enormous masonry. The two men in the tug put her off again and
turned up stream. They had never spoken a word.



CHAPTER V

THE FEAST OF FEAR

AT first the large stone stair seemed to Syme as deserted as a
pyramid; but before he reached the top he had realised that there
was a man leaning over the parapet of the Embankment and looking
out across the river. As a figure he was quite conventional, clad
in a silk hat and frock-coat of the more formal type of fashion;
he had a red flower in his buttonhole. As Syme drew nearer to him
step by step, he did not even move a hair; and Syme could come
close enough to notice even in the dim, pale morning light that
his face was long, pale and intellectual, and ended in a small
triangular tuft of dark beard at the very point of the chin, all
else being clean-shaven. This scrap of hair almost seemed a mere
oversight; the rest of the face was of the type that is best
shaven--clear-cut, ascetic, and in its way noble. Syme drew closer
and closer, noting all this, and still the figure did not stir.

At first an instinct had told Syme that this was the man whom he
was meant to meet. Then, seeing that the man made no sign, he had
concluded that he was not. And now again he had come back to a
certainty that the man had something to do with his mad adventure.
For the man remained more still than would have been natural if a
stranger had come so close. He was as motionless as a wax-work,