his rubicund face quite pale, his hat and umbrella on the floor, gasping
like a dying man upon the couch, and Sir Robert himself clinging to the
mantel-shelf as a person might do who had received a mortal wound, while
the golden fetish reposed calmly on its pillar, to all appearance as
immovable and undisturbed as the antique Venus which matched it at the
other end of the room. For a while there was silence. Then Sir Robert,
recovering himself, asked:

"Did you notice anything unusual just now, Haswell?"

"Yes," whispered his partner. "I thought that hideous African thing
which Vernon brought here, came sliding across the floor and stared into
my face with its glittering eyes, and in the eyes----"

"Well, what was in the eyes?"

"I can't remember. It was a kind of picture and the meaning of it was
Sudden Death--oh Lord! Sudden Death. Tell me it was a fancy bred of that
ill-omened talk of yours?"

"I can't tell you anything of the sort," answered Aylward in a hollow
voice, "for I saw something also."

"What?" asked his partner.

"Death that wasn't sudden, and other things."

Again the silence fell till it was broken by Aylward.

"Come," he said, "we have been over-working--too much strain, and now