of his sword-belt and laid hold of his pistol--again he was in a
world of war, by occupation an assassin.

The figure did not move. Rising, pistol in hand, he approached. The
figure lay upon its back, its upper part in shadow, but standing
above it and looking down upon the face, he saw that it was a dead
body. He shuddered and turned from it with a feeling of sickness and
disgust, resumed his seat upon the log, and forgetting military
prudence struck a match and lit a cigar. In the sudden blackness
that followed the extinction of the flame he felt a sense of relief;
he could no longer see the object of his aversion. Nevertheless, he
kept his eyes set in that direction until it appeared again with
growing distinctness. It seemed to have moved a trifle nearer.

"Damn the thing!" he muttered. "What does it want?"

It did not appear to be in need of anything but a soul.

Byring turned away his eyes and began humming a tune, but he broke
off in the middle of a bar and looked at the dead body. Its presence
annoyed him, though he could hardly have had a quieter neighbor. He
was conscious, too, of a vague, indefinable feeling that was new to
him. It was not fear, but rather a sense of the supernatural--in
which he did not at all believe.

"I have inherited it," he said to himself. "I suppose it will
require a thousand ages--perhaps ten thousand--for humanity to
outgrow this feeling. Where and when did it originate? Away back,
probably, in what is called the cradle of the human race--the plains
of Central Asia. What we inherit as a superstition our barbarous