letters, of which the only ones remaining legible were those forming
the word 'Has.' As a sure precaution against the loss of the gem,
another cup had been made and engraved in an exactly similar manner,
inside of which, to complete the delusion, another stone of the same
size and cut, but of comparatively valueless material, had been placed.

Sir Jocelin Saul, a man of intense nervosity, lived his life alone in a
remote old manor-house in Suffolk, his only companion being a person of
Eastern origin, named Ul-Jabal. The baronet had consumed his vitality
in the life-long attempt to sound the too fervid Maelstrom of Oriental
research, and his mind had perhaps caught from his studies a tinge of
their morbidness, their esotericism, their insanity. He had for some
years past been engaged in the task of writing a stupendous work on
Pre-Zoroastrian Theogonies, in which, it is to be supposed, Ul-Jabal
acted somewhat in the capacity of secretary. But I will give _verbatim_
the extracts from his diary:

'_June 11_.--This is my birthday. Seventy years ago exactly I slid from
the belly of the great Dark into this Light and Life. My God! My God!
it is briefer than the rage of an hour, fleeter than a mid-day trance.
Ul-Jabal greeted me warmly--seemed to have been looking forward to
it--and pointed out that seventy is of the fateful numbers, its only
factors being seven, five, and two: the last denoting the duality of
Birth and Death; five, Isolation; seven, Infinity. I informed him that
this was also my father's birthday; and _his_ father's; and repeated
the oft-told tale of how the latter, just seventy years ago to-day,
walking at twilight by the churchyard-wall, saw the figure of _himself_
sitting on a grave-stone, and died five weeks later riving with the
pangs of hell. Whereat the sceptic showed his two huge rows of teeth.