suddenly, and Mitchelbourne, looking up, saw that his mouth had
fallen. He sat with his eyes starting from his head and a face grey as
lead, an image of panic pitiful to behold. Mitchelbourne spoke but got
no answer. It seemed Lance could not answer--he was so arrested by a
paralysis of terror. He sat staring straight in front of him, and it
seemed at the mantelpiece which was just on a level with his eyes. The
mantelpiece, however, had nothing to distinguish it from a score of
others. Its counterpart might be found to this day in the parlour of
any inn. A couple of china figures disfigured it, to be sure, but
Mitchelbourne could not bring himself to believe that even their
barbaric crudity had power to produce so visible a discomposure. He
inclined to the notion that his companion was struck by a physical
disease, perhaps some recrudescence of a malady contracted in those
foreign lands of which he vaguely spoke.

"Sir, you are ill," said Mitchelbourne. "I will have a doctor, if
there is one hereabouts to be found, brought to your relief." He
sprang up as he spoke, and that action of his roused Lance out of his
paralysis. "Have a care," he cried almost in a shriek, "Do not move!
For pity, sir, do not move," and he in his turn rose from his chair.
He rose trembling, and swept the dust off a corner of the mantelpiece
into the palm of his hand. Then he held his palm to the lamp.

"Have you seen the like of this before?" he asked in a low shaking
voice.

Mitchelbourne looked over Lance's shoulder. The dust was in reality a
very fine grain of a greenish tinge.

"Never!" said Mitchelbourne.