing the Marquis in the garden. That, you comprehend, is
+the information that ties the scattered ends together, and makes their
+otherwise subtle trap seem obvious to us.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, do we go and defy them, or shall we stay at home?"</p>
+
+<p>Farrell laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre, you're comical at times! We'll go, and be damned to them and
+their trap. We can shoot our way out of any handful of knife-artists
+they throw at us, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Is it that you are informing me?" scoffed d'Artois with a fierce
+gleam in his steel-blue eyes. "<i>Voilà</i>—have your choice of my
+arsenal," he said, gesturing at his collection of pistols, ranging
+from flintlocks and cap-and-ball antiques to heavy Colt revolvers and
+automatics. "And perhaps, since we shall be outnumbered, we might slip
+into those shirts of Persian chain-mail. They are not much heavier than
+a sweater, and so exquisitely forged as to be proof against knives and
+any but the heaviest pistols. <i>Parbleu</i>, we will attend that conclave!"</p>
+
+<p>After arraying themselves as d'Artois had suggested, they dressed for a
+formal evening affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Thaumaturgy ... thaumaturgy ..." muttered Farrell as they stepped into
+the Renault and d'Artois took the wheel. "Wonder, or miracle workers,
+what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," agreed d'Artois. "Jugglery, sleight of hand, trickery, but
+withal, an underlying substratum of fact that can not be dismissed.
+I myself have seen unbelievable things done by the adepts of Tibet.
+A corpse, <i>par exemple</i>, animated and made to dance by some devilish
+magic. The fact of my having been admitted to their inner circles in
+Tibet has in time leaked out; and it is to this that they would expect
+us to attribute my receiving tonight's invitation."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The château of the Marquis was out in the hills beyond the Mousserole
+Gate. It was perched on a knoll that commanded the surrounding country.
+Several cars were parked in a level space near the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems," observed Farrell, "that there are other guests, although
+that may or may not mean anything."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois presented his invitation to the butler.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monsieur le Chevalier</i> Pierre d'Artois," he intoned in impressive
+but oddly accented French. Then he glanced at Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois interposed and instructed the butler, who then announced
+Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>They advanced through the vestibule and thence into the salon, a
+vast, high-ceiled chamber illuminated by a pulsing bluish glow. The
+walls were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict with
+unsavory realism the grotesque imagery of Asian mysteries. At the
+far end of the salon was a dais flanked by tall tripod-censers whose
+pungent, resinous fumes made the air thick.</p>
+
+<p>The assembled guests were in formal evening dress. There were Spaniards
+with black mustaches, and Frenchmen with spade-shaped beards; and here
+and there Farrell saw lean, hawk-faced Arabs, and several distinctly
+Mongolian faces.</p>
+
+<p>"More guests than the number of cars would indicate," muttered Farrell,
+nudging d'Artois. "This is all very flossy, but I smell trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"And no Marquis," added d'Artois with a quick glance about the salon.
+Then he advanced to meet the man who seemed to be acting as host. After
+the exchange of a few words, d'Artois presented Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the conventional courtesies, Farrell appraised the
+master of the show. He was lean as a beast of prey, and as sleek.
+His moves and gestures had a cat-like grace, and his speech had the
+indefinable blur of accent that marks one who speaks many languages
+with equal ease.</p>
+
+<p>"And thus I have the honor," concluded the host, "of offering in the
+name of <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> his regrets and the hospitality of his
+house."</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a moment, regarding them with his intent, deep-set eyes;
+then with a gesture toward a row of chairs arranged before the dais,
+"Be pleased to seat yourselves, <i>messieurs</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell watched the broad shoulders and tall figure pass among the
+guests like a cat stalking through a jungle.</p>
+
+<p>"Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi," muttered Farrell. "Ought to be an
+honest fighting-man, but——"</p>
+
+<p>"'But' is correct," interrupted d'Artois. "There is nothing honest
+about that playmate of Satan. Mark my words, we shall see more of that
+gentleman, if we live long enough."</p>
+
+<p>As they seated themselves there was a clang of bronze, and the faint,
+muffled wailing of pipes and the whine of single-stringed <i>kemenjahs</i>
+from an alcove behind the arras. As the guests took seats, an attendant
+passed up and down the rows of chairs, offering small glasses of wine,
+and triangular pastries iced in curious designs.</p>
+
+<p>"On your life, don't eat it!" muttered d'Artois as he palmed a
+confection he had selected from the tray. "Drugged, there is no telling
+what may happen to your good sense. This is all damnably familiar."</p>
+
+<p>Another peal of bronze; then, as Shirkuh sprang effortlessly to the
+dais, the music dimmed to a sighing whisper, a sinister murmuring from
+outer darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Six lean, brown men, nude save for loin-cloths that glowed like golden
+flames in the spectral bluish light, emerged from an entrance concealed
+by the silver-embroidered arras, and filed across the hall toward the
+dais. Following them came four others, likewise arrayed, but blacker
+than any negroes Farrell had ever seen. They bore a litter on which lay
+a form whose gracious feminine curves were not entirely concealed by
+the silken, metallically glistening shroud.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" muttered Farrell. "A woman!"</p>
+
+<p>The brown-skinned sextet ascended the dais. The blacks followed with
+their burden. As they halted, two others emerged from the back-drapes
+of the dais, bringing with them wrought bronze trestles on which the
+litter was placed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Shirkuh took his post behind the litter as the sextet of adepts from
+High Asia seated themselves cross-legged in front of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Fellow thaumaturges," he began, "I, the least of your servants, beg
+leave to present a feat that has never been accomplished save in
+far-off Lhasa."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, smiled, and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured toward
+the shrouded form on the litter. An attendant gathered the silken folds
+and drew them aside.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell barely suppressed a gasp of horrified amazement.</p>
+
+<p>The woman on the bier was La Dorada. Her copper-golden hair flamed
+like living fire in the bluish-purple, pulsing light of the room. The
+hands, folded across her breast, sparkled with jewels. She had no other
+adornment or dress. La Dorada, the Golden, dead not over ten hours,
+and stripped of all but her exquisite beauty, lay exposed to the gaze
+of that assemblage of devil-mongers. For one terrible instant Farrell
+had thought that Antoinette lay on that bier; then he remembered her
+resemblance to the dead actress, and assured himself that Antoinette
+was and must be in her apartment on rue Lachepaillet, awaiting another
+night of fantastic dreams of an assassin's paradise, and the lashing of
+an invisible scourge.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monsieur le Marquis</i>," continued Shirkuh with a smile that flashed
+satanic mockery, "is unable to be with us. But I trust that that which
+I offer will be worthy of your presence."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" muttered Farrell. "I don't know the Marquis, but exhibiting her
+dead body here in his house—I've half a notion to start the show right
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois' fingers closed about Farrell's right wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Imbécile!</i> This infamy is none of your business. Tend to your own
+sheep."</p>
+
+<p>Shirkuh nodded and made a gesture. The faint, whimpering music became
+louder. Among the plucked strings of <i>sitar</i> and <i>oudh</i> Farrell could
+distinguish the notes of a wind instrument that was a mockery of a
+woman's voice. The drums muttered and purred in complex rhythm.</p>
+
+<p>The adepts were swaying from their hips, and making statuesque passes
+and gestures that resembled an animation of the figures of Egyptian
+sculpture. Their glassily staring eyes shifted in regular cadence to
+follow their darting finger tips. They were as revivified corpses that
+had not yet gained full control of their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>Then they lifted their voices in a chant like the wailing of ghouls
+imprisoned in a looted tomb; dead brazen faces chanting to the dead.
+And Shirkuh, arms extended, made antiphonal responses in a voice that
+surged and thundered like a distant surf.</p>
+
+<p>The notes of that diabolical wind instrument behind the arras became
+more and more like the voice of a woman: a mellow sweetness against a
+background of sepulchral wailing and the solemn intonation of Shirkuh.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, Pierre, that's awful!" muttered Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until it fairly starts," countered d'Artois in a whisper. "This
+is primitive magic. Very primitive, but deadly. They are imitating that
+which they design to accomplish.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pardieu</i>, hear that damnable pipe—<i>her</i> very voice, now. They
+imitate in music and symbolize in their chant the triumph of the dead
+as they return from Beyond."</p>
+
+<p>That satanically sweet voice was now almost articulate. Farrell
+strained his ears as he leaned forward, clutching the arms of his
+chair. He sought to distinguish the words that it spoke. And then
+another instrument came into play: a hoarse, reverberant roaring like
+the lustful bellowing of pre-Adamite monsters. The hall trembled with
+that terrific bestial blast.</p>
+
+<p>The fumes of the censers were swirling and twining like fantasmal
+serpents in the ghastly blueness, weaving arabesques, spiralling
+in vortices, gathering about that hellish sextet and its leader
+like shapes from beyond the border clamoring at the periphery of a
+necromancer's pentacle.</p>
+
+<p>A luminous haze was gathering and drawing to itself the censer fumes.
+The nebulous iridescence pulsed and quivered like a sentient thing.
+It throbbed with the slow, persistent beat of a turtle's heart after
+it has been removed from the body. It elongated; then as it slowly
+settled, that amorphous luminescence took shape: the graceful form of
+La Dorada.</p>
+
+<p>The pipe that mimicked a woman's voice was articulating now in unison,
+joining the necromancer's antiphonal answer to the chanting adepts and
+the minotaurean bellowing of that monstrous horn.</p>
+
+<p>The master had called her, and she was there.</p>
+
+<p>The phantom presence slowly merged with the nacreous body of La
+Dorada. The dead woman shivered for a moment, extended her shapely
+arms, sat erect on the bier. Her cry was a mingling of exultation and
+bewilderment; then she accepted the hand that Shirkuh offered her, and
+splendid in her unclad beauty, sprang gracefully to the dais.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt="">
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p>"<i>The dead woman shivered for a moment, then sat erect on the bier.</i>"</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>The music and the chanting and the bestial roaring of that terrific
+horn had ceased. The assembled thaumaturges sat fixed and staring as
+though their life and their spiritual essence had been torn from them
+and given to the dead who saluted them with a gesture and a bow.</p>
+
+<p>Shirkuh smiled triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen, Brethren. I called her and she came. And I am but
+Shirkuh, the least of the slaves. See, she is alive, with the warmth
+and beauty that at noon of this very day was a coldness, and a sister
+of the dust."</p>
+
+<p>The red-gold head inclined in affirmation, and her smile was a slow,
+curved sorcery.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, that's the awfulest blasphemy!" muttered Farrell. "Or is it
+an illusion?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is all too real," whispered d'Artois.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>And then she spoke: "I have come back from the shadows and from the
+blackness of death. I have come to greet you and to say that there is
+a Garden to which I must soon return. And those who meet me there need
+not ever think of farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"I came from across the narrow bridge, and back across it I must go.
+Yet not this time to any blackness, but to the Garden, to be the Bride
+and the reward and the welcome of those who believe. Oh, <i>Fedawi</i> ...
+Devoted Ones...."</p>
+
+<p>La Dorada, lovely in death, and more alluring than ever in life: yet a
+cold horror clutched Farrell as he heard that dead woman's caressing
+voice entrance the thaumaturges with promises that no human woman
+could fulfill or even imagine. Her voice was a poison sweetness, a
+full-throated richness that pronounced the beguilements of Lilith
+chanting to the Morning Star.</p>
+
+<p>"Death so loved me that he has allowed me to leave," she said in that
+wondrous voice that had made her the darling of Paris. And then her
+exultant tones became a poignant sorrow as she continued, "But the
+beloved of death must return...."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i> That is a foulness beyond mention!" growled d'Artois. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go! Before we go utterly mad——"</p>
+
+<p>He leaped to his feet and thrust back his chair. And as Farrell
+followed, he expected at any instant a fanatical outburst, the flash
+of blades, the crackle of pistols. But the thaumaturges sat like the
+ancient dead awaiting the newly died.</p>
+
+<p>La Dorada was ascending the bier. Her motions were graceful, but very
+slow, as though the animation was being drained from her body. She was
+dying a second time.</p>
+
+<p>This as they paused at the threshold for a backward glance; then,
+advancing, Farrell and d'Artois sighed deeply, and strode to the
+Renault. The hideous life-like unreality had dazed them.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dieu de Dieu!</i>" muttered d'Artois as he glanced at Farrell's lean,
+drawn features, and shoulders drooping as though from the weight of the
+Persian mail they had so needlessly worn. "What did that blasphemous
+monster want with us? Did he hope to drive us to madness?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Farrell wearily. "He was mocking us. Certainly he didn't
+withhold his cutthroats because he was afraid to try."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The long beam of the headlights swept the château, then picked up the
+winding road as the car headed back toward the city. D'Artois sat
+hunched behind the wheel. Farrell shivered at the memory of that
+ghastly loveliness that had greeted them from the grave.</p>
+
+<p>"I know she was dead," reiterated Farrell. "She couldn't have been
+alive. Not with that dagger I saw jammed into her breast this
+afternoon. But why did he invite you? What everlastingly damned
+mummery—there's something behind all this—she's going to greet them
+in the Garden and there will be no farewell—was that all illusion,
+or——"</p>
+
+<p>Farrell slumped back against the cushions and made a gesture of
+bewilderment and futility.</p>
+
+<p>They left the river road, passed through the Mousserole Gate, and
+threaded their way through the unsavory quarters between there and the
+Nive. As they crossed the first of the seven bridges that span the
+river, d'Artois suddenly jerked back from his crouch behind the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nom de Dieu!</i>" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell, aroused by the note of alarm, glanced at his companion and saw
+that the horror on his face was in keeping with the consternation in
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>The car leaped forward as d'Artois stepped on the accelerator.</p>
+
+<p>"Death and damnation!" he shouted above the full-throated roar of the
+motor. "We sat there like dummies. <i>That</i> is what he wanted!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" demanded Farrell, tense, and alarmed by d'Artois' contagious
+excitement. A sudden fear seized him.</p>
+
+<p>"A trap. Not for your worthless head nor mine, but for her!
+Thaumaturgy! If there is but one greater damn fool than Glenn Farrell,
+it is Pierre d'Artois!"</p>
+
+<p>They passed the plaza, and with a screech of brakes slowed down enough
+to make the turn at rue Port Neuf. Then up rue d'Espagne, around the
+hairpin turn, and thence down the street along the city wall. Again the
+brake linings smoked their wrath and squealed their protest. Fuming
+and cursing in a high rage, d'Artois leaped to the curbing, dashed up
+the steps, and pounded Antoinette Delatour's door with the butt of his
+pistol.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?</i>" cried the terrified, bewildered maid.</p>
+
+<p>"Flames and damnation! Open, quick!" demanded d'Artois. "<i>C'est moi!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"But she is sleeping," protested the maid, still half asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Hasten, then. If she sleeps, wake her—is she indeed——"</p>
+
+<p>And as the door yielded, d'Artois, pistol in hand, charged up the
+stairs, taking them three at a time. Farrell was but a jump behind him.</p>
+
+<p>They pounded on Antoinette's door. No response.</p>
+
+<p>"The key——" began d'Artois.</p>
+
+<p>But Farrell stepped back, gathered himself, and charged the door. It
+resisted the shock; but a second assault burst it open, tearing the
+lock from its socket.</p>
+
+<p>The floor of Antoinette's room was covered with fallen plaster. Her bed
+was empty. A hole two feet square yawned in the ceiling. The turquoise
+and silver slippers mocked them.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone!" muttered Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"While we sat there ready for an ambush that didn't materialize," added
+d'Artois.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell turned to the door. D'Artois seized him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tenez!</i> If you are going to tear the château to pieces," he said,
+"spare yourself the trouble. They have taken her elsewhere. No effort
+was made to detain us when we left because none was necessary. And they
+will not be at the château, not any of them."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell's eyes were cold as sword-points as they flashed back again to
+the empty, canopied bed. Then the slaying rage left him.</p>
+
+<p>"Right, Pierre," he admitted. "It's your move. With some head-work."</p>
+
+<p>"Head-work, indeed!" retorted d'Artois with a bitter, mordant laugh.
+"It was my head-work that led to this. We should have watched her."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="5_Ibrahim_Khan"><i>5. Ibrahim Khan</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Now, where do we start?" demanded Farrell the following morning, as
+he tasted the strong coffee that was to banish the remains of the
+nightmarish sleep from which sunrise had awakened them. "You've got the
+<i>Sûreté</i>—that's what you call your detective bureau, isn't it?—on
+the trail. But there's a lot of this that no honest policeman could
+swallow."</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed a madhouse," admitted d'Artois. "But let us sum up for
+a moment: Antoinette is evidently <i>en rapport</i> with some one in that
+Garden; some one with whom she identifies herself, and whose savage
+beatings in some way leave marks on Antoinette's body.</p>
+
+<p>"By means of clairvoyance or other unusual perception, she recognized
+the Marquis in her dream garden, her description of which tallies
+closely with the traditional paradise devised by the higher Ismailians
+for the deluding of their fanatical assassins.</p>
+
+<p>"Assassins operating very much like the <i>fedawi</i> of five centuries ago
+murdered La Dorada, the sweetheart of the Marquis. La Dorada bears a
+marked resemblance to Antoinette, though far from enough to make her a
+double, except under the most favorable conditions.</p>
+
+<p>"The terribly resurrected La Dorada last night spoke of a Garden. And
+the dying La Dorada pronounced the name Hassan just before she expired
+in the plaza. Through the whole chain of horror and deviltry, we see a
+continuous linkage of the Ismailians and the <i>hasheeshin</i> of accursed
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Antoinette," continued d'Artois, "must in some way be involved in a
+mesh of necromancy and murder that hinges on her resemblance to La
+Dorada. It is not impossible that she was kidnapped to double for La
+Dorada in that accursed Garden.</p>
+
+<p>"And finally," concluded d'Artois, "this society of thaumaturges, which
+has made such overgrown fools of us, is obviously allied to or even
+an integral part of the society of Ismailians and its higher orders,
+adepts, occultists, necromancers, and devil-mongers of all degrees."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that you've summed it up, what are we going to do?" reiterated
+Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"You will take the trail at once," replied d'Artois.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell brightened perceptibly at the hint of direct action.</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot," he said bruskly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mais non</i>," countered d'Artois, "it is you who will shoot if my plan
+is right. You are deft at disguise, and you speak several Oriental
+languages like a native."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois paused, intently studied the lean, bronzed features of his
+friend, and his cold gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"An Arab," he muttered. "Possible, but not so good. A Kurd ... yes,
+that would be better."</p>
+
+<p>"Wrong!" contradicted Farrell. "There were some Kurds at the château
+last night, notably that hell-hound of a Shirkuh. And the first of the
+assassins I shot down in the plaza was a Kurd. Too many of them in the
+picture. I might be tripped on their dialect."</p>
+
+<p>"An Afghan, then," compromised d'Artois. "They are Aryans, and our
+blood brothers, those Afghans. You will loiter around the waterfront. I
+will warn the <i>Sûreté</i> to arrest you at times, but to release you for
+lack of evidence; so be careful not to be too brazen in building up a
+local background of feuds and slayings to substantiate your supposed
+reason for having left your native hills.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a slim chance; but it is possible that you will stumble across
+some Ismailian who will favorably mark your possibilities. In the
+meanwhile, I will keep in touch with you as much as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"But remember, one false move will betray your mission. And the first
+warning you will receive will be a dagger jammed very deeply into your
+back. You are flirting with sudden death the moment you leave this
+house."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>That afternoon Farrell lurched from a doorway that the most vivid
+imagination could not have associated with the house of Pierre
+d'Artois. The shape of his eyebrows had been changed by judicious
+plucking. His hair had been dyed, and the cut of his mustaches altered.
+Tenacious, finely powdered pigments had been rubbed into his eyelids
+and about his eyes so as to change their expression: all trifles,
+yet the total effect, aided by the drunken swagger, the gestures,
+the reek of <i>'araki</i> and foreign tobacco, was that Glenn Farrell had
+disappeared, and that a hard, haggard, quarrelsome Afghan sobering
+up from a spree strode muttering down rue Saint Augustin, and thence
+toward the <i>quai</i> along the Adour.</p>
+
+<p>He found fishing-vessels, tramps from Algiers, and a <i>zaroug</i> that had
+sailed all the way from the Red Sea with its crew of stout Danakils.
+Husayn, its <i>nakhoda</i>, was a lean, grizzled Arab whose manner suggested
+pearl-poaching, smuggling, or slave-running from the Somali Coast to
+Arabia, with piracy thrown in for good measure.... Husayn spoke of his
+health, which forbade further traffic on the Red Sea....</p>
+
+<p>There was a Levantin, oily and cringing, who peddled narcotics....</p>
+
+<p>There were brawls along the waterfront. No true Afghan would or could
+abstain. A fight was a fight.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon the waterfront boasted a new character, a quarrelsome Afghan,
+drunken, bawdy, stranded, swearing loudly by the honor of the Durani
+clan, and ready for any skulduggery. Ibrahim Khan, they called him.</p>
+
+<p>Once in a while some whining cadger of drinks would mutter as Ibrahim
+Khan reviled him and tossed him a franc. That was a member of the
+<i>Sûreté</i> giving, and receiving, the lack of news that is falsely said
+to be good news. Sometimes it was warning, but never encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>The quarter of the city that lies between the Nive and the Mousserole
+Wall is so disreputable that during the war it was out of bounds for
+soldiers. It is a district of narrow, dingy streets, dirty cafés,
+bawdy-houses of the lowest order; it abounds in cheap wine, cheaper
+women, and all the scum and riffraff of a polyglot border-and-seaport
+town.</p>
+
+<p>While the upper stratum of the enemy was doubtless of high degree, the
+foundation layer would be in the mire. The underworld of France would
+furnish its quota for the lower order of assassins. The master mind
+needed dirty tools for dirty work; and here, among the thieves, pimps,
+cutthroats of beyond the river, the trail might be picked up.</p>
+
+<p>Ibrahim Khan sat in one of the dingiest of those unsavory resorts,
+muttering in Pushtu and Arabic and broken French, alternately gross
+and poetic as he courted the attention of Marcelle, the barmaid whose
+coarse, buxom loveliness drew trade for all departments of the house.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"Tie your husband to a rope, Bimbar,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Tie the rope to a tree;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Throw the tree in the river, Bimbar,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And come to your lover."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thus he chanted in amorous, wine-muddled accents, the whole stanza
+in one breath, and, in the Afghan fashion, ending in a high-pitched,
+gasping cry, a full octave higher.</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not understand the words; but there was one sitting in the
+corner who did.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my brother," he murmured, and spat contemptuously, "are such as
+that sister of pigs fit for the pride of the Durani clan?"</p>
+
+<p>Ibrahim Khan's hand flashed to the hilt of one of the knives that
+bristled in his belt. But before he could draw, the thin-faced man
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Put that knife away, brother," he said. "I have news for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" interrogated Ibrahim Khan a little less belligerently. "Out
+with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, softly," murmured the stranger. Ibrahim Khan had never seen
+him along the waterfront, or in the Mousserole quarter. "I am Nureddin.
+I have been interested in your handiness in certain matters ... and
+Husayn, the <i>nakhoda</i>, speaks well of you——"</p>
+
+<p>"He should, Allah blacken him!" admitted Ibrahim Khan, who under his
+layer of grime was Glenn Farrell, trembling with eagerness to follow
+up what he sensed was the first open move to take the bait he had so
+patiently and thus far vainly offered the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"There are women," continued Nureddin, "lovelier than the brides of
+paradise."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell laughed contemptuously, and made an insulting remark that left
+little doubt as to his opinion of Nureddin's profession: but that was
+to play his part as a truculent Afghan.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, by Allah!" protested Nureddin with a good-humored laugh. "It is
+not what you think. Follow me, if you have courage."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell scrutinized Nureddin for an instant. Whatever game Nureddin
+might be playing, it would certainly not be for small counters. Then
+Farrell, still feigning skepticism, drew from the pocket of his grimy,
+ill-fitting suit a small pouch, hefted it so that the gold it contained
+clinked softly. He tossed the money to Marcelle.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ya</i> Nureddin, I will fight as eagerly for my naked hide as for a
+pouch of gold. Now if you still want me to meet your friends, I will
+entertain them royally, <i>inshallah</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Nureddin smiled and stroked his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"By Allah, O Afghan, you are suspicious. Follow me."</p>
+
+<p>"Lead on," agreed Farrell.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He followed Nureddin to the street and thence to an alley so narrow
+that with his outstretched arms he could at the same time touch the
+buildings on both sides: and the narrowness was exceeded only by the
+stench. Nureddin halted at the end of the alley. A heavy, iron-bound
+door barred further progress.</p>
+
+<p>"From here you must go blindfolded," said Nureddin.</p>
+
+<p>"By your beard!" mocked Farrell as his hand flashed into view with a
+pistol whose cavernous muzzle gaped ominously. "Perhaps you would like
+to bind my hands also? Now, forward! Or I will blow thy teeth right and
+left ... if it so please Allah," he concluded piously.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire!" retorted Nureddin. "The Master would give me a less pleasant
+death for disobeying his orders."</p>
+
+<p>In the moonlight Farrell could see the perspiration that glittered on
+Nureddin's forehead; but he did not flinch.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>La, billahi!</i>" ejaculated Farrell after a moment. "Were there a blood
+feud between us, I would. But as it is——" He shrugged, holstered his
+pistol, and turned, to stalk down the narrow alley.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell was certain, now, that he was on the right trail. But since
+spies are notoriously eager to agree to anything and everything to gain
+admittance to forbidden doors, Farrell had to play the blustering,
+alternately suspicious and fool-hardy Afghan. He swaggered away in his
+lordly fashion, presenting his back as a fair target for hurled knife,
+or pistol fire.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ya</i> Ibrahim!" protested Nureddin. "Be reasonable. <i>He</i> ordered. It is
+on my head——"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i>, whoever he is," retorted Farrell, "may then seek me himself and
+I will induce him to change his rules. <i>Wallah!</i> And your head, that is
+no more than a ball to play with!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, have it your own way," agreed Nureddin resignedly as Farrell
+again turned. Then he clapped his hands sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell sensed his danger; but before he could whirl and draw,
+something soft and clinging enveloped him. It was a net whose fine,
+stout silken cords bound his limbs and entangled him.</p>
+
+<p>"God, by the Very God, by the One True God!" he swore, struggling
+with the soft, relentless thing that enmeshed him like a monstrous
+spider-web, and seeking to draw a knife. "Pig and father of pigs!"</p>
+
+<p>Something emerged from the shadow of the pilaster that buttressed the
+wall. Farrell dropped flat, still striving to extricate himself and
+tackle his enemy. He secured a footing and leaped up, butting his
+shoulder with a terrific jolt into his enemy's stomach.</p>
+
+<p>A grunt and a gasped curse. A warning cry from Nureddin. The knife in
+Farrell's hand slashed a dozen meshes in the net. Then, before he could
+follow up and extricate himself, a form dropped from a window directly
+above, driving him flat against the paving. His knife dug vainly
+between the cobblestones. He recovered, thrust upward....</p>
+
+<p>Smack! Something hard and heavy and swiftly moving swept his senses
+away as he felt his blade bite home.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/cover2.jpg" alt="">
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="6_Satans_Garden"><i>6. Satan's Garden</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The slow, steady drip-drip-drip of water dropping against stones crept
+into Farrell's consciousness and finally became an impression distinct
+from the trip-hammer throbbing of his battered head. He stirred, and
+found that he was not bound. The holster under his left arm was empty.
+One of his knives, however, remained.</p>
+
+<p>"If they wanted my hide, they could have taken it in the alley," he
+reflected as he pieced together his recollections of the encounter. "So
+far, it looks as if I've got 'em fooled."</p>
+
+<p>Then, in Arabic, "<i>Aie</i> ... my head! O dogs and sons of dogs, come out
+and fight! <i>Ya</i> Nureddin, thou son of a strumpet, thou uncle of camels!
+Thou eater of unclean food!"</p>
+
+<p>The cell echoed with his bellowing. As he paused for breath, he reeled,
+clutched at the wall from whose base he had arisen, and supported
+himself. A torch flared smokily in the distance, from its sconce in the
+wall of the passage that opened into his cell.</p>
+
+<p>"Father of many pigs!" he stormed as he kicked the iron grillework that
+barred his advance, and rattled the chain and lock that secured the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>The clattering and jangling finally drew a protest from beyond
+Farrell's field of vision. Then a fat, white-bearded fellow with bleary
+eyes and a bloated, sottish face emerged from a cross passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence a moment!" he croaked as he took the torch from its sconce and
+advanced toward the grille.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring me that dog of a Nureddin!" raged Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing at a time," replied the warden. "Calm down and I'll promise
+you action."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well, then," agreed Farrell. "Lead on, Uncle."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle drew a pistol and, keeping Farrell covered, unlocked the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, wild man, forward!" he ordered. "And no false moves."</p>
+
+<p>The slimy, glistening sides of the passage indicated that they were far
+beneath the surface of the city; perhaps in that labyrinth of vaults
+and connecting tunnels of which local tradition has murmured darkly and
+vaguely. Although his head ached from contact with material weapons
+wielded by physical enemies, Farrell shuddered at the evil that brooded
+about that archaic masonry and muttered of that which had emerged to
+defile the dead with obscene necromancies, and torment the living with
+monstrous hallucinations that came in the guise of dreams. The aura of
+age-old menace overpowered the terror of the Ismailian assassins.</p>
+
+<p>"To your left," commanded the warden.</p>
+
+<p>As Farrell rounded the turn, he saw ahead of him a glow of light and
+smelled the heavy, lingering fumes of incense. An Arab, and a bearded
+man whose race he could not determine, stood watch at the farther
+archway. Their hands rested on their belts, ready to draw knife or
+pistol. Their eyes stared fixedly from immobile features. They were
+drugged, or entranced: and Farrell shivered at the necessity of
+convincing himself that they were not dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Pass on," commanded the warden as Farrell hesitated at the threshold.
+"The Master, our lord Hassan, will receive you."</p>
+
+<p>The lord Hassan—the one whose name the dying La Dorada had with her
+last breath pronounced. She had known who had ordered her death.</p>
+
+<p>A thrill of exultation was mingled with the flash of dread that
+assailed Farrell as he stepped into the reception hall of Hassan, that
+slayer of women and master of necromancers.</p>
+
+<p>The room was long and narrow, and sweltering in a red glow of light. A
+Persian carpet ran down the center toward the divan in an arched alcove
+at the farther end. A man wearing a silken kaftan sat cross-legged
+among heaped cushions. His face was veiled, but his fierce eyes,
+smoldering in their deep sockets, were more menacing for being all that
+was visible.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell halted midway between the alcove and the entrance. From the
+corner of his eye he saw a row of men, dressed in European clothes,
+sitting cross-legged along the wall on either side of him. Their arms
+were crossed on their breasts, and their eyes stared as glassily as
+those of the guards at the entrance. They were drugged, or deep in a
+hypnotic trance.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell offered the peace.</p>
+
+<p>"No peace and no protection, ya Ibrahim," responded Hassan, "until we
+have made a test of you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tawil ul 'Umr</i>," demanded Farrell with a touch of respect such as
+even a blustering Afghan would concede an old man; "Prolonged of Life,
+how am I to be tested?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man reflected for a moment. His glittering eyes narrowed to
+slits.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, can you obey as well as slay?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know, Prolonged of Life?" proposed Farrell. "By your
+beard, I have never tried obedience. I am of the Durani clan."</p>
+
+<p>"You will learn," said Hassan. "I will set you an example." He glanced
+to his left and clapped his hands. "Asad!" he called sharply.</p>
+
+<p>One of the staring figures rose from his place along the wall. He moved
+as one receiving will and animation from some external source.</p>
+
+<p>"Harkening and obedience, <i>ya sidi</i>!" he acknowledged as he halted
+before the dais.</p>
+
+<p>"Your canjiar," murmured Hassan.</p>
+
+<p>The curved blade flashed from its sheath.</p>
+
+<p>"That knife is your gate to Paradise, <i>ya</i> Asad," said Hassan in his
+gentle, purring voice. Yet beneath its suggestion Farrell sensed a
+relentless command.</p>
+
+<p>Asad inclined his head as he touched his fingertips to his forehead,
+his lips, and his breast. A pause—the blade flashed again as Asad
+thrust it full into his own chest. He stood for a moment fingering the
+hilt; then he tottered and sank to the tiles, to relax and lie sprawled
+face down in the dark pool that slowly spread across the paving.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell knew that beneath his grimy skin his cheeks were bloodless. It
+was horrible to see even a <i>hasheeshin</i> spill his life carelessly as
+a glass of wine to humor that old man who peered over the edge of his
+veil.</p>
+
+<p>"There, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim, is obedience."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell collected his courage and demanded boldly, "And why should any
+man yield such obedience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," came the reply, "I am the keeper of the gateway. He is even
+now in Paradise, and exempt from any recall."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell grimaced.</p>
+
+<p>"No more than any true believer gains for slaying an infidel," he
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"You will enter the Garden, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim," murmured Hassan, "and see
+for yourself. Then you may accept or reject."</p>
+
+<p>To the Garden! There, unless all d'Artois' deductions were wrong, he
+would find Antoinette. But Farrell restrained his eagerness, and
+pondered a moment, as became the rôle he played.</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready, Prolonged of Life," he finally replied, as he advanced a
+pace.</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, softly," said Hassan. "Are you armed?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ay, wallah!</i>" replied Farrell, drawing his remaining knife.</p>
+
+<p>Hassan again clapped his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ya</i> Suleiman! Yusuf!"</p>
+
+<p>Two rose from the ranks and approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Harkening and obedience, my lord," they said as they bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"This one claims to be a man of valor, O Devoted Ones!" said Hassan.
+"Draw!"</p>
+
+<p>Their blades were drawn as one. The slayers stood like panthers poised
+and ready to close in on their prey. Their eyes glowed in the red
+glare like beasts lurking in the shadows beyond a fire. Slaves to the
+mesmeric power of Hassan, and to the hypnotic hasheesh, they were men
+in form only.</p>
+
+<p>Hassan glanced at Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"You may decline without penalty or dishonor," said the old man. "You
+are free, and owe us no obedience."</p>
+
+<p>"They are your men, <i>ya sidi</i>," replied Farrell with a shrug. "If you
+can spare them."</p>
+
+<p>The old man chuckled, and his eyes for a moment smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Strike!" he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>They paused for an instant before closing in. One of them, Farrell was
+certain, would go down before his first thrust, but the other would
+slay him. Farrell's success depended upon finesse. He shifted his feet
+as if to test the footing. He glanced over his shoulder as if to assure
+himself that he had room to retreat. All in a flash: and then they
+sprang, blades thirsty and a-glitter.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell's leap took him to the left instead of to the rear. He dropped
+his knife and snatched the wrist of the nearest enemy, who, missing
+his quarry, plunged forward abreast of his comrade.</p>
+
+<p>His own momentum was his ruin. There was the snap of a breaking bone,
+and Yusuf pitched in a heap before the dais. And Farrell, picking his
+knife from the tiles, confronted Suleiman, who despite his fanatic
+frenzy was profiting by Yusuf's mishap.</p>
+
+<p>They circled, feinting and thrusting, seeking to shake each other's
+guard. Suleiman avoided Farrell's efforts to close in to make it a test
+of strength. Nor would rushing in to exchange thrusts suffice: for
+if they slew each other, the Master would still not have the test he
+ordered. They wove in and out, shifting and side-stepping, each seeking
+an opening in the other's defense.</p>
+
+<p>Then Farrell made a desperate feint at his enemy's throat. As
+Suleiman's blade rose to parry, Farrell evaded, and stretched out in
+a full lunge, point forward and arm extended as with a rapier. The
+unexpected play caught Suleiman off guard. His downward thrust came
+an instant too late: Farrell's knife sank to the hilt in the enemy's
+stomach, ripping upward.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Farrell, bleeding from the cut on his shoulder, emerged from the
+engagement empty-handed as Suleiman collapsed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim!" approved Hassan. Then he smote a gong beside
+the dais.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ya</i> Musa! Abbas! Khalil!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>A panel opened at right of the dais, and three tall negroes entered.
+They made no expressions of obedience; only the inarticulate gurglings
+of those whose tongues have been removed.</p>
+
+<p>Hassan indicated the two dead, and the one whose arm was snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"To the black pool with them. All three!" Then, as two stepped forward
+to execute the command, Hassan spoke to the third: "Take our new
+aspirant, Ibrahim, to the Garden."</p>
+
+<p>Musa bowed, and at the Master's gesture of dismissal, led Farrell
+into a dimly lighted room which was arranged after the fashion of a
+<i>majlis</i>, or reception hall of an Arabian house.</p>
+
+<p>A narrow divan extended the full length of the wall. At the end
+farthest from the entrance were the customary coffee hearth and
+polished brass pots. And save for those, and the cushions and rugs with
+which the divan was covered, there were no furnishings.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell noted that he was not alone. Those who lay sprawled on the
+divan were, apparently, likewise to visit the Garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead-drunk ... drugged ... or spies to watch me," reflected Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>Musa, who after indicating that Farrell was to seat himself, had left,
+presently returned with a tray on which was a goblet and flagon. These
+he set on a small tabouret, bowed, and left Farrell to refresh himself.</p>
+
+<p>The proof of hand-to-hand fighting had been severe enough; but the
+flagon of wine, fragrant but reeking of hasheesh, represented a more
+subtle and dangerous test. If under the influence of the drug Farrell
+made one remark or gesture that would betray his imposture, the
+awakening would be death, either swift, or else by torture administered
+to find out how much the outside world knew of the Ismailians.
+Nevertheless, Farrell dared not abstain from the drugged wine. He knew
+not what eyes might be regarding him through loopholes in the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bismillahi!</i>" he ejaculated, and seized the flagon, draining it
+at a draft. He hoped that despite the insidious drug, his years of
+wandering in the forbidden places of Asia had impressed upon him enough
+of his assumed character to insure him against a fatal slip.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell wondered at the suicide ordered by Hassan. The value of Ibrahim
+Khan as a <i>fedawi</i> could scarcely balance the self-slain and the two
+killed in action. He reconciled this point, however, when he considered
+the probability of the slain being offenders against the discipline of
+the order....</p>
+
+<p>The intoxication of hasheesh was gripping him. Then an artifice
+occurred to Farrell. He might still save the day and avoid complete
+intoxication.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ya</i> Musa! <i>Shewayya' khamr!</i>" he bawled drunkenly. "More wine!"</p>
+
+<p>The slave came hurrying with a full flagon. Farrell's chance was to
+drink so much of the drugged liquor that his stomach would rebel, and
+expel it; and such sottishness would be quite in character. He seized
+the flagon with unfeigned eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>But the saving thought had come too late.</p>
+
+<p>His heart-beat became terrifyingly slow. His arm seemed so long that
+the weight of the flagon, already the size of a cask, and momentarily
+becoming larger, would exert a leverage that would upset him. The room
+was expanding to allow for the abnormal length of the arm that sought
+to raise the wine to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell became aware of a duality of identity. Half of him was
+struggling fiercely to assert itself and overcome the confusion of his
+senses; the other half was yielding to a languorous drowsiness, and a
+soporific humming which pervaded the room.</p>
+
+<p>There came finally a rustling of wings, and a piping, haunting music
+that sighed amorously. All sense of time had ceased. Farrell did not
+know whether he was being carried through an archway into a vast domed
+vault, or whether he had floated in on clouds of overwhelming sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>A fountain was bubbling, and splashing him with its spray. He stared
+up at the ceiling. Its luminous blue was dusted with stars that were
+arranged in unfamiliar constellations.</p>
+
+<p>Drums muttered somewhere in the shifting, warm fragrance. He heard the
+silvery clink-clinking of anklets. He rolled over on his side, and as
+he glanced along the rose-hued tiles, he saw dainty feet with hennaed
+nails stepping in cadence to the whining notes of a <i>kemenjah</i>, and the
+moan of pipes.</p>
+
+<p>As he made an effort to sit erect, a warm, soft arm supported his
+head, and slender, golden-brown hands offered him a bowl of cold,
+aromatic liquid. He drank it, and found that his reeling senses became
+more stable. The girl who smiled at him had great dark eyes with
+kohl-blackened lids.</p>
+
+<p>Another heaped cushions behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Paradise indeed; <i>al jannat</i>, temporarily offered as the reward of
+whatever infamy the lord Hassan demanded, and promised for all eternity
+to the fanatic <i>fedawi</i> who died executing his commands.</p>
+
+<p>There were other guests scattered about the jasmine and rose clustered
+garden, and the brides of <i>al jannat</i> were reviving them with flagons,
+cold drinks, and warm caresses.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Farrell made an effort to fight the illusion of distorted time and
+distance, and the sensuous allure of the music and hasheesh. He rose,
+and ignoring his amorous companions, set about exploring the garden.
+Strange birds flitted about among the orange and pomegranate trees and
+mocked him with their almost articulate cries. A parrot mimicked in a
+loud voice the endearments that a Malay girl murmured in the ear of one
+of the Devoted Ones.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the Golden One?" he heard a swarthy Kurd demand as he thrust
+aside his slant-eyed Eurasian companion.</p>
+
+<p>The last of Farrell's intoxication left him. The Golden One—Antoinette!</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll scratch your eyes out! Let her alone!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the Master, our Lord Hassan, promised she'd greet us in Paradise,"
+protested the Kurd.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell knew now beyond any doubt that Antoinette had been kidnapped
+to double in this satanic garden for the murdered La Dorada, to prove
+to the <i>hasheeshin</i> that the Lord Hassan indeed held the keys to the
+garden of resurrection.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Al Asfarani</i>, the Golden One——" Farrell seconded the Kurd's inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Snarling and spitting in her alcove, O Strong Man!" smiled the girl.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell left her to entertain the Kurd, and wandered past the rows of
+potted trees that paralleled the walls of the garden. The walls were
+pierced with deep niches that formed small rooms whose arched entrances
+were scarcely shoulder-high. As he glanced into each in succession, he
+noted the trinkets and cosmetics and perfumes, and articles of feminine
+apparel. Each bride of <i>al jannat</i> seemed to have her own lupanar; but
+they apparently preferred to lounge among the fountains and arbors.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, however, Farrell found an occupied alcove. A woman lay face
+down among a heap of cushions. Her hair was copper-golden, and her bare
+shoulders were latticed with long, bluish stripes.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell knelt at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Antoinette!" he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>At the touch of his fingers on her shoulder, she started and with a
+quick motion drew away. Her hand emerged from the cushions clutching a
+long sharp steel skewer used in Syria for grilling meat.</p>
+
+<p>It was Antoinette, wide-eyed with terror. She cried out, and stabbed
+at Farrell with the skewer. The point raked his cheek as he seized her
+wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"'Toinette! Don't you recognize me?" he whispered hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>She regarded him for a moment, puzzled and incredulous. The skewer
+dropped from her fingers. But before she could cry out in amazement,
+Farrell continued, "Not a word! If any one passes by, start raising the
+devil! Don't seem to recognize me ... understand?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, but he saw that she did not grasp the point that might make
+the difference between life and death. She was still bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Glenn...." She stroked his cheek and regarded him, still
+incredulously. "Are you—isn't this—my dear, this is that awful garden
+I dreamed of. Only, now I have my own body, and I don't wake up——"</p>
+
+<p>"Pipe down!" he commanded in a low, tense voice. "I'm supposed to be
+one of these devils! You're not dreaming. Pull yourself together——"</p>
+
+<p>He heard footsteps approaching. They were steady, not the jerky
+lurchings of wine and hasheesh intoxication. Whoever it was, was for
+Farrell a death sentence if Antoinette in her hysteria spoke one false
+word.</p>
+
+<p>"Scream! Claw me! As you treated the others!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he seized her in his arms and murmured drunken endearments in her
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>But Antoinette was too dazed by the meeting to play her part. She
+clung to Farrell as the one fragment of reality in all that unending
+nightmare of hasheesh-drugged assassins who courted her favor, and
+pawed her, and abandoned their advances only at the suggestion of more
+amiable brides of <i>al jannat</i>. Instead of clawing and defying Farrell,
+she clung to him, sobbing hysterically.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>That deliberate tread of doom, soft slipper shod, drew nearer, paused.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell trembled like a trapped animal. He sought with his own feigned
+drunken, amorous approaches to drown her betraying sobs and murmurs.</p>
+
+<p>The swish-slap of slippers ... another halt. Farrell felt the
+intentness of the gaze at his back.</p>
+
+<p>He broke from Antoinette's embrace and turned. Standing just within
+the entrance of the tiny room was Shirkuh the necromancer. He had seen
+Farrell at the château, face to face. And he had heard. He knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah ... La Dorada has lured you to the Garden?" he murmured with deadly
+emphasis on the dead woman's name.</p>
+
+<p>The smile was slow and mocking; the relentless eyes burned with a
+fanatical hatred. For a moment Farrell was paralyzed with terror, and
+horror at the doom from which Antoinette had no further chance of
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>Shirkuh relished the encounter, and gloated—but just an instant too
+long.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell sprang from his crouched position in one swift, fluent motion.
+Shirkuh, taken cold-footed, could not draw his knife. They crashed to
+the floor. But once Shirkuh recovered from the surprize of the assault,
+he was more than a match for Farrell, who was battered, weary from
+combat, and shaken by the drugged wine. The iron fingers of the Kurd
+sank into his throat and throttled him. Shirkuh whipped his lithe body
+aside, avoiding Farrell's frenzied efforts to drive home with his knee.
+As Farrell's struggles subsided to a futile gasping for breath, the
+Kurd's hand flashed to his belt and drew a knife——</p>
+
+<p>But before the stroke descended, there was a crash and a splintering
+of glass. Shirkuh toppled over, felled by a decanter that Antoinette
+had broken across his head. Farrell gasped, and caught his breath, then
+slowly dragged himself clear of his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Antoinette, still clutching the neck of the broken decanter, regarded
+him with terror-widened eyes. Then she gestured toward Shirkuh, who
+muttered and stirred.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell's fingers closed about the hilt of the knife the Kurd had
+dropped.</p>
+
+<p>"Me or him," muttered Farrell. "If you don't want to see it, look the
+other way."</p>
+
+<p>The blade flashed thrice.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell wiped the red steel and slipped it into his empty scabbard.
+Then he sighed wearily and despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Finish anyway ... they'll miss him ... and no place we can hide him."</p>
+
+<p>Antoinette stared at the dark pool that spread across the silken rug.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't cut my way out," muttered Farrell. "But you have a chance.
+Pierre and the <i>Sûreté</i> are on the job—is there any place we could
+hide that fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>Antoinette shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Nowhere. The pool of the fountain isn't deep enough——"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the fountain!" interrupted Farrell, as he leaped to his
+feet. "I have a hunch. We're not quite ready to hang old man Farrell's
+youngest son!"</p>
+
+<p>At the entrance Farrell turned, reassured Antoinette with a gesture,
+then stalked out into the Garden, chanting a bawdy song in Turki.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Beside the fountain he found the object of his search: a bemuddled
+Kurd, and the Eurasian girl who had finally convinced him that the
+Golden One was best left to the blustering Afghan.</p>
+
+<p>"Get us more wine, O Moon of Loveliness," said Farrell with his most
+engaging smile. He nudged the Kurd.</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed softly.</p>
+
+<p>"You look as though she gave you your fill of clawing!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ay, wallah!</i>" agreed Farrell with a broad grin. Then, as the girl
+picked up an empty flagon, he said in a low voice to the Kurd,
+"Brother, you fellows didn't approach <i>al Asfarani</i> the right way."</p>
+
+<p>He winked and beckoned.</p>
+
+<p>The Kurd clambered to his feet and followed Farrell. They paused at the
+arched entrance of Antoinette's alcove.</p>
+
+<p>"She's in there now," whispered Farrell. "She'll not claw you."</p>
+
+<p>Thus encouraged, the Kurd stepped in, Farrell following.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ya sitti</i>," he began, addressing Antoinette. Then he started, seeing
+the body of Shirkuh.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell slipped past, and toward Antoinette's divan.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of my way, O shamelessly Besotted!" growled the Kurd, pausing to
+nudge the body with his toe.</p>
+
+<p>During that instant Farrell found what he sought; and as the Kurd
+decided to ignore the supposed sot, the steel skewer drove home, its
+point projecting beyond his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, old man," muttered Farrell as he regarded the Kurd twitching
+and coughing his life out in a bloody foam. Then he rapidly searched
+the body.</p>
+
+<p>He found no weapons.</p>
+
+<p>"Disarm 'em when they come in here ... leaves me handicapped...."</p>
+
+<p>He thrust Shirkuh's knife into the hand of the dying Kurd and closed
+the fingers about it. Then he guided the hand of Shirkuh and clenched
+it about the blunt end of the skewer.</p>
+
+<p>"This may save the day," he explained to Antoinette. "Remember, they
+fought and killed each other. That may give me a long enough lease on
+life to come back and get you out of this hell's hole, or get word
+to Pierre. Now I've got to go out into the Garden and do some quick
+thinking. Something else may turn up ... no, I can't stay here with
+you ... and I've got to leave the bodies where they are."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he kissed her, "Hang on. There's still a chance for you. Maybe
+for us."</p>
+
+<p>He strode out into the Garden, and washed his blood-stained hands
+at the fountain. The Eurasian girl had not yet returned with the
+replenished flagon. And as Farrell glanced about, looking for her, and
+preparing to divert her from any thought of her former companion, Musa
+the mute negro approached with a jar on his shoulder and a cup in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>This, Farrell surmised, would be the end of the visit to Paradise.
+The negro would administer a sleeping-potion; the devoted ones would
+drink, and upon awakening would find themselves lying in the <i>majlis</i>,
+mysteriously translated from the empyrean realm of the Lord Hassan, and
+ready for whatever butcheries he could assign them.</p>
+
+<p>As Musa offered him the cup, Farrell extended his own flagon, saying,
+"Fill this one, Father of Blackness. That cup of yours is too small."</p>
+
+<p>The negro grinned, emptied the cup into the larger vessel, and went his
+way to minister to the other guests.</p>
+
+<p>The Eurasian beauty, who returned at that moment, was easily diverted,
+so that Farrell contrived to spill most of the drugged wine over his
+shirt-front and into the fountain. Then, as he saw the <i>fedawi</i> succumb
+to the effects of the drug, he himself lurched forward, feigning
+unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>"No chance to look around ... no chance of cutting my way out," he
+reflected as he thought of Antoinette and her ghastly companions. "And
+maybe the Shirkuh versus drunken Kurd formation will hold water long
+enough to give me time to qualify as an assassin and be sent out to do
+a bit of slaying!"</p>
+
+<p>The negro was making the rounds, taking the <i>fedawi</i> one by one from
+the Garden. He picked Farrell from the paving as though he were a
+bag of meal, shouldered him, and deposited him on the divan in the
+anteroom, beside his drugged companions.</p>
+
+<p>And from sheer weariness and the futility of further thought, Farrell
+fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="7_A_Left-Handed_Kurd"><i>7. A Left-Handed Kurd</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>When a cold sponge on his forehead and the rim of a copper bowl pressed
+to his lips awoke Farrell, he had no idea as to the length of his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Musa helped him to his feet and led the way down a narrow passage
+whose floor sloped perceptibly upward. The negro halted before a panel
+and tapped thrice. As the panel slid aside, he gestured and flattened
+himself against the wall so that Farrell could pass him and enter the
+chamber ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell stepped into a circular vault fully twenty yards in diameter.
+In its center was a pool, likewise circular, and surrounded by a coping
+about a foot high. A dark splash on the tiles near the pool convinced
+Farrell that this must be the place into which the bodies of the
+victims of his test before Hassan had been tossed.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell wondered if as a matter of convenience he had been conducted
+to the vault before the master cut him down. One slip would suffice....</p>
+
+<p>Directly opposite Farrell was an arched niche in which sat an old man
+whose head was bowed in contemplation. Suspended from the crown of the
+arch was a cluster of crystalline prisms that slowly rotated, giving
+the effect of a glowing, coruscating ball of light.</p>
+
+<p>As Farrell advanced, the door behind him slid silently into place. He
+skirted the edge of the pool in the center, and wondered from what
+abyss its black, untroubled waters emerged; what creatures lurked in
+its darkness to devour the bodies tossed into their pit. Then, leaving
+the pool, Farrell continued toward the bearded sage who still ignored
+his approach.</p>
+
+<p>"At thy command, <i>ya shaykh</i>!" said Farrell as he halted some five
+paces from the Presence.</p>
+
+<p>"Step forward," directed the ancient one, looking up and indicating a
+small hearth-rug that lay at the foot of the steps that ascended to the
+niche. "Look, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim: hast thou seen me before?"</p>
+
+<p>As the smoldering eyes narrowed, Farrell recognized Hassan, now
+unveiled. He returned the old man's unblinking stare, and strove to
+remain unperturbed by its intent concentration; but his effort was
+vain. He felt a sense of futility and weakness creeping over him.</p>
+
+<p>The rotating cluster of prisms now flamed and flashed with an
+adamantine fire that expanded and contracted and pulsed like a living
+thing. It seemed now to be glowing between the eyes of Hassan. An
+overwhelming weariness assailed Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>The old man's voice intoned sonorously, and as from a great distance.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the keeper of the gateway ... even in the hollow of my hand I
+hold <i>al jannat</i> and its coolness to the eyes.... Yea, behold my
+hand...."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell regarded the outstretched hand of Hassan.</p>
+
+<p>"In the hollow of my hand, even in this hand I hold <i>al jannat</i>...."</p>
+
+<p>A mistiness was gathering about Hassan, and his features became
+obscured so that only his glittering eyes peered through. The
+outstretched hand was expanding; and strangely enough, it seemed
+fitting to Farrell that this should be so, and that there should be
+hazy figures, and clots of greenness appearing in the blankness above
+the hand. Trees were taking root. Their outlines were hazy, and through
+their immaterial substance he could just distinguish the jambs of the
+niche, and the swirling mists that veiled Hassan.</p>
+
+<p>The voice was now murmuring softly and compellingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Even in this hand I hold the Garden.... I am the keeper and the
+warden.... I accept and I reject...."</p>
+
+<p>Then that which in the back of his brain had kept Farrell from utterly
+succumbing to the sorcery of that murmuring voice and those burning
+eyes asserted itself, and he knew that it was illusion. As he sought to
+resist and deny, he felt a terrific impact as of a physical substance.
+A mighty, implacable will bludgeoned him as with hammer blows. He knew
+that if he continued assenting he would be for ever enslaved.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no Garden. It is illusion," he asserted to himself, and
+forced his lips to move and silently enunciate the negation. He
+trembled with an all-compelling fear, the awful fear of losing his very
+identity. That devastating will behind the cloud-veil was crushing him.
+How easy to assent, and end the agony!</p>
+
+<p>Great beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was drawn and
+haggard with the torment of his battered will. But to surrender would
+betray Antoinette into the hands of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no Garden," he persisted. "His hand is <i>empty</i>. EMPTY. EMPTY!"</p>
+
+<p>He forced his last vestige of strength into that final declaration. The
+trees dwindled to pin-heads of green, and with them vanished the gray
+mists. The hand <i>was</i> empty!</p>
+
+<p>Farrell sighed from mortal weariness and relief. Then he smiled
+triumphantly. He had withstood the terrific psychic assault that would
+have made him a slave, and a vassal of that old man and the murderous
+heritage of Asia.</p>
+
+<p>Hassan smiled as at an ancient jest.</p>
+
+<p>"You have withstood my will as no man before you," he said. "There was
+one who resisted to the uttermost, but he dropped dead."</p>
+
+<p>Hassan, the heir of Maymun the magician, the sorcerer, the heretic,
+took his defeat gracefully. Then his smile became ominous and mocking.</p>
+
+<p>"Who but you would have had the wit to slay Shirkuh, the chief of my
+servants, then so arrange the body of another you slew, that it would
+seem that they had died quarrelling over <i>Al Asfarani</i>? Subtle serpent,
+you erred in putting the dagger in the right hand. That Kurd was
+left-handed."</p>
+
+<p>As those words hammered home, Farrell wondered if his heart would ever
+again start beating. He was lost, and with him, Antoinette. Doomed by
+his own cunning.</p>
+
+<p>But thus far, no word about his imposture; therefore Farrell laughed
+full in Hassan's face, as became the honor of the Durani clan.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wallah</i>, you put a premium on slayers! Now what award do you give me,
+seeing that I was unarmed when I slew Shirkuh?"</p>
+
+<p>Hassan regarded him admiringly for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Billahi</i>, but you do belong to us! Not as a hasheesh-besotted fool to
+slay and be slain, but as an Associate, and finally, an Initiate. It is
+such as you that we seek, and seek in vain."</p>
+
+<p>A fierce light flamed in Hassan's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet your victory over my will is your doom. In the fullness of your
+effort to deny the illusion, you finally spoke your negation aloud.
+<i>And you spoke in English!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>For an instant Farrell was dazed by the horror that had been heaped
+on the soul-racking triumph he had just won. Doom was at hand—doom
+inescapable, else that old man would not dare confront him alone.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of rage, Farrell sprang to throttle Hassan despite what
+unseen allies he might have. But the floor sank beneath his feet as
+Hassan, smiling and unmoved, fingered a knob near the jamb of the
+arch. Farrell clutched at the edge of the opening through which he was
+dropping. His fingers sustained him for a moment, but the momentum of
+his body swinging free into vacancy broke his slender hold. He fell
+into the impenetrable blackness below.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="8_Monsters_of_the_Pool"><i>8. Monsters of the Pool</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Instead of an interminable drop to the bottom of an abyss, Farrell
+landed in less than a second, and feet foremost, on slippery flags.
+He noted that the air was not as stagnant as one would expect in an
+oubliette.</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of circulation ... just put me in temporary storage until
+they get around to organizing a committee to finish me with pomp and
+ceremony," he muttered as he struck a match.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell saw that the walls of the dungeon were curved. He strode toward
+the center, and by the light of a second match saw a massive column of
+masonry which rose from floor to ceiling. He remembered the pool he had
+seen on the floor above, and concluded that the pillar before him was a
+hollow shaft which led to some subterranean spring in the heart of the
+knoll on which Bayonne was built.</p>
+
+<p>"All in one piece, unhurt, and no enemy in sight—yet!" he reflected as
+he skirted the column.</p>
+
+<p>Among the inevitable rubbish with which the dungeon would be littered
+Farrell hoped to find some fragment of rock, scrap of wood, anything,
+in fact, which would give him the means of meeting the enemy with more
+than bare hands. But before he could strike his next match, Farrell saw
+a glow of light at a considerable distance to his right. It faintly
+outlined a low archway, and suggested possible escape from the dungeon
+into which he had been dropped by Hassan. That same light, however,
+betokened the immediate presence of the enemy, and perhaps an armed
+sentry. Farrell therefore crept on in darkness until he was well out
+of line with the source of light, then left the column and progressed
+toward the wall.</p>
+
+<p>His knee came into contact with something hard and metallic. He struck
+a match, and saw that he had found a chain, one end of which was
+attached to a massive leg-iron, and the other secured to an eye-bolt
+sunk into the wall. The shank of the eye-bolt was badly corroded where
+it entered the masonry. A few minutes of wrenching and tugging sufficed
+to separate the chain from its anchorage. The result was a crude flail
+which in a strong hand could shatter whatever skull it struck.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell was armed again, and his spirits rose accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>He retraced his course and crept down the passageway toward the light.
+As he halted in the shelter of a jamb he saw that the vault ahead of
+him was illuminated by a glowing brazier; and the scene gave him a
+foretaste of what his own fate might be.</p>
+
+<p>The black, oily form of a muscular negro crouched beside the brazier.
+The bellows in his hands wheezed from his vigorous efforts to fan the
+charcoal fire to a white heat. Tongs or other long-handled implements
+projected from the incandescent mass.</p>
+
+<p>Limned in harsh highlight and black shadows Farrell saw two white-robed
+Ismailians whose predatory, Semitic features were stern from the
+contemplation of their task. Both were armed with simitars and pistols.
+The object of their scrutiny was a man who sat crouched by a pilaster.
+Farrell could distinguish no features beyond the aquiline curve of his
+nose, and the black, spade-shaped beard. The hands, clasped about the
+knees, were fettered at the wrists.</p>
+
+<p>"God!" muttered Farrell as the red glow became a dazzling whiteness.
+"That lad sitting there looks for all the world like an innocent
+bystander. Either that party isn't for him, or he has more guts than
+any ten men I've ever seen.... I've not been here long enough for that
+to be my reception committee...."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell appraised the situation, and gaged the distance between his
+lurking-place and the group at the brazier.</p>
+
+<p>"Too far! They'd get wise before I got within striking distance ...
+now if this piece of chain were only a solid bar so that I could slug,
+swat, and parry instead of having to use it like a whip ... now what?"</p>
+
+<p>The taller of the Ismailians glanced up, and with a gesture indicated
+the ceiling. Farrell could not distinguish his words, but it was
+evident that he had addressed the negro, who set aside his bellows,
+picked up a length of thin rope, and rose.</p>
+
+<p>Then Farrell understood. They were going to slip the cord through a
+ring in the low ceiling, lash the prisoner's ankles, and suspend him so
+that the white-hot irons could be applied without interference from the
+victim's agonized writhing.</p>
+
+<p>"Missed my chance!" growled Farrell. "They were all off guard, and I
+could have cold-calked them! Too late, now."</p>
+
+<p>The Ismailian on the right addressed the prisoner; but the other
+was looking in Farrell's direction, though not directly at his
+lurking-place. The negro was shifting the implements that projected
+from the bed of coals.</p>
+
+<p>Then Farrell tested the idea that came to him an instant after his
+expression of disgust. He reached into his pocket and found a large
+silver coin the size of an American dollar. He sent it spinning across
+the vault. It struck the opposite wall and tinkled to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>As the Ismailian at the left of the group started, caught the gleam of
+silver, and stooped to pick it up, Farrell, whirling his flail, leaped
+from cover and charged.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The startled cry of the crouching negro was simultaneous with the
+impact of the swinging fetter against the skull of the stooping enemy.
+The massive circlet of iron crunched home as the other white-robed
+enemy whirled from confronting his prisoner and drew a pistol. Farrell
+knew that he could not lash out with a second blow of his flail. He
+ducked as the pistol flashed, gripped the Ismailian's wrist as the
+pistol cracked again, and back-heeled him. They crashed to the flags,
+Farrell striving to keep the pistol out of effective action and to
+disable his enemy before the giant negro recovered his wits enough to
+overwhelm him.</p>
+
+<p>With a fierce wrench, Farrell disarmed the Ismailian and sent the
+pistol flying against the wall. And then the negro took a hand.
+They pounded and crushed Farrell as they sought to drive home with
+knife-thrusts which he evaded in his struggles to drive in with boot or
+knee. He finally, thrashing about, seized the shackle end of his flail;
+and as the Ismailian's knife darted in, Farrell jabbed the ponderous
+iron to the enemy's jaw with a crushing blow.</p>
+
+<p>Then the negro crushed Farrell to the paving. Farrell's struggles
+were futile; the cumulative effect of previous combats was telling.
+In another moment his breath would be completely cut off by those
+relentless black hands....</p>
+
+<p>Then an agonized yell, and the stench of burning hair and flesh. The
+pressure relaxed as a shower of white-hot charcoal rained from the
+frenzied enemy and seared Farrell's hands and face. But the respite,
+though brief, sufficed. Farrell's boot laid the enemy out flat.</p>
+
+<p>Then he rose, recovered the pistol that lay against the wall, and
+turned to confront the fettered prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately," said the prisoner, "I was able to reach the tongs and
+flip that brazier into the party."</p>
+
+<p>The mutual benefactors regarded each other a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monsieur</i>," began Farrell, recognizing the prisoner as a Frenchman,
+"I am more interested in getting out of here than exchanging
+compliments. Judging from the preparations I interrupted, you were in
+for a pleasant evening, morning, or whatever it may be."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately," came the reply, "these fetters are rivetted, and none
+of the tools they brought——"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tend to that," assured Farrell. He turned and set the brazier
+right side up, then with the tongs collected the still glowing
+charcoal, and fanned it once more to a white heat. "Get your chains hot
+enough," he explained, "and we can break them by hand."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Magnifique!</i>" Then, regarding Farrell more intently, "But I
+don't recognize you as any of the Brethren who might be kindly
+disposed—though those fellows lying on the floor prove the case."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not quite what I seem," admitted Farrell as he arranged the chains
+so that they could get the full heat of the brazier. Then, staring for
+an instant at the prisoner and at the device engraved on the emerald
+set in his massive ring, Farrell hazarded a guess that seemed warranted
+by the absence of the host who had issued the invitations to the
+<i>soirée</i> at the château.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you by any chance the Marquis——"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>C'est moi!</i> Des Islots, and everlastingly at your service!" The
+saturnine features brightened for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>As Farrell pumped the bellows, he wondered at the fortuitous meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Hassan put you in here?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Shirkuh, his second in command, arranged this. Hassan is too busy
+to bother with details——"</p>
+
+<p>"He had plenty of time for me," countered Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Hmmm ... then Shirkuh must be occupied with some important mission,"
+began the Marquis.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>late</i> Shirkuh," corrected Farrell with a grim smile.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sacré bleu!</i>" ejaculated the Marquis. "Did you——"</p>
+
+<p>"I have the honor—and pleasure," admitted Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! He was my evil genius. Years ago, in Syria, I joined
+the Ismailians as an Associate. I was a student of the occult, you
+understand. Their aim at the time was harmless enough: the overthrow of
+Islam, and the pursuit of mystic speculations. For centuries the order
+has had no secular significance, you comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>"I advanced to the rank of Initiate, then returned to France and
+organized a thaumaturgical society which was to carry on with the
+researches I had made in Syria, and in High Asia. And this was all
+well until fellow Ismailians came to Bayonne, one by one, and ended by
+converting the thaumaturgical society into a chapter of Ismailians.</p>
+
+<p>"Shirkuh was the chief of these, a prior. And then they reverted to
+the tactics of the Twelfth Century. To augment the <i>hasheeshin</i> that
+they sent over, they recruited cutthroats from the underworld of Paris.
+Various actresses and women of the <i>demi-monde</i> were led to believe
+that they had been admitted as Associates, and were set to work as
+spies.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a plot even now under way which, if successful, will upset
+the French colonial empire and end in a <i>jihad</i> that will stir up the
+entire Moslem world.</p>
+
+<p>"Another chapter has been organized in Lyons, with a prior in charge;
+and Hassan is Grand Prior of France, acknowledging only the supreme
+chief in Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>"At all events, when I saw the political aspect of the Ismailians
+who had gained their foothold through my thaumaturgical society, I
+protested to Shirkuh—and here I am. Hot irons and other pleasant
+devices were to make my end most colorful."</p>
+
+<p>"Where," wondered Farrell, "does La Dorada fit into the picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? La Dorada? Why, a sort of chief female spy—she is friendly with
+many high officers and civilian dignitaries, you comprehend. She is——"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Was</i>," interrupted Farrell. "Three assassins finished her."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Diable!</i>" exclaimed the Marquis. He was amazed rather than grieved.</p>
+
+<p>"You take it calmly, for a lover," remarked Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Lover?" The Marquis laughed sourly. "I, her lover? Camouflage, to
+account for her presence down here, and along the Riviera. As to her
+being assassinated, that is easily explained: her mission must have
+been completed. So she was killed to insure her continued secrecy, and
+also to warn her dupes that they would follow suit if they relented or
+weakened in the course dictated by Hassan. And that move makes it all
+the more conclusive that France is due for an explosion."</p>
+
+<p>The confusion was being untangled. Farrell wondered at Antoinette
+Delatour's connection, and the source of the dreams that had haunted
+her; but the chains that bound the Marquis were white-hot and ready to
+break, so that conversation would have to wait.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, heave!" directed Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>The chains parted.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They stripped the bodies of the white-robed Ismailians, and armed
+themselves with their simitars and pistols, as well as taking the
+extra cartridges that studded one of the belts. And the keys that had
+admitted the executioners completed the equipment. As the hot ends of
+the chain cooled, the Marquis bound them to his limbs so that they
+would not clank.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," said Farrell as they turned toward the iron-bound door, "if
+those lads are completely out."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i> But I am absent-minded!" growled the Marquis. He drew the
+simitar at his side.</p>
+
+<p>As Farrell unlocked the door, he heard the sword-strokes that assured
+beyond all doubt that three more had entered <i>al jannat</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Farrell as the door closed behind them. "We
+may run into a detachment on the way down here to finish me. Do you
+know of any other way except the passage used by your executioners?"</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis reflected for a moment as he wiped and sheathed his blade.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," he replied. "But we'd stand a good chance of getting lost
+and perishing in a labyrinth. This network is older than the Roman
+occupation. We have reclaimed but a fraction of it. It is the sanctuary
+of some awful, prehistoric past. And there were living proofs...." The
+Marquis shuddered at the recollection of what he had seen. "We killed
+most of them. But—as for me, I prefer to face men like ourselves!
+Anyway, if Shirkuh is dead, Hassan will be busy until another Prior is
+appointed. Shirkuh was an adept who studied in Tibet. A necromancer——"</p>
+
+<p>Farrell shivered, and as they advanced up the passageway, told the
+Marquis what he had seen at the château.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Canaille!</i>" muttered the Marquis. "The night I was imprisoned! Just
+like him. And as you suspect, enough assassins in the crowd to spread
+the rumor of his miracle.</p>
+
+<p>"Our best chance," he resumed, "is to go to the vault where you saw
+Hassan unveiled, thence to the assembly hall of the assassins. Then cut
+our way out—if we can! The chances are slender——"</p>
+
+<p>"How about passing by the Garden?" wondered Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of our way," protested the Marquis. "But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"A ... friend," replied Farrell. "Mademoiselle Delatour——"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" exclaimed the Marquis with a start. "<i>Dieu de Dieu!</i> How——"</p>
+
+<p>Then he controlled his agitation, beckoned for silence.</p>
+
+<p>They emerged from the darkness and turned into an upward-sloping branch
+passage illuminated by torches thrust into sconces on the wall. Ahead
+of them they heard the measured tread of a sentry walking his post.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang back," whispered the Marquis as he fingered the hilt of the
+broad-bladed knife that kept his simitar company. "I know the
+passwords. And he may not know I'm a prisoner—but be ready for trouble
+if he does!"</p>
+
+<p>The sentry challenged the Marquis. There was an exchange of sign and
+countersign. Then as the sentry saluted, the Marquis' right hand
+flashed to the right; his body jerked forward. As Farrell advanced, he
+saw the sentry collapse and sprawl across the tiles in a grotesque heap.</p>
+
+<p>"So far, so good," muttered the Marquis as he wiped his blade, and led
+the way.</p>
+
+<p>A barred door yielded to the Marquis' touch on a concealed lever. They
+continued on their upward march. They halted finally before a door
+whose panels were of heavy and elaborately carved woodwork.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Diable!</i>" growled the Marquis as he tried the door. "Barred from the
+other side. The release this side does not help us."</p>
+
+<p>The mutter of drums and the plucked strings of a <i>sitar</i> were plainly
+audible.</p>
+
+<p>"Better wait until the place is vacant," whispered the Marquis. "And in
+the meanwhile, let's cut a loophole and see what's happening."</p>
+
+<p>They drew their knives and set to work.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Peering through the loophole, Farrell could see the arched niche from
+whose foot he had been precipitated into the dungeon below. Hassan was
+again, or perhaps still, at his post. He was veiled, but there was no
+mistaking the posture and the expression of the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting cross-legged along the curved wall of the vault were a score of
+Ismailians in white ceremonial robes. They wore white turbans, scarlet
+slippers, and belts of the same color: and all were armed with the
+richly adorned simitars suitable to a formal assembly.</p>
+
+<p>A group of musicians squatted on the floor, along the coping of the
+circular pool, whose dark water reflected the spectral glow that
+pervaded the vault. The wind instruments joined the music with a
+demoniac sobbing and moaning, and a brazen gong clanged.</p>
+
+<p>Four litter-bearers emerged from an entrance. Attendants followed them,
+bearing tripods of bronze. Farrell shuddered at the similarity of that
+scene to the horrible beauty of the resurrection of La Dorada. Then he
+noted that the figure on the litter was that of a man.</p>
+
+<p>As the shroud was lifted, he recognized Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi.
+The Prior of the Ismailians was to receive the final homage of his
+subordinates. The pipes wailed mournfully in honor of that desecrator
+of the dead. Farrell sighed with relief, and glanced at the Marquis.</p>
+
+<p>He peered once more through the loophole.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" he gasped in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>Four more litter-bearers were filing into the vault, and after them
+came attendants with tripods. The tiny feet and the feminine curves
+that the shroud revealed unmistakably betokened a woman's body.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell's cheeks whitened beneath their stain as he caught the glint of
+red-gold hair.</p>
+
+<p>An attendant stripped the brocaded shroud from the body.</p>
+
+<p>Antoinette Delatour, sleeping—or dead.</p>
+
+<p>With an inarticulate growl of rage, Farrell gathered himself to charge
+the door with his shoulder. But the hand of the Marquis gripping his
+arm restrained him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!" whispered the Marquis. "It is hopeless, now. But later—stand
+fast. I will tell you—you see, I am acquainted——"</p>
+
+<p>Farrell stared somberly at his companion. He saw that the Marquis' face
+was white and that his eyes flamed with wrath. The hand on Farrell's
+arm trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he conceded. He wondered at the Marquis' incoherence
+and agitation in excess of what he would expect of a right-minded
+gentleman. He gained assurance from the Marquis' apparent knowledge of
+what was to be; but with it came the dread of some new peak of horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Great God!" muttered Farrell, remembering once more the necromantic
+ritual at the château. "Is she——" Then, in a flare of rage and grief,
+"I'm going through!"</p>
+
+<p>"Restrain yourself!" commanded the Marquis. "I know."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell shook his head, and turned to the loophole.</p>
+
+<p>The attendants and the litter-bearers were filing out of the vault.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Prior, Hassan, rose from his cushions.</p>
+
+<p>"Brethren and servants of the Seventh Imam," he began, "your Prior, the
+learned Shirkuh, has crossed the Border. He who could raise the dead
+can not resurrect himself. But we, <i>inshallah</i>, can send a courier to
+lead him back to us."</p>
+
+<p>As his upraised hand dropped to his side, a monstrous peal of bronze
+echoed and reverberated through the vault. The assembled Ismailians
+stirred, and corrected their posture, so that their feet and hands were
+placed with ritual precision. Even their features assumed a oneness of
+expression: an intent, solemn stare. The silence became absolute. The
+musicians sat motionless, awaiting the signal to sound off.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Prior nodded.</p>
+
+<p>The single-stringed violins, the moaning pipes and the purring drums
+wove a harmony that sighed and sobbed like a fallen angel bewailing his
+lost estate. The great gong pealed with mighty, brazen reverberations.
+Acolytes filed into the vault, and paced in cadence to the music, and
+rhythmically swung fuming censers as they passed thrice in procession
+about the dead, and the exquisite unclad beauty of the living woman.
+And as the acolytes retreated, Hassan descended from his dais.</p>
+
+<p>He drew on the floor with a piece of chalk a circle several paces in
+diameter, and within it a pentacle. Each of the five points he marked
+with cabalistical symbols. Then with a ceremonious gesture he summoned
+three Initiates from among those who sat waiting beside the dais. Each
+Initiate took his post at his assigned station; then all four bowed to
+the fifth vertex and the Presence that was to be summoned.</p>
+
+<p>Hassan intoned a sentence; and the Initiates, beginning at his left,
+each in turn chanted a line of the invocation. Those without the circle
+solemnly pronounced a fifth sonorous phrase.</p>
+
+<p>"For the vacant corner," whispered the Marquis to Farrell. "They are
+representing the One they are calling to occupy the fifth angle."</p>
+
+<p>And thus they continued their prodigious utterances, four verses
+riming in succession, with the surge and thunder of the unrimed,
+antiphonal response from without. Each time the circle was completed,
+the riming syllable changed; and from the Arabic with which they had
+started, they shifted to Himyaric, and then to obscure, antique tongues
+whose sound was an elemental roar of deep gutturals. Then finally came
+a primal, bestial murmuring and muttering, a chirping and clucking of
+the tongues that were spoken by those who wandered through the Void
+before the first man walked the earth. And recurring through the entire
+progression was a portentous name that is seldom pronounced above a
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>The very features of the Initiates changed as they pronounced those
+rustling, shivering syllables. They were achieving a unity with that
+which crept and crawled and loathsomely slunk through chaos and reviled
+the unborn stars, and mocked the light that was to be....</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Farrell, staring now with a dread that obliterated every other emotion,
+saw that a Presence was materializing at the fifth vertex. A vibrant
+glow like the luminous vapor of a mercury arc was momentarily becoming
+more dense and substantial. Lambent flames played about the brows of
+the Initiates in the pentacle. A terrific tension pervaded the vault.
+The bluish glow became deeper, and was shot with flashes of crimson
+and yellowish green. Each drawn face was now a ghastly slate-gray: the
+Presence at the fifth vertex was drawing the living essence from the
+swaying, gesturing bodies of Hassan and his trio of Initiates.</p>
+
+<p>The Presence took human form: a lordly, satanic visage and a
+magnificently muscled body that quivered and throbbed to the droning
+chant. Then, rich and clear as a god calling across the wastes of
+space, the Presence began declaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani!</i> I come from the realm of fire
+to command you! I have come out of the depths! Harken! Harken! Harken!
+<i>Al Asfarani!</i> Golden One! Step forth from your body and walk into the
+darkness among those whose bread is dust! Walk among the lonely dead
+and seek Shirkuh! Call him by his name and take him by the hand! Guide
+him from the shadows and into the morning!"</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt="">
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p>"<i>A terrific tension pervaded the tumult. The Presence took human form!</i>"</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>The unconscious woman shuddered at the sound of that mighty voice. She
+made a despairing gesture as if to resist the command that came from
+the fifth vertex. Then she relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>The Presence continued his prodigious chant. Even the brazen
+reverberation of the gongs was drowned by his awful utterance.</p>
+
+<p>A thin streamer, like the thread of smoke rising from an
+almost-quenched altar flame, rose from Antoinette Delatour's
+half-parted lips.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i>" shouted the Marquis in Farrell's ear. "They're doing it!"</p>
+
+<p>His gestures rather than his voice stirred Farrell to action. They
+retreated, then charged crashing against the door. It resisted the
+shock. Farrell drew his simitar and hacked at the tropical hardwood. A
+carven panel splintered.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! Look!" he yelled in despair.</p>
+
+<p>The Presence was now towering toward the ceiling. It was bending over
+like a monstrous serpent in human form, arching and writhing, reaching
+as though over some invisible wall, making passes and gestures over the
+silver-white body of Antoinette.</p>
+
+<p>The Initiates in the pentacle were paper-white. They swayed to the
+cadence of that great voice whose concussion was now making the very
+vault tremble.</p>
+
+<p>The train of smoke-like vapor that emerged from Antoinette's lips was
+becoming more dense, and hovered over her body like a veil.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick!" shouted the Marquis, as they frantically hacked the stout
+wood. "Hold them, while I exorcise the Presence!"</p>
+
+<p>The door was reinforced with iron rods that bound it together. Their
+blades were nicked and saw-toothed from the fierce assault.</p>
+
+<p>"Again!" cried the Marquis as his simitar flashed home.</p>
+
+<p>A chunk of the hardwood tore loose from its severed reinforcement. They
+shouldered through, torn and cut by the splinters and the ragged ends
+of the rods they had hacked.</p>
+
+<p>A musician cried out and sprang to his feet. And then one of the
+Initiates who sat beside the dais saw Farrell and the Marquis as they
+dashed across the circular vault. He aroused his comrades from their
+fascinated contemplation of the invocation of which they were now
+accessories rather than principals. They started as from a deep sleep,
+stared for an instant, then drew their simitars and charged to meet
+the intruders, and to protect the left flank of the pentacle, from
+which the Presence still leaned over the unconscious girl, intoning the
+mighty commands that would send her across the Border.</p>
+
+<p>Shoulder to shoulder, Farrell and the Marquis met the assault with
+deliberate, deadly pistol fire. The attack was checked; but the enemy
+stood fast and firm, protecting the pentacle. And despite the hail of
+lead they had poured into the ranks of the Ismailians, Farrell and his
+ally were still outnumbered ten to one.</p>
+
+<p>The musicians were salvaging weapons.</p>
+
+<p>There was not enough time to reload the pistols. The Ismailians had
+recovered from the shock of their murderous reception, and seeing their
+advantage, leaped forward, blades ready.</p>
+
+<p>Then a clash of steel, and a red mill of slaughter. The Marquis
+fought with vengeful desperation. He wove in and out, side-stepping
+and parrying, shearing and slaying. And Farrell, keeping at his side,
+carved a gory path into the enemy. He fought with a blind, unreasoning
+fury, seeking to hack his way through the press and clear a road for
+the Marquis who could cope with that monstrous Presence that was in
+thunderous tones chanting the life and vital essence from Antoinette.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy, sensing that the Marquis was the keystone of the arch,
+concentrated their attack on him; and despite his exquisite
+swordsmanship, he was being slashed to pieces by a desperation and
+force that discounted his skill.</p>
+
+<p>He sank once beneath a whirlwind of blades, and recovered under the
+shelter of Farrell's blade; but he was coughing blood from a deep wound.</p>
+
+<p>And Hassan and his trio had left the pentacle. The Presence, now
+endowed with the power borrowed from all that the Initiates had
+conjured from across the Border, was self-sustaining and no longer
+needed its portion of human vitality.</p>
+
+<p>Hassan, behind the line of the assault, directed his Initiates in the
+attack.</p>
+
+<p>"Cut him down, O sons of flat-nosed mothers!" he cried, as he saw the
+Marquis recover and press forward.</p>
+
+<p>But that magnificent last effort burned out. With a cry of mortal rage,
+the Marquis lashed out with a final, devastating stroke, then collapsed
+on a heap of slain.</p>
+
+<p>"Finish!" despaired Farrell. He was doomed, and Antoinette also—even
+though he could cut his way out. An adept was required to exorcise
+that terrific Presence that was drawing her from her body.</p>
+
+<p>But the enemy, instead of closing in to hew him to pieces, gaped
+stupidly, then yelled in terror. They were staring at something at his
+right, and to the rear. He glanced over his shoulder, compelled by the
+consternation that stopped them where they stood.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Farrell lowered his own point, himself struck with awe. He recalled
+what the Marquis had said about the denizens of that labyrinth of
+passages.</p>
+
+<p>A monstrous, amorphous thing had emerged from the circular pool
+into which Hassan had ordered the dead <i>fedawi</i> to be flung. It was
+misshapen, and grotesque in its vague semblance to humanity. Its
+bulbous head had a single, circular eye the size of a saucer. It
+glittered glassily in the bluish, spectral light. The limbs were
+shapeless and ponderous, and it lumbered, dripping wet, across the
+tiles. Its feet fell with a metallic clank, and its breath hissed and
+wheezed.</p>
+
+<p>A second and similar creature was emerging from the water, even as the
+first advanced with slow, laborious pace. The hand clutched a short
+iron bar.</p>
+
+<p>The bar rose in a sweeping arc and crunched down on the skull of an
+Ismailian, spattering blood and brain in a shower. The second monster
+clambered over the coping, unlimbered a bludgeon, and with gruesome
+deliberation picked a victim and struck.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of silence unbroken save for the wheezing breath
+of the creatures from the pit. Then the Ismailians yelled in mortal
+terror. They forgot Farrell with his dripping blade and bewildered
+eyes; they forgot the Marquis, who stirred, and strove to lash out
+once more with his red scimitar; they forgot the golden-haired girl,
+and the malevolent Presence that, now silent, throbbed and pulsed, an
+aggregate of quivering, electric-bluish cold fire.</p>
+
+<p>They broke and fled toward the splintered door.</p>
+
+<p>At the height of their panic, Farrell understood. The monsters were men
+in diving-suits.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis was down. Farrell could not himself thwart that monster
+that was drinking Antoinette's vital essence and taking her across
+the Border beyond recall; but he could slay until he dropped from
+wounds, or from weariness of slaughter. He hurdled the hedge of fallen
+Ismailians and with a cry of rage and grief joined his allies to exact
+vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>A third diver was at that moment emerging from the pool and joining the
+assault against the frenzied enemy, striking them down with remorseless
+precision as they struggled to crowd through the splintered panel of
+the door that had given Farrell admittance.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell, however, was not the only one whose wits had recovered from
+the terror inspired by the apparitions from the black pool.</p>
+
+<p>"Back and face them, <i>ya mumineen</i>!" shouted Hassan. "They are men like
+ourselves!"</p>
+
+<p>But his attempt to rally his men was vain. Those who abandoned their
+efforts to crowd through the jammed door, and circled around to escape
+by way of the opposite entrance, were blocked by the arrival of a file
+of <i>fedawi</i> who, knives drawn, had come running from the assembly hall.</p>
+
+<p>The dripping revolvers that the divers drew as they discarded their
+grappling-irons crackled and flamed, pouring a deadly fire into the new
+center of action.</p>
+
+<p>Then Farrell conceived the desperate device of capturing Hassan
+and forcing him to recall the elemental monster that was drinking
+Antoinette's life. He leaped forward, cutting and slashing his way
+through the few who interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"We meet in Paradise, <i>ya mumineen</i>!" Hassan shouted, seeing that the
+day was lost. And before Farrell could seize him, Hassan released the
+trap-door before the dais and dropped into the vault below.</p>
+
+<p>The last hope was gone. Pursuit through those subterranean mazes would
+be futile. As Farrell turned from the yawning trap that had allowed the
+arch-enemy to escape, the rage of slaughter left him. The crackle of
+pistols died out. He saw that the circular chamber was cleared of all
+but the dead and wounded Ismailians. The divers, handicapped by their
+heavy suits, could not carry out an effective pursuit of the survivors
+of their deadly fire.</p>
+
+<p>Weary and despairing, Farrell nerved himself to confront the diabolical
+creature that was drawing Antoinette across the border. He turned——</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis des Islots was raising his hacked, bleeding body from a
+heap of slain. He tottered, swayed, then advanced toward the lambent
+flame-presence. Farrell stared in fascination as that gory wreck of
+a man advanced, making ritual gestures with his faltering hands, and
+muttering in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>The Presence was shrinking and dimming, and that shimmering exhalation
+from Antoinette's lips was being retracted. The Marquis sustained
+himself with will alone. He staggered, sank—Farrell's heart sank with
+him—he recovered, stepped forward again, still gesticulating and
+murmuring. The Presence leaned forward to confront him, and menaced him
+with its remaining energy, seeking to outlive the dying adept.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis' bleeding, gashed face was drawn and white; his eyes
+were fixed and staring. He achieved another pass; then he collected
+himself, paused, and instead of murmuring, thundered a final phrase of
+command.</p>
+
+<p>The Presence vanished; and the last vestige of grayish, luminous haze
+disappeared between Antoinette's lips.</p>
+
+<p>Farrell leaped forward in time to catch the Marquis as he collapsed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The divers, returning from the farther entrance at which the Ismailians
+had made their last stand, lifted one another's domed helmets. Then,
+grimy and exultant, Pierre d'Artois and the two members of the <i>Sûreté</i>
+gathered about Farrell and the Marquis, who was regaining a little of
+his strength.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Messieurs</i>," he said, as he gestured toward Antoinette, "she is safe.
+She will presently awaken. It can not return. <i>Jamais!</i>... It was my
+fault ... in the beginning ... but this infamy was not my intent.... I
+loved her, but she rejected me ... persistently. And for revenge ...
+and to break her spirit ... I administered without her knowledge a
+compound ... of hypnotic drugs ... so that she and that Syrian girl
+would each night exchange bodies ... then Hassan took a hand...."</p>
+
+<p>He regarded d'Artois for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"You, <i>monsieur</i>, doubtless understand——" Then, to Farrell, "But this
+last infamy ... was not mine—Shirkuh and Hassan—I tried to make ...
+amends——"</p>
+
+<p>For an instant Farrell regarded the dying man with revulsion. Then he
+saw the remorse on the drawn, blood-splashed features, and thought
+of the Marquis' last gallant stand, confronting and exorcising that
+diabolical presence from beyond the Border.</p>
+
+<p>"Stout fellow," he muttered, as he grasped the Marquis' hand.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>C'est fini</i>," murmured d'Artois a moment later. "Magnificent in his
+death as he was misguided in his life ... dying on his feet, he had the
+will to conquer, and make restitution."</p>
+
+<p>Then d'Artois rose and glanced about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the way out of here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Through that door," directed Farrell. "He told me, before we made our
+rush."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Messieurs</i>," suggested d'Artois, "be ready with your pistols, should
+any of these assassins be lingering. I will take charge of the young
+lady, and you, my friend, lead the way. <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> perhaps
+deserves greater courtesy, but we can not carry his body and take the
+risk of being caught without weapons drawn and ready."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell led the way. Without much difficulty, he found the passage
+that opened into the vault where he had lain while regaining his
+consciousness preliminary to submitting to Hassan's tests. And from
+there they finally emerged in the heart of the citadel. A few moments
+later Farrell and d'Artois, carrying Antoinette, met Raoul where he was
+waiting at the wheel of the Renault.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="9_DArtois_Is_Envious"><i>9. D'Artois Is Envious</i></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Antoinette, an hour later, was entirely herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's wonderful to be out of that awful garden," she said, and
+curled herself up in the depth of a large, upholstered chair. "And now
+that <i>Monsieur le Médicin</i> admits that I'm as good as new, you might
+satisfy my curiosity on a few points. How did you ever——"</p>
+
+<p>She glanced up at Farrell, who had seated himself on the arm of her
+chair. He was not yet through convincing himself that Satan's Garden
+was a thing of the past, and insisted on keeping Antoinette within
+arm's reach.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you ask Pierre," he said.</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, <i>mon vieux</i>, you were responsible. We found two bodies
+floating down the Nive. One of them wore—oh, very becomingly, I assure
+you!—a knife in his stomach. The <i>Sûreté</i> informed me. I identified
+the knife. It was one of mine, which you had taken from my collection
+to wear while disguised as Ibrahim the Afghan ruffian.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Alors</i>,' said I, 'Ibrahim Khan has given good account of himself.
+Perhaps, but God forbid, his own body will follow. I assure you that we
+watched with anxiety. But no further signs. At low tide, however—you
+know, the Nive rises and falls with the tide, since we're so close to
+the sea—we found another body, mainly as the result of our continued
+close watch for yours. This one was wedged near the central of the
+seven bridges. We investigated, and found an uncharted drain of
+considerable diameter.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Mordieu</i>,' said I to <i>Monsieur</i> the Prefect, 'if bodies came out,
+bodies can also go in.' We got diving-suits. The tide in the meanwhile
+rose, but we had the location well marked. We advanced up the drain
+until we came to a dead end. Even before we left the water we heard the
+clash and crackle of your skirmish——"</p>
+
+<p>"Massacre, you mean," interpolated Farrell, grinning as much as his
+bandages permitted. "Not a second too soon."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Eh bien</i>, we shut our exhaust air-valves and thus rose to the
+surface. Our grappling-irons snagged to the coping helped us unaided
+over the top. Then we sliced our airlines and lifelines, opened our
+exhausts and——"</p>
+
+<p>"Scared them out of a week's growth!" added Farrell as d'Artois paused
+to light a cigarette. "But that damnable thing all of quivering
+fire—good Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>"That," submitted d'Artois, "is something that I can explain but
+vaguely, if at all. I called it some more mummery, and decided, rather
+hastily, perhaps, that you and the Marquis needed help first of all.
+On reflection, and in view of some of your remarks since we left, I am
+of the opinion that it was either an elemental conjured up by those
+devil-mongering adepts, or else a wandering and malignant astral that
+was energized by the vital essence of the adepts, or perhaps by the
+vibration concentration of their ritual. <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i>, God
+rest his erring soul, could doubtless explain what it was, since he
+used his last spark of will to combat it and thwart its attempt to
+convert Mademoiselle Antoinette into—what did you tell me?—a courier
+to call Shirkuh from the hell in which he now must be roasting.</p>
+
+<p>"I would very much relish," continued d'Artois, "questioning Hassan,
+who devised all that deviltry. But alas! he escaped. And while you,
+both of you, were causing the good doctor a certain amount of concern,
+I heard that the <i>Sûreté</i> and a handful of <i>gendarmes</i> cleaned out the
+entire nest. Unhappily, two were taken alive of that crew of assassins.
+And of course, those lovely ladies of the garden."</p>
+
+<p>Farrell sighed from weariness and contentment, then grimaced from the
+ache of his wounds.</p>
+
+<p>"The Marquis," he observed, "didn't have time to explain how that
+hypnotic drug enabled him to project Antoinette's <i>self</i> into the
+body of the Syrian bride of the garden—Lord, it's impossible to
+imagine how a brave fellow like him could have let his resentment and
+disappointment carry him to such lengths! Having her scourged by proxy,
+so to speak."</p>
+
+<p>"Too much occultism and devil-mongering upset his brilliant mind,"
+replied d'Artois. "Somber, gloomy, and drunk with his talents. And
+translating Antoinette into the body of a bride of the garden, whom he
+could flog at will, was his warped expression of denied affection. As
+to just how he accomplished it, we can but surmise. Strange drugs are
+compounded in the Orient. When I complete the analysis of the pastries
+they offered us that night at the château, I may further enlighten you."</p>
+
+<p>"But the stripes and welts that appeared on Antoinette's body?"
+wondered Farrell.</p>
+
+<p>"For once you ask me something simple," retorted d'Artois. "Did you
+know that if a hypnotic is touched with a pencil, for example, and
+offered the suggestion that it is a red-hot iron, he will develop a
+blister, and all the symptoms of a burn at the spot touched? Moll and
+others concede that point with very little argument. It has often been
+experimentally demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Alors</i>, the body of the Syrian girl was scourged. Antoinette's
+<i>self</i>, though in a borrowed body, retained what we can roughly call
+an astral connection with her own body; otherwise she could not have
+returned to it at the end of each ordeal. And through this connection,
+the body of Antoinette developed the same welts that were raised on
+the skin of the Syrian girl; just as, by rough analogy, the hypnotic
+subject through suggestion shows all outward signs of a burn. And the
+marks of the heavy anklets the Syrian bride of the garden wore were
+similarly branded on Antoinette's ankles.</p>
+
+<p>"The Marquis during his unsuccessful courtship of Antoinette had ample
+opportunities to administer the hypnotic drug at which he hinted, so
+that his influence could have been gained without her knowledge. This,
+together with the objective symptoms, convinces me that if it was not
+the conventional hypnosis we know, it was at least a quasi-hypnosis.
+And as you know, there are vegetable compounds which, if properly
+administered, will effect a partial release of the astral counterpart
+of a body, or its spiritual essence. To pursue it to its origin would
+lead you to a study of Egyptian magic, and the nine traditional
+elements of every living human body.</p>
+
+<p>"I will leave all this to you, <i>mon vieux</i>, to study, this matter of
+stigmata resulting from suggestion and other psychic influences. Me, I
+am no lecturer.</p>
+
+<p>"And as to Antoinette's Arabic remarks in her sleep: the bride of the
+garden, dispossessed of her body for the time, sought Antoinette's. And
+by that astral connection which she retained with her own, she felt the
+scourgings administered in the garden, and expressed herself, through
+Antoinette's lips, as you heard."</p>
+
+<p>D'Artois emerged from his chair and bowed with formal precision.</p>
+
+<p>"I will therefore leave you here, my blundering Afghan, to have your
+wounds properly nursed while I go about doing all that an old man
+can do under the circumstances: envy you, and write a monograph on
+<i>Messieurs les Assassins</i>, and Satan's Garden, from which you so
+happily emerged."</p>
+
+<p>With a peremptory gesture, he cut short Antoinette's insistence upon
+his pausing for at least a moment. Then, halting at the door, he
+concluded as he glanced at Farrell, "<i>Mordieu</i>, and to think that you
+enjoyed all that fine sword-play, while I, Pierre d'Artois, had to
+wear a diving-suit to find a fight, and then had to use a crowbar! In
+<i>several</i> ways I envy you."</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph2">THE END</p>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75619 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75619)